Welcome to Parkbound Treks! We are Taylor and Nathan, lovers of all things adventurous: hiking, biking, travel, and documenting with our photography and videos along the way.

Travelling has become a passion of ours; a way for us to take a step back from our day to day lives and connect with one another.  When we travel, we look for all the staples: vibrant cities, quaint towns, and top-rated breakfast sandwiches (a favorite meal for both of us!).  Through our explorations we have noticed that we always make time for one activity, no matter the place or time of year, exploring the great outdoors.  Whether it’s local trails and parks, urban outdoor spaces, or our robust National Park system, we are there soaking up all the natural beauty we can.

Here’s a little bit about the both of us!

Hi there, I’m Taylor, a born and raised Richmond native! I'll start off by saying I love where I live and I love being surrounded by the people that matter most to me in this world (including my husband, Nathan!) We are constantly exploring new restaurants, breweries, festivals, and outdoor places in the amazing RVA! Over the years, we have found that we have a passion and yearning for places beyond our city limits. We are not picky when it comes to travel, we want to experience as many places as possible! A year into our relationship we went on our first road trip to Knoxville, TN, Nashville, TN, Mammoth Cave National Park, Louisville, KY and the Red River Gorge.  Our treasured hashtag, #taynateadventures, was born from this adventure, eventually inspiring the start of this blog (about time, it's been three years since that trip!). Not only do I have a built-in travel buddy in my life long partner, but I also love traveling with my friends and family. Those posts will be sprinkled in here as well! 

I cannot write this "About Me" section without acknowledging my other life-long passion, my career. While I will not focus on it too much in this blog, it is important for me to recognize because it shapes who I am and my decisions to prioritize travel in my life. So get ready because here it is...

I am a loud, proud, and advocating social worker! I am committed to fighting the good fight to bring social justice into not only my own community, but into the world. I currently serve as the Outreach Coordinator for the Greater Richmond Area's unsheltered homeless population. Yep, that's right! Everyday I hit the pavement (literally!) engaging with my community's most vulnerable neighbors by providing a range of services. It is a privilege to be able to walk alongside others in their journey through  pain and triumph. There are successes EVERY SINGLE DAY! I see changes, big and small, happening and that’s what keeps me going.  

And that is why I travel. Because when I travel, I learn. I learn about myself. I learn about people. I learn about the environment. I take a break from the pain and heartache for a bit and remember what it means to live, to have a purpose, and to love.

Hi I’m Nathan, Taylor’s better half. I grew up hiking, camping, biking, and being outdoors, though the main outdoors I knew were the not-so-wild areas of the Northern Virginia suburbs. I have done many things in my life, theatre, Boy Scouts, videography, about 7 different sports, D&D, video games, played guitar, and photography. I have worked in the film industry, freelanced on commercials, briefly worked for a large government contractor, and have currently landed in tech support. But in all of this two things have always remained true: 1) I have been and will forever remain a massive nerd with a love for fantasy worlds and sci-fi epics across films, TV shows, books, and games. 2) I love the great outdoors and the wild places of this world. 

I have always loved the beauty of nature, and it was the Nat Geo channel and BBC nature documentaries the cemented a connection between nature and film and photography. Planet Earth ignited my passion for documenting the natural world. I loved watching the Planet Earth Diaries after each episode to see the lengths the crew would go to to get the shots, and for a long time after that I wanted nothing more than to be a cameraman for nature documentaries. That passion grew and morphed until I ended up going to college for Cinema and began working on narrative TV shows and feature films after graduation. The process of film making taught me a lot of lessons that I have carried forward with me into my new career in IT, but more importantly into my re-ignited love of photography and videography. While there is a joy in the collaborative process of film making and working with other to create a show or film you can be proud of it is equally matched by the peace that comes with being alone in the woods with a camera.

That said I am rarely alone in the woods because I have my wonderful wife by my side. Taylor and I met in 2014 and since then we have traveled to 4 new countries, hiked in 14 national parks, and spent hundreds of hours together on road trips across the country. Taylor helps me find the balance in my life between my constanting swinging from extremes and jumping from project to project and hobby to hobby. She grounds me, and is probably the main thing preventing me from become a hermit, either living like Emerson out in the woods, or living like a cave troll on front of my computer screen… not sure which is more likely. Our mutual love of travel, parks, hiking, and the wonder of nature in general is what inspired us to start this blog and what pushes us to grow further and to learn and experience new things.

We hope you enjoy our tips, tricks, and tales of our travels!