It was a hot spring afternoon when Vanny McVanface rolled into town, en route to history, two Guinness World Records, and more specifically, the newly remodeled Gateway to Nature at Plaza de Los Angeles. Since 2016, this well-traveled vehicle has been the home of Mikah Meyer, who is just over midway to becoming the youngest person to see all 417 National Park Service sites and the only one to see them all in a single trip! I had the great fortune to join a group of national park enthusiasts as Mikah gave a presentation on his adventure between sites #307 (Channel Islands National Park) and #308 (Joshua Tree National Park).
This Nebraska native grew up with the understanding that normal life runs on the schedule of school, job, marriage, kids, and finally retirement, when it’s okay to have fun. When his father, a Lutheran minister, passed away from esophageal cancer in 2005, having built a beach house he’d never inhabit and planned years of road trips he’d never drive, Mikah realized that no one is guaranteed retirement. So he decided he would work for five years at a time, then “retire” for a year or so to have adventures in his father’s honor, then work again, and continue this way as long as he could.
Back in 2011, a great year for starting adventures, Mikah made his first “retirement” journey, a 9-month, $7,800 circle around the continental USA. He wrote a book about the experience but was far from resting on any kind of laurels. A far more ambitious opportunity popped up four years later when the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service coincided with his own 30th birthday. Starting on the 11th anniversary of his father’s passing, Mikah set out to see all 417 national park sites, including the ones in far-off Guam and American Samoa, on one three-year trip.
A big question was how he was going to fund such an adventure. He’d saved up a lot during the four years he worked at a boarding school, which gave him free room and board, while also singing professionally at the National Cathedral. But even after two years of reaching out to over 800 potential sponsors, when he set off from the Washington Monument, he was still mostly feeding off his own savings. The rest, he’d have to make up along the way.
It was a full-time job basically. I’d come home, and I’d call. A lot of it was Googling, looking for a PDF that had the Head of Marketing’s phone number, and then I’d just cold call or email. So it might take an hour, two hours to find the right phone number, and then even to get that person on the phone. It was really nuts.
Initially, this was a personal journey, until the Department of the Interior announced a new initiative meant to encourage more millennials, racial minorities, and members of the LGBT community to get out and discover their national parks. Though he’d left Nebraska, which had amended its state constitution in 2000 to outlaw both same-sex marriage and civil unions, Mikah had held on to the idea that being openly gay would handicap his adventure. In the public eye, gay people just weren’t associated with the outdoors. The meeting with a DOI official changed that, and Mikah began incorporating a rainbow flag to many of the photos he took in the parks he visited. Folks began to notice.
I get tons of messages from people who say “I saw your story, and you just inspire me to feel comfortable being who I am,” which is humbling and amazing that there are that many people who feel like they can’t be themselves. That’s crazy.
He cited one example of a 15-year old boy from Texas who was completely in the closet to everyone he knows but found a little comfort in following Mikah’s travels. On the one hand, Mikah’s journey gave him the idea that he could do something extraordinary, but at the same time, even just be an ordinary person enjoying the outdoors. Comments like this have accompanied many of the donations that have poured in, propelling Mikah further on his mission.
But it hasn’t always been easy. Mikah’s been covered by more media outlets than there are parks, but not all of them actually talk about his being gay. The newspaper in his hometown of Lincoln very nearly didn’t publish that at all, and in fact, at the time of our interview, one of Mikah’s sponsors had just dropped him for doing “more LGBT outreach than you were when we signed up to work with you.”
I went to Outdoor Retailer, which is the largest outdoor convention in the country, and I talked to all of these big brands. I said gay men are image- and fashion-obsessed, double income, no kids, and we are trendsetters. Why aren’t you advertising to us? Why aren’t you chasing the gay dollar? Some of them were like, “Oh, I never thought of it,” while others were like, “My boss would never let us do that.”
Where many outdoor retailers have wavered, however, Mikah’s found surprising success in another form of fundraising. While he was preparing to leave from Washington, DC, his old boss at the National Cathedral advised him that if he found himself short on funds, he should sing at churches. Sure enough, since departing on this adventure, this son of a campus minister has brought his classically trained vocal chords to churches across the country and even in Australia and New Zealand (part of his visit to Hawai’i and American Samoa)!
Speaking/singing at churches as a fundraising mechanism has also taught me a lot about using one’s spiritual gifts to help others. I’m blessed to have a platform, a story, and a voice that allows people to relate to spiritual aspects they might not otherwise. So in that sense, this journey has taught me one needs to be giving of their talents to help others, rather than simply bask in a self-centered sense of spiritual awakening.
Now, as he sings and explores his way up the Pacific coast, he faces the challenge of Alaska, for which he’d been told to budget $25-30,000 dollars! That’s because, of the 24 national park sites up there, about six are accessible by road. With help from a grant by an anonymous donor, he’s reached the $20,000 mark, but there’s still a lot of coast and a lot of fundraising ahead.
Though he describes his journey as more work than vacation, as each mile costs X amount of dollars in meals, van maintenance, and health insurance, he’s had some amazing experiences along the way. He gushes over his rafting experience down the Green River in Dinosaur National Monument and laughs about dancing in a video that’s gone “Samoa Viral” after his visit to the National Park of American Samoa. He’s had some close scrapes, from finding all the places where it’s illegal to camp in a van to nearly backing Vanny off a cliff in Olympic National Park, but if anything can be said about this record-breaking adventurer, it’s that Mikah Meyer knows how to charge through obstacles of all shapes and sizes.
When he completes his journey at the Lincoln Memorial on April 29, 2019, Mikah Meyer will have accomplished something truly extraordinary, but I had to ask, once this journey is completed, what comes next? He says that after spending so much time by himself on the road, he wants to be around people (maybe move to Manhattan?). His national park journey would not have had the same impact on him if he hadn’t met so many amazing people along the way. He plans to write a book about this experience, and to continue advocating for the LGBT community, in and out of the national parks. If anything, he’s certain to continue inspiring adventurers in, out, and across the country.
To help Mikah break two records and encourage more LGBT adventuring:
- Send him a donation on MikahMeyer.com!
- Buy a Pride Outside T-shirt, featuring every rainbow-related feature in the NPS system!
- Attend one of his speaking/singing events!