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Follow Amber on Social Media Amber's Website: http://www.alwaystheadventure.com/ Instagram: @alwaystheadventure About Amber Lynn McDaniel "Originally, I hail from the Last Best Place, otherwise known as Montana, a state I assure you is neither by Indiana, possesses a southern accent, nor lacks cars in favors of horses and buggies. I first came from the rough and tumble mining town of Butte, then the beautiful but unfortunately heavily touristed village of Bigfork. Either way, I grew up in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, instilled with the strength of the wilderness in my bones and its wild essence in my blood. Unfortunately, I lost that love along the way. Growing up in a small town, I inherited the stereotypical desire to do nothing but get the hell out. Go to big city, live in the rat race, do something important: that’s how I thought I wanted to live my life. In pursuit of that, I left Montana after graduation, traveling over 2,000 miles to the outskirts of Philadelphia to Arcadia University, I school I chose primarily for the great sum of money it granted me. But more than anything else, they gave me a way out of the small town life in which I was suffocating. I had always known I wanted to be a writer, but naturally I subscribed the societal “what are you going to do with a BA in English?” attitude and decided to pursue a “smart” degree. I could always write on the side of whatever career I ended up with, I told myself. But as I entered sophomore year, I began questioning why I was studying something I ultimately didn’t want to do. It seemed asinine for me to be spending so much time, money, and tears for something I didn’t want. Life is far too short that. And just like that, my priorities fell into place and I changed my entire outlook on life. I switched one of majors to English (and kept the Psychology one because why the hell not?). I began devoting my time to looking up crazy adventures I wanted to have and planning them out in detail. I read the works of long distance hikers and transcendentalists, following their words and forming my own philosophies from them. I tore through books like Into the Wild and fell into the consuming ideology of Chris McCandless. Today, he still stands as my inspiration and idol. It’s probably not the most affirming of my sanity to say my idol is someone who trekked off into the Alaskan wilderness and subsequently died there but alas (sorry, Mom). Ultimately, I fell in love with the absolute freedom by which he lived his life, refusing to be propelled by anything but his passion for adventure. That, I thought, is how I want to live." - Amber Lynn McDaniel