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Sign at the entrance to Palo Duro Canyon State Park near Amarillo.<\/p>\n
Ron Buskirk\/UCG\/Universal Images Group via Getty Images<\/p>\n
An Austin woman\u00a0is traveling to<\/a> all 89 state parks<\/a> in Texas this calendar year and she’s bringing thousands of people along for the journey.\u00a0<\/p>\n Emma Keteler, 29, isn\u2019t quite halfway through her list \u2014 she\u2019s made it to 36 parks so far \u2014 but she\u2019s confident she can finish by the end of the year. And she has nearly 16,000 followers on Instagram and YouTube following along the way.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n There have been hiccups along the way and\u00a0\u201ca lot of life happening in between,\u201d she said\u00a0\u2014 including her own wedding.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not a comfortable journey to take,\u201d\u00a0Keteler said, laughing, in an interview with the American-Statesman. \u201cI\u2019ve always felt this call to adventure. The joke is, when I was a kid, I used to tell my parents, ‘Drop me off on the side of the road, I\u2019ll find my way home.’\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Her 10-year-old self, she says, is not too far off from where her mind is nearly two decades later. She felt compelled to start the adventure after feeling a bit stagnant in her day-to-day, and taking note of the recent narratives shaping perspectives of her home state.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe last five or six years, I have visited countries outside of the U.S., and looking back, I realized that there\u2019s still so much of Texas that I haven\u2019t seen, especially in the time that we\u2019re in right now, where people talk a lot of [expletive] about Texas,\u201d Keteler said. \u201cIt\u2019s like, okay? But is it really like that? We live in our Austin bubble, but is it really a bubble? What are other Texas people in Texas thinking and feeling? I wanted to see for myself.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Going solo across Texas<\/p>\n The logistics are tough, Keteler said. Some of the state’s parks are roughly 500 miles away, such as Palo\u00a0Duro Canyon State Park \u2014 not easy to knock out in a weekend.\u00a0<\/p>\n Scheduling can be a problem, too\u00a0\u2014 with life obligations getting in the way. For this reason, she said she travels alone a majority of the time. It\u2019s something she\u2019s used to\u00a0\u2014 she\u2019s done solo trips outside of the U.S.\u00a0\u2014 but she knows she has to stay aware of her surroundings as a young woman traveling alone.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cYou just have to question, is that someone being odd, or is that someone being unsafe? It\u2019s a double-edged sword. The more I travel, the more I feel comfortable, and the more I\u2019ve met nice people, and it\u2019s been great,\u201d Keteler said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Keteler said she has not had any overly concerning run-ins while out at a park so far this year. She said her time has actually cemented her trust in the safety the state’s park system provides. Every park is different, she said, but most have an on-call ranger who checks sites at the beginning and end of each day.\u00a0<\/p>\n Most of the day-to-day stresses involve timing her travel with normal life or forgetting things like her propane tank to heat up food or dealing with dropping water temperatures if she’s out swimming in the winter.<\/p>\n A rule for every park<\/p>\n Keteler has developed \u201crules\u201d for herself along the way. If a park has a body of water, she has to swim in it \u2014 she joked that she has \u201cdone some cold plunges.\u201d If a park is known for camping, she camps. If there\u2019s something else a park is known for, she does it \u2014 like hiking the Lighthouse Trail in Palo Duro Canyon State Park<\/a> alongside her dog, Indy, or doing the wild cave tour at Longhorn Cavern State Park.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n There’s also the content component, where she creates a YouTube video and shares posts on Instagram for each park. She said she’s not trying to be an influencer but instead wants to document her memories and share her experiences.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIn Palo Duro, I was recording videos, and a couple asked me if I was a YouTuber,\u201d Keteler said. \u201cThe next day, the husband came out and said, ‘My wife and I watched some of your videos, and realized we had already watched an old one from when we were getting ready to hike Guadalupe Peak National Park.’\u201d<\/p>\n Creating social media content also forces her to do more research instead of just showing up at a park with little knowledge of what it’s known for, what animals live there and what makes up its ecosystem.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<\/p>\n