Show notes
Renee Roaming (or, Renee Hahnel to anyone outside the internet) has travelled to nearly 40 countries across 5 continents. She left speech therapy and took her photography to a full time level in 2016, alongside her husband Matthew. Together, they make a force to be reckoned with and Renee's hard graft, organisation, positivity and engagement with all of you lead her to continued success after success.
With a massively eclectic collection of locations from Alberta to the Dolomites, New Zealand to Kenya, the US National Parks to Peru, and more, Renee is able to give first hand and valuable experience of these places from her stunning photography, brilliant blogs and adventurous tales!
Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and all other platforms; just search “Between The Mountains”, Ask Alexa, or read on below.
Falling In Love With America
Just for the moment, let's put Renee's fantastic travel experience to one side. We'll come back to it, I promise.
Renee is Australian and grew up there. We talk fondly of her times spent growing up near Melbourne. Soon enough, Renee won the Green Card 'lottery'. She and Matthew backed their bags, and headed out.
When they first moved to the US, Renee and her husband Matthew wanted to be by mountains - and who can blame them? So, they moved to Colorado. The Colorado mountain ranges are amazing with hiking and life opportunities everywhere. But after completing this step in life, they decided to look elsewhere.
After reaching out further, they fell in love with Washington. The Pacific North West offers mountains, but forests and ocean too, and that really pulled them in - with similarities close to Australia (on paper!). Having places like Artist Point, Olympic National Park, and Mount Rainier National Park on your doorstep creates such fantastic levels of inspiration, and content too!
These are some pretty diverse and unique places - and feature on nearly everyone's travel bucket list.
Listen to the podcast to hear Renee's thoughts on Colorado, Washington, Seattle, and Melbourne. We even talk about roadtrip songs. Renee has a 24 hour+ playlist on Spotify, and we chat about the songs that played on her childhood roadtrips too.
Perfectly Placed
After comparing Melbourne to her new home of Seattle, I ask her the obvious question: "How much did Mount Rainier influence your decision to move to Seattle?".
Now obviously, this isn't the only reason. But, the mountains are a source of inspiration for millions of people. With a background like Renee's, I can only imagine how wonderful it must be to live in Washington, in the progressive city of Seattle, surrounded by some of the best nature on this planet.
All About Travel, Adventure And Photography
Throughout the whole podcast we discuss everything travel. We talk about balancing photography and living in the moment. We talk about tapping into your creative side, and adventures in Alaska.
Renee isn't just a Washington-based photographer. Her experience for her career and herself comes from across the globe. From French Polynesia, to New Zealand, to Kenya and more, Renee has grown to have such a fascinating view on life, travel, and photography.
After discussing backpacking in South America, adventures in Australia, exploring America, and more, we discuss one moment that Renee would love to relive.
Roaming America
One of the biggest projects that Renee undertook with her husband Matthew was visiting all of the 59 (at the time) US National Parks. Mostly living the Van Life the whole way through, they performed this project for their client in one go.
We discuss in the podcast some of the behind the scenes. From Type 2 fun, to discussing typical days, and more. Hear Renee discuss some of the hard work that went into this brilliant project.
Days on this project looked like either driving for 9+ hours between National Parks, or waking before sunrises and hiking and photographing until after sunset; which is hard work when you think about it!
From this trip, they created a coffee-table book featuring photography from all of the National Parks, anecdotes, suggested itineraries, best hikes, and key facts. I have the book myself and it really is so inspiring and high quality. Check it out here, or search for it on Amazon.
Renee Roaming
Interviewing Renee really was an absolute pleasure. Renee has such a fantastic view on travel, hard-work, and getting outdoors.
From photography tips to itineraries to backcountry camping, to her book ‘Roaming America’, Renee consistently aims to deliver value to her audience - and it really does show!
Make sure you listen to the podcast, and check out her blogs and content which is truly A-Class material.
You can view and subscribe to her website here, or join hundreds of thousands who follow her on her Instagram here for most regular updates.
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https://betweenthemountains.org/2020/07/03/renee-roaming/