About Me

Hi, I’m Liz Koppa! 👋🏼

I’m a creative-natured, thirty-something, Central California native who recently decided to embark on a lemonade-making operation of epic proportions after getting laid off from my corporate HR  job earlier this year.

I have chosen to put my job search on hold for six months in exchange for a bucket list adventure - a 2650 mile journey from the Mexican border to the Canadian border through some of the most incredible wilderness in the United States. I'm hiking the Pacific Crest Trail.

After several months of investing in the grind of the job search, I decided to put myself first. I have the next 30 years ahead of me to work, this is my moment to LIVE.

The painfully huge and aggressively rowdy elephant in the room? I’ve never back-packed before.

Details, am I right?

But I’m taking on this challenge with the same recipe by which I take on most things that have ever really mattered in my life:

• 3 parts naïve confidence
• 3 parts humility (for flavor balance)
• 3 parts stubbornness (for texture)
• 4 parts passionate research (let information soak for at least 7 days before mixing)
• 2 parts dreaming, project planning, and acquiring toolkit
• 2 parts piloting new tools and processes
• 2 parts pre-accepting the things I won’t be able to anticipate
• A dash of checking my sanity with the humans who know me best to make sure I’m not completely crazy
• Garnish with a little wistful charm and add salt and pepper to taste

So far, it’s served me well.

I plan to share updates from the trail on this blog. And look, I’m not trying to rewrite Wild or give you a play-by-play of the trail conditions each day, or pretend I’m a seasoned hiker now ready to offer tips and tricks and gear reviews from my vast experience in the great wild.

I’m sharing on this platform to simply offer one thing: me.

If you’re here because you know me, you already know that I’m a sharer (and if you don’t know me, nice to meet you – I’m a sharer). As a daughter, as a friend, as a partner, as an artist, as a professional, as a spiritual seeker, as a HUMAN – my default setting in this world is to know and be known as deeply and openly as possible or appropriate in everything I do.

I am a naturally communal being, and admittedly, most of the time my decisions, actions, and plans generally revolve around the ones I love. But this – this adventure, this sum of obstacles, this sojourn – this one is just for me.

So here in this virtual space, I plan only to serve up just that – just me.

Simply, honestly, joyfully, painfully – me. In almost real time. On a very long walk. For about 2650 miles.