Inside a VITAL Adventure: Training, Community, and Possibility
This is one of my favorite seasons at VITAL. Pre-season turns into season. The months of planning, anticipation, and quiet "what did I sign up for?" moments give way to something concrete: your crew, your calendar, your commitment.
Right now, two teams are in motion. The Kenai Crew, heading to Alaska in August, just had their Kick Off call. Team Dolomiti, who will trek the alpine trails in September, kicks off next week. This is the moment when we move from anticipation to action.
📸 Photo: Endurance hikes prepare us for what is ahead so we arrive competent and confident
Scouting VITAL Travel Destinations
Every destination starts with a scouting process I genuinely love - researching locations, getting recommendations, interviewing local experts, and eventually getting on the ground myself. My first VITAL Adventures were places I knew deeply and had trusted contacts already in place: the Grand Canyon and Alaska. From there, I've built a simple framework for adding new destinations: the natural beauty has to be epic, the terrain has to offer a real challenge, and the infrastructure has to support both bold adventure by day and genuine comfort by night.
Why Repeat Destinations Matter for Better Adventure Travel
I aim to introduce one or two new locations each year, while keeping one or two repeats on the schedule. Returning to a destination isn't settling - it's strategy. The intel we gather on a first run directly benefits the team that follows.
From research to mobilizing the teams, the process takes about 12 to 18 months. Once a destination is confirmed, I move into designing the full adventure: selecting the endurance activities, building the strength and conditioning program with input from experts who know the terrain, and curating the cool, authentically local experiences each destination offers - the ones that make the place come alive beyond the trail. I also vet accommodations carefully and assemble the crew. By the time the Kick Off call happens, a lot has already been built - for you.
The Kick Off Call: Building Community Before the Adventure Begins
This is our first time together as a team. The agenda is straightforward. What happens isn't.
We do a quick roll call - names and faces to the roster - and then everyone shares why they signed up, what excites them, and honestly, what they're afraid of. That conversation sets the tone for everything that follows. Community doesn't build itself; this is where it starts.
From there we cover:
The VITAL Hub - your home base for the entire journey: training program, master schedule, gear list, nutrition guide, expert bios, and destination resources. Everything you need, in one place, behind the VITAL team curtain.
The Master Schedule - Zoom calls, team hikes, expert workshops, key checkpoints. You'll always know what's coming and when.
The Team Manifesto - how we show up for ourselves, for each other, and for the places we go. In the day-to-day grind, it's easy to forget how much people need us, and how much we need them. The Manifesto puts that back at the center, from day one and well beyond the adventure itself.
The VITAL PATH - the reflective framework running beneath the physical training, built around four phases: Planning, Adventure, Think, Honor. I developed PATH after completing a course with the Transformational Travel Council because I kept witnessing something powerful happening in our teams long before they ever reached the trailhead - shifts in how people were thinking, what they believed was possible, how they were showing up. I didn't want that to get left on the trail. PATH is how we catch those moments as they happen, name them, and carry them back into real life after we cross our finish line. It starts at Kick Off with the VITAL PATH Survey - capturing goals, fears, and intentions at the very beginning so we can reflect on them together later. A small thing that becomes a meaningful one.
Wondering Whether You Might be Ready for Something Like This?
Meet the Kenai Crew: Women Leaders on the Trail
Every VITAL team is made up of interesting, motivated people ready to push their own limits - different ages, different fitness starting points, different reasons for saying yes. That range is intentional. It's part of what makes the community strong.
This season's Kenai Crew caught my attention early. After deposits came in I noticed we had assembled a team of female founders, leaders, and rising professionals ranging from their late twenties to their seventies:
Mary Bemis, Founder, Reprise Activewear
Andrea Sullivan, CEO and Co-founder, Vyve
Brianna Rozzi, Owner, Hello B, Performance Media Consultant
Mary Ann Schaepper, Owner, Schaepper Psychiatry
Kyle Acebo, Photographer and Digital Technology Producer
Caroline Mauro, Founder and Creative Strategist, Rewolf and VITAL Ventures Storyteller
Julia Yanarella, Physical Therapist Assistant
That profile inspired me to lean further into work I'd already been developing with VITAL's Personal Growth Advisor, Eric Olson - workshops built specifically around how leaders navigate their frontiers, in business and in the backcountry. At our Kick Off call, Eric introduced the team to the VITAL Growth Framework: a way of identifying the energy drivers that shape how we pursue goals, handle friction, and show up for each other under pressure. It was the kind of conversation that makes you realize the trail isn't the only thing you're training for.
The community that forms during a VITAL Adventure doesn't end at the trailhead. It keeps going - and that's by design.
📸 Photo: Members of the VITAL Kenai Team 2025
Why Adventure Travel Changes You Before You Even Leave
Most people think the adventure begins when they land. It doesn't. It begins the moment you say yes.
That decision - to invest in your health, commit to a real challenge, and show up for a team - is where the growth starts. The expert-led training kicks in 12 weeks out. The physical preparation is rigorous and specific to the terrain ahead. But the personal work, the part that stays with you, begins right now.
When we finally cross that finish line or summit the trail we weren't sure was possible, we celebrate. Not just what we accomplished, but who we became in the process. As a team. As individuals. As people who chose to keep going - and who honored the places bold enough to demand it.
That's VITAL.
xx Libby
Next up: I'm going deep on the 12 weeks of training - the miles, the expert workshops, the goals work with Eric, and the confidence that gets built long before you ever reach the summit.
Ready To Find Out What’s There For You
Want to go deeper on recent VITAL Adventures? VITAL ALASKA: Where Bears, Badasses, and Breakthroughs Collide and My Why and the Why Behind VITAL are good next reads.