Taking Back the Back Country.

I grew up car camping and cottage-ing but my first experience with back country canoe camping was last year (only took 30 years... but more on that in the next post).

Between work travel, going back to the "home country", solo travel and a general thirst for exploration I consider myself a fairly well-seasoned traveler - whatever that means. But let's be honest it doesn't take a genius when you have thousands of reviews on sites like Tripadvisor and Google at your disposal.

Back country camping is a whole different story though...

As someone who loves to research, prepare and plan ahead of any trip, I really struggled with finding information ahead of my first back country trip, then my second, and then my third. A google search might bring up a popular paddling route, a few decent blogs, and the odd review of a campsite but as soon as you stray from the "usual" destinations, you're on your own. Sure, there are amazing resources like Jeff's Maps and Unlostify but ultimately those leave it up to you to choose your own adventure - no realtime reviews, no pretty photos, no snarky comments.

So I guess that's what brings me here, Polish the Paddle is an effort to take back the back country - or at least arm you with the information you need as a novice paddler going down the unbeaten path. To be clear, I'm a city girl and by no means a back country expert, but if you're like me looking for all the information you can get up front and ahead of time... then I hope this is the beginning of a long friendship.

xo,

the Polish paddler