Marci started backpacking alone as a way to reconnect with nature after becoming a mother, not expecting it would eventually become a business.
“That was the beginning of something so exciting,” Marci said, describing how the experience changed her. She began to wonder whether other women might want to learn the same skills she’d taught herself on the trail — packing a backpack, hanging a bear bag, setting up a tent, building a fire. “It was a step in faith,” she said, unsure at first whether anyone else would be interested.
That idea became Wander Beyond, which now offers backpacking and camping trips, retreats, guided hikes, and educational experiences for women of all experience levels. Marci describes it as a space built around belonging — where the goal isn’t just learning outdoor skills, but building confidence and friendship along the way. As she puts it, in her groups “there’s not really an option to fail.” People new to backpacking, even those who’ve never set up a tent, are welcomed into what she describes as a supportive, low-pressure environment built for trying and laughing off mistakes together.
After a first year of running trips on her own, Marci turned to Can-Do Kalamazoo for help turning the idea into a real business. “It was the fire that I needed to be lit under me,” she said of the program’s push to move her business forward. Through entrepreneurial coaching and business planning support, Can-Do Kalamazoo helped her build the structure behind Wander Beyond’s mission-driven approach to the outdoors.
Marci’s advice to anyone sitting on an idea of their own: “We all have to do the thing that we feel called to do.” As she puts it, everybody starts out a beginner at something — and that’s the only way to step forward into something new.
