About Tamia Nelson’s Outside

What’s your fancy? Bicycling for pleasure? To get to work or the supermarket? To get fit? Then we’ll probably see you on the road. Are you a seasoned canoeist or kayaker? Or are you just getting started? Do you have your eye on a kayak, canoe, or sit-on-top? Then come aboard! Or maybe you enjoy striding forth on foot, with or without a camera, binoculars, or sketchbook in hand. We’re glad you stopped by. However you like to travel, if you let your muscles move you, you’ve come to the right place.

Bottom line? Tamia Nelson’s Outside is dedicated to no-octane pursuits, and through our writing, photographs, and artwork, we’re happy to pass on what we’ve seen and learned. We’re active cyclists, but we also enjoy watching the pros, because their grace and skill are inspiring and their feats are exciting. We’re paddlers, as well, exploring still waters and swift. And we’re inveterate trekkers on foot in all seasons, letting our legs carry us to destinations as near as the backyard and as distant as the world’s remotest corners.

But first, you should give the “fine print” below a quick read (the subhead links will take you to the relevant paragraphs).

What Won’t You Find Here? • Copyrights • Cookies and Privacy Policy • Product Evaluations • Mail Call! • Social Media

Now that you’ve had a chance to read the fine print, let’s get acquainted. “Outside” is a state of mind that implies adventure, exploration, unlimited expanses—if only in the imagination—and freedom. But it also means hitting the road, or heading down the trail, or putting a boat in the water. It’s what we do, and here’s who we are:

Tamia Nelson

Tamia Nelson, Executive Editor For half a century, Tamia Nelson has ranged far and wide by bike, boat, and on foot. A geologist by training, an artist since she could hold a pencil, a photographer from the age of 10 when her uncle gave her a twin-lens reflex camera, she’s made her living as a writer for two decades. Her interests span natural history, social history, food and cooking, architecture and art, and she has broad experience as a transportational bicyclist and cyclotourist, mountaineer, whitewater and expedition paddler, snowshoer, and downhill and XC skier. Tamia is also an amateur architect and is finalizing a design for a tiny house from salvaged recycled materials — a design which will, with luck, go from drawing board to three-dimensions later this year.

Farwell Forrest

Farwell Forrest, Editor-at-Large After a difficult initial quarter-century, Farwell emerged to claim his rightful place in the world as an itinerant wordsmith. But fortune does not always favor the bold, and in order to keep body and soul together he found it necessary to raise blackflies, dig thousands of holes in the ground (without finding anything of note), contribute several unwanted modules to worthless economic models, and generate enough unreadable reports to delight several generations of bureaucrats.

His life hasn’t all been grinding toil, however. He’s also been privileged to spend many happy years manacled to an oar in the same boat with Tamia Nelson, and he’s achieved a certain transient notoriety as a sometime columnist for Paddling.com (Paddling.net, as was). That should be reward enough for any man, he thinks, though in his less guarded moments he admits he’d really like to have learned Latin, as well. Unfortunately, he’s left this a bit late. Eheu fugaces labuntur anni. Or, as Mr. Krook was wont to say, at least in the movies, “I can’t read, but I can copy.”

Marcos Netto

Marcos Netto, Southern Hemisphere Correspondent and Photographer After more than 20 years as a commercial and wedding photographer, Marcos made a radical career move by joining the board of directors for the mineral water company, Itati. That left some spare time for cycling, one of his passions. It all began a few years before when he suffered a knee injury during a soccer game, forcing Marcos to look for another sport. Cycling fit his needs perfectly! He found it to be a great way to stay fit while practicing a low-impact sport that was a lot of fun and let him make new friends every day. Now Marcos uses his free time to travel with his bikes and cameras as companions. He enjoys posting cyclotourist images online, helping to spread the word about how fun it is to get around by bike and the benefits of cycling for your mood and health. Do you Twitter? Then you can tweet Marcos, and subscribe to his RSS feed.

Anthony T. Jancek

Anthony T. Jancek, Contributing Photographer When he’s not coordinating the maintenance staff at the public school where he’s buildings manager, Tony’s out and about exploring the world with his camera, whether on foot, on his bike, or with a double-bladed paddle in his hands. A keen observer with particular interests in birds and wild landscapes, he’s also an enthusiastic cook, computer hardware wizard, and an accomplished green thumb.

Gray Space

The Fine Print Writ Large

What Won’t You Find Here? Advertorial copy disguised as disinterested advice, for one thing. Search engine optimized click‑bait, for another. Tamiasoutside.com articles are written for thoughtful, critical readers, readers whose world is larger than the display on their smartphones. It reflects a our experiences, as well as those of some the very many folks who’ve passed on hints, tips, and warnings gleaned from their own adventures (and misadventures). We couldn’t do this without them — or without you.

Copyright Policy. This website and all of its contents are protected under copyright, with all rights, including moral rights, reserved by the authors, photographers, and artists. Please do not redistribute or reprint any part of this website without express written permission. Any form of unauthorised reproduction, including the extraction and/or storage in any retrieval system or inclusion in any other computer program or work is prohibited.

TNO Privacy Policy

Cookies and Privacy Policy. Tamiasoutside.com welcomes comments, critiques, and suggestions from readers—simply send us a note through our Contact page. And we do what we can to minimize “cookie drops” and other unwelcome intrusions. But some of these things are beyond our control. So we’d ask you to do your part, too. Configure your browser to frustrate the Web’s all‑seeing eyes. We do. Moreover, we will never sell, trade, or share private email addresses, names, or postal addresses without express written consent, nor will we reprint reader mail, in whole or in part, without prior permission. Reprinted letters may be edited for length or clarity, however, and we reserve the right to add links to previously published articles or other resources wherever and whenever appropriate.

TNO Evaluations Policy

Product Evaluations Policy. Tamiasoutside.com never accepts payment for product endorsements, nor do we accept product samples from manufacturers or their representatives. We write about the food we buy on our weekly rounds, and about the gear and books we’ve purchased, rented, or borrowed (from friends, family, or the public library) over the years. That said, on rare occasions we’ll write a product analysis of something we don’t own and have never used, based solely on the manufacturer’s claims, published specifications, or others’ experiences. But when we do that, we’ll tell you.

TNO Email Policy

Mail Call! Do you have something to say? Good. We want to hear from you. Comments, corrections, criticism, suggestions… Don’t hold back. We’ll assume that we have your permission to reprint your e‑mails, however, in whole or in part — unless you tell us otherwise, that is. Just put “Not for Publication” in the subject header. That’s all it takes. And rest assured: We will never publish your e‑mail address unless you ask us to do so. Note that reprinted letters may also be edited for length or clarity, and that we reserve the right to add links to previously published articles or other resources wherever and whenever appropriate.

TNO and Social Media

Sure, We’re Social, but Not in That Way… While some of the folks whose work will appear on these pages have been known to tweet or scale a Facebook Wall, Tamiasoutside.com, Tamia Nelson, and Farwell Forrest have yet to yield to these temptations. We do not have social network accounts. We don’t even own smartphones. Which means that, as much as we might like you — and we’ve met very few paddlers and cyclists whom we didn’t take a shine to immediately — we can’t “like” you on Facebook or follow you on Twitter. Please don’t take this personally, and please don’t repost, tweet, or share images or articles from this site without asking (and receiving) permission from us.

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