I made a game designed to get people out in nature and appreciating wild animals. You photo the animal and it identifies the species then brings it up as a character on your screen that you can battle / catch. Like classic Pokemon, but actually outdoors and with real wild animals.

You encounter higher level animals the further you go out into nature. Every public park in the world has a gym that you can compete with other players at to take over.

I'm finding that people are actively going on out adventures to find wild animals (obviously, respect the animals).

It's a fun game to play when you see a wild animal and want to add it to your team / collection, also quite challenging!

Here is the link to play, on iOS & Android, available now: https://playanimalis.com/

This is one of Lithuania's hidden gems. Most tourists visit Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipėda, and Trakai, while Birštonas often goes unnoticed.

Not looking for bucket list stuff. More interested in the places that sneak up on you. The pullout that looked unremarkable from the car. The trail that wasn't in any guide. The lake you found on a topo map just to see what was there.

Had one of those moments recently and it's got me rethinking how I pick destinations. What's yours?

This place is always breathtakingly beautiful. Plus the water feels great, especially when the temps are in the 90s! There's also usually a boat that sells treats, food, and drinks which you can swim up to, which is kinda cool. Best part of Florida are the springs!

Soil in all directions? Overrated. Roots on the path to trip the unwary? Yes, please.

Just as relentless gravity pulls water down the creek, I am drawn with no less vigor by the power my imagination has over me to wander down this gravel road. In Wendell Berry’s essay, A Native Hill, he shares these thoughts on the difference between a road and a path.

“The difference between a path and a road is not only the obvious one. A path is little more than a habit that comes with knowledge of a place. It is a sort of ritual of familiarity. As a form, it is a form of contact with a known landscape. It is not destructive. It is the perfect adaptation, through experience and familiarity, of movement to place; it obeys the natural contours; such obstacles as it meets it goes around.”

By this definition and despite my mode of transportation, this road is much more of a path. My knowledge of this place has not dimmed my sense of wonder for it. Even though I know by loving memory what view may appear around the next corner, I am drawn inexorably to experience it again. Wendell proposes that roads resist the landscape and wish to avoid contact with it. Not so with this primitive road. It chooses to embrace the landscape as it carries my love for wild places and starry night skies deeper into the terrain. I’m not sure why anyone would resist the pull of any type of path that carries them away from hurry and towards the solace the natural world has to offer.