Press
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HUCKBERRY
What It’s Like To Venture Out With Perry Cohen
How The Venture Out Project is building a queer and transgender outdoor community one trip at a time
POPSUGAR
Why Making Outdoor Recreation More Inclusive Has Become This Hiker’s Missions
Trying something new can be daunting if you've never seen someone like you do it before — something O'Donnell knows all too well. "One of my dreams is to hike the Appalachian Trail. And one of my biggest struggles with conceptualizing that for myself is 'what am I going to do with my hair?'" they explain. "Representation matters so much."
POPSUGAR
How Reconnecting to Nature Can Help LGBTQ+ People Building Community
The theme of connection with community runs through everything The Venture Out Project does — and doesn't just apply to nature. "Fixing one rung on that ladder is not going to save the whole ecosystem. And I think that it's interesting to look at that and then also look at our own LGBTQ+ community in a very similar way," Seiler explains. "We are one big community, and there are a lot of rungs on that ladder. There's a lot of intersectionality and different experiences based on geographical location and age and ability, et cetera. Fixing one rung on that ladder is not going to protect or guarantee equitability for the whole LGBTQ+ community."
TVOP Film
REI Presents: The Venture Out Project Documentary - Created by Spruce Tone Films and Transwave Films
Venture Out is a story of overcoming odds, the power of resilience, and ultimately, the ever-lasting effects of LGBTQ community building. The Venture Out Project, founded by Perry Cohen, is a non profit organization that brings LGBTQ folks together outdoors on wilderness trips. In sharing Perry’s story, and hearing from the other TVOP participants, we get a glimpse into the healing qualities of nature and life-saving community bonds that are being forged as a result of Perry’s work.
Marmot
The Mountain Club Blog
Those of us who love the outdoors look to wild places as an escape from the chaos of everyday life. We know the feeling of waiting for 5:00 p.m. in our desk chairs so we can head for the mountains and the relief of a service-less cell phone. But for people who are underrepresented or marginalized in the outdoor world, wild spaces can amplify societal pressure instead of providing an escape from it.
Audubon
How You Can Be an Ally Outdoors
Plenty of people support the idea of a diverse, inclusive outdoors, but helping to make that a reality can feel complicated or intimidating. It doesn’t have to be. If you don’t have to consider your identity or fear for your safety while birding, running, thru-hiking, or spending time in nature, you are ideally positioned to be an ally to those who do.
New York Times
How to Celebrate Pride Outside
Yes, there’s the 50th anniversary of Stonewall this summer. But the rainbow flag will also wave proudly in the great outdoors, at a variety of backcountry trips, hikes and tours. Adventure Trips for Adults - The queer-run wilderness education organization, The Venture Out Project, has operated L.G.B.T.Q.-specific backpacking trips around the country for teens, adults and families since 2014.
Nature Perspectives
A Conversation with Oliver Reitz
Oliver Reitz is an Administrative Coordinator & Instructor for the Venture Out Project. Oliver (he/him/his) lives in Western Massachusetts with his partner and their two dogs. He is originally from Indiana, where he spent his youth climbing trees and swimming with catfish. As an adult, Oliver spent years leading LGBTQ organizations and promoting LGBTQ education and advocacy all over Southern Indiana. After moving to Massachusetts in 2014, he got involved with The Venture Out Project from its start and rediscovered his love of the outdoors.
Patagonia
Patagonia Trail Running
A lifelong runner, Perry Cohen runs out the door of his Western Massachusetts home. He founded The Venture Out Project, an organization committed to bringing together the LGBTQ+ Community on wilderness journeys.
Condé Nast Traveler
Innovators: The Venture Out Project’s Perry Cohen Wants Everyone to Feel Safe While Outdoors
Perry Cohen grew up in southern New Hampshire in the 1970s and 1980s, hiking, skiing, camping, and biking. It makes sense, then, that decades later, Cohen would spend most of his time in the natural world, where he feels he belongs—even if the road
The Dirtbag Diaries
“I was working this corporate job, and, every day, I looked out the window and thought, ‘Man, those mountains are so beautiful, I wish I was out there’,” remembers Perry Cohen.
Growing up, Perry was an outdoorsy kid–hiking and cross-country skiing in rural New Hampshire. He was thrilled when, as a teenager, he got to sign up for an Outward Bound course. But the experience left him disappointed. For the first time, he didn’t click with the group....
Sierra Magazine
Amid Freetly was first to take the plunge into the swimming hole below the Big Log Camp Bridge. Soon enough, others peeled off their clothes and joined in.
Jay Crosby, a queer, nonbinary person with breasts, asked if he could swim with his shirt off.
"It's your trip," Perry Cohen said with a nod.
Last September, 12 hikers from six states around the country set out on a four-day journey through Olympic National Park—one in a series of expeditions organized by the Venture Out Project, a nonprofit that takes lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and nonbinary and differently gendered people on wilderness adventures. The group, which Cohen founded, has taken around 300 hikers into the woods since 2015 and has eight trips, plus dozens of day hikes and classes, planned for this year...
Backpacker Magazine
After saying sayonara to a corporate job in leadership development, Perry Cohen established The Venture Out Project, one of the first wilderness guiding companies run by, and for, queer and transgender people, in 2014. Besides leading backpacking trips for LGBTQ+ adults and youth and runs queer and trans inclusivity workshops for corporations, camps, and schools.
Venture Out's 2018 trips include a LGBTQ+ family camping weekend in western Massachusetts, an inclusive queer women's backpacking trip in the Green Mountains, a transmasculine-centered sea-to-summit trek in Acadia, and a trip geared specifically towards queer trans people of color...