Author

Mikaela Ruland

Mikaela (she/her) is the associate content director for National Park Trips. She lives in her beautiful home state of Colorado with her husband and loves writing about the outdoors, travel and the environment. Her passion is to introduce people to the outdoors so that they fall in love and help protect the wild places she loves to play in.

She spends most of her free time outside hiking, skiing, mountain biking, doing yoga – you name it. When she’s not outside, you can find her researching cheap flights, exploring hipster coffee shops or on the hunt for Denver’s best mac n’ cheese. You can follow her adventures on Instagram @themillennialoutside.

Mikaela’s favorite adventure in Great Smoky Mountains is biking Cades Cove on Wednesdays in the summer when the road closes to vehicle traffic…closely followed by getting post-biking barbeque.