Getting Women Outdoors in Iowa: A Q&A With Wander Women Midwest Founder Jenn Riggs

Q:  For our readers that are not familiar with you or your group, please introduce yourself and describe Wander Women. 

A: I'm Jenn Riggs, the founder and co-owner of Wander Women Midwest. At its core, we provide backpacking, camping, and paddling trips throughout the Midwest, and beyond. [Wander Women] is for folks that identify as women or feel comfortable in a space that is built for women. Women are not as included in the outdoor spaces, so we create a safe space for them to learn and experience nature without that pressure of performance. We have connections to the local community and other women guides [where our programs go], which we think is important.

Q:  Tell me a little bit about your background experiences, your personal experiences, and how that's led into the creation of Wander Woman. 

A: I was born and raised in rural Iowa, which meant I spent a lot of time outside going down to the creek with my cousins, running through my grandma and grandpa's farm, and spent a lot of time at Wildcat Den State Park. My grandma worked for the Iowa Tourism Department, so we spent a lot of time vacationing in Iowa. I didn't grow up necessarily camping every weekend — it was just a lot of time spent outside. After college, I worked at the Boys and Girls Clubs where I started integrating environmental education into the programming, which mostly involved taking kids out to do lots of environmental stuff. I [worked as a seasonal naturalist] at Lake Ahquabi State Park, did some work with Polk County Conservation, and worked at the DMACC [Food Forest, which is no longer there]. During that time at DMACC, I listened to a podcast about a [California-based] organization taking women on outdoor trips, and I thought, “I have the background, I have the experience, I have the knowledge. Let's do that here in Iowa.” I know lots of beautiful places here, and I could show folks about these places — show them that they didn't have to travel far to have an immersive time in nature, and while we're in those places, create a sense of place.  

Q:  Tell us about a member, maybe somebody who wouldn't have called themselves or herself an outdoor person before Wander Women, and what getting outside has meant for her? 

A: I feel like we've had a lot of women come on trips that were exactly this. Then they feel safe. They start trying things, experiencing things, and then we see those folks showing up on a weekend-long trip, then a week-long trip, then a backpacking trip. They're seeing that you can experience the outdoors in many ways, whether that's setting up a hammock and reading a book, going on a longer hike, or taking a slow hike and stopping to identify different things and connecting to nature that way; they're loving the outdoors. We're building a lot of community when we're doing this, and we'll see folks come on trips with someone they made friends with from another trip. A lot of [women, have the idea they need to] look a certain way in order to be outdoorsy, but we try to get rid of all of that when people come in. We really want you to find that space where you belong outdoors.

Q: What does Wander Women do within their programs that you would like to see become more common to accommodate more women within outdoor recreation? 

A: Over the past eight years, outdoor recreation has become generally more inclusive, especially on social media. I think we do put a lot of focus in Iowa on [fishing and hunting], which [has its place], but we don't focus enough on the outdoor recreation side of what we can offer here in Iowa. [While we try to provide outdoor recreation experiences to women], there are so many women doing so many amazing things here in Iowa and in the outdoors, and a lot of them are doing it on the ground. They need the support of the men who are in [leadership] positions.  We're going to have to elevate women to leadership positions, too.

Q: How has Iowa's changing water quality given you pause when you've been creating and crafting these outdoor experiences?  

People are legitimately concerned about water quality. If you look at our schedule, you will see that we have a lot fewer water-related activities on our rosters than we used to in the past. If we're booking trips in Iowa where a lake is present, usually by the time that trip happens, the lake isn't swimmable anymore. Fluctuations in river levels [because of climate change are another concern]. I would say almost every single trip we have, water quality [and other environmental impacts] comes up a lot, and it's something that we are happy to talk about, but it's hard. We do a lot of trips in Wisconsin and Minnesota, and we're starting to get a lot of out-of-state folks flying in — but we don't get a lot of out-of-state folks coming on our trips in Iowa. I think it could be that people are concerned about pollution.

Q: How does Wander Women bridge outdoor recreation and conservation? 

A: Conservation is naturally wrapped up into our trips and our bite-size adventures, because it's so important to Kerri, me, and a lot of our guides. It's just a part of what we do and always have been. If we can get people to these spaces and they fall in love with that place, and then they want to figure out how to protect that place. We will talk about INHF and how they acquire land and what's done with that land during that time. We'll talk about the folks that are fighting for our water quality issues. We talk about voting and how important that is. We talk a lot about prairie restoration and responsible farming. We use White Rock Conservancy [as an example to show] how it would be really cool if we applied that to other parts of the state. We don't want to be Debbie Downers about it because we live here; we're recreating here. We do really make sure to focus a lot on what is happening that's positive, so folks can support that and connect our community — to the cool stuff going on when it comes to conservation work. A lot of people want to know how to do more [conservation work] when they go on our trips and partake in our bite-size adventures.

For more information on Wander Women and to view their upcoming adventures, visit (wanderwomenmidwest.com) or email Jenn at (hello@wanderwomenmidwest.com).

About the Author

Jenn Riggs — Founder & Co-owner of Wander Women Midwest

I am the founder of Wander Women. I started Wander Women because I appreciate how important it is for us to connect to nature. Nature has been such a healing force in my life, and I want to share that with you! I’m also very proud of the badass team of Wander Women guides who share this sentiment.

I believe in the healing powers of nature and a circle of women. I love the forest floor and the smell of earth worms. I care deeply about protecting and conserving our lands and waters. And, I absolutely geek out over trip planning.

The image marked with a "2" and the thumbnail were provided by Stephanie Mott; all others were provided by Wander Women Midwest