We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Lauren Smith a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Lauren, thanks for joining us today. Let’s jump to the end – what do you want to be remembered for?

I hope to leave behind a legacy of kindness, adaptability, and perseverance. I would like to be proof, that even during difficult times you can be kind to people.

Six months ago Jesse and I were involved in a rollover accident, during which I was life flighted to the nearest hospital and lost my left leg below the knee. During the accident Jesse, my pet ferret who goes hiking with me, escaped from his cage and was gone. No one could find him the night of the wreck, and I was unable to look for him because I was trapped in the vehicle. Miracuously the next day someone found him curled up in some boxes near a barn and called animal control. Jesse was reunited with me at the hospital the next day. Since the accident I have spent the last several months learning to walk again. I spent four months on crutches waiting until I was healed enough for a prosthetic. Through it all Jesse has been with me.

Together we are learning to adapt to my new normal. Jesse and I usually spend our weekends out camping, hiking, and kayaking. Currently all those trips I had planned are on hold while I learn to walk again. For now Jesse settles for walks around the RV park that we live in. Our adventures are a little different right now, but were both fighting to get our lives of adventure back. Our story is a story of other peoples kindness, from the bystanders who found me in the wreck, to the people who helped to get Jesse back to me, to the nurses and hospital staff who helped take care of me for the three weeks I was hospitalized. And through hard work and adaptability I will eventually learn to walk on the prosthetic, and Jesse and I will be back out on the trails.

Lauren, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

The Hiking Ferret Instagram Page began 7 years ago with my first ferret Oliver. I began taking Oliver out on walks to the park to burn off some of his energy so he would be less likely to dig up my couch or carpet. I started the page never thinking anyone would be very interested in my photos of my pet ferret out on walks with me. Eventually we upgraded from walks in the park to hiking trails. Oliver spent all five years of his life hiking, camping, and kayaking across the Southwest with me. Together we climbed 14,000 foot peaks, and went down into slot canyons. We travelled together to many states and national parks.

When Oliver died I initially was not considering adopting another ferret. It had taken quite a lot of time for me to harness train Oliver and I was not sure I was ready to take on that task again with a new ferret. However, as I found out I had been accepted to graduate school across the state and decided I would be moving into an RV full time I knew I wanted another ferret as a companion during this life transition. I thought it would be nice to have a companion with me as I moved to a town where I knew no one and had only visited briefly once.

I adopted Jesse James and a few weeks later we were moving out of my apartment, across the state, and into a 30 foot travel trailer. We have called this trailer home for 2.5 years now and couldn’t be happier. Because all the cabinets latch for travel days the rig was already fairly ferret proof. Because of this Jesse has been free roam in the RV. The RV has given us mobility for when I have to move between towns for graduate school, as well as given us a perfect living space that is more affordable than most apartments in the area. And to top it off we do not share walls with anyone, so loud neighbors are largely a thing of our past, which is ideal for studying for school.

Even through an intensive graduate program I was still able to take off many weekends for hiking and camping trips. Most camping trips we would leave the RV plugged in at the park and take out the truck and the tent to find some beautiful remote campsites.

It was on one of these weekend trips that we were involved in a rollover as we were headed back home form a weekend of hiking.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

If you spend much time traveling or out hiking, one of the first things you learn is things do not always go according to plan. Adaptability is a a key trait to have successful trips. Sometimes it is small things that disrupt a trip, like poor weather canceling a hike or being unable to find parking at a trail head. Other times the issues are more serious, like loosing a license plate somewhere along the last 300 miles, 50 of which were a poorly graded dirt road, or loosing a brake line 30 miles up a steep dirt road and having to slowly coast down in 4low to even get cellphone service to call for help.

But by far the story that best illustrates resilience came six months ago when Jesse and I were involved in a major car accident. During the accident Jesse escaped from his cage and no one could find him. I was fearful that he had died in the wreck. From the wreck I was life flighted to the nearest hospital and lost the left leg below the knee. The next day Jesse was found safe in some boxes near a barn. He was reunited with me the next day in the hospital without a scratch on him.

Since the accident Jesse and I have been working to return to life as it was before. I am learning to walk with a prosthetic so we can get back to hiking. But until then we have been going on smaller adventures that involve less walking until I am competent enough on the prosthetic to return to hiking and our life of adventure as it was before.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

The best advice for building a social media following is to find the thing that sets you or your business apart from others. There are thousands of hiking accounts, even hiking cats or outdoorsy dogs, but there is not very many ferret accounts that go hiking or on other outdoor adventures. There are many people who live in RVs full time, but there aren’t many that live in an RV with a ferret.

Finding the thing that sets you apart from the masses is the first step, the second step is to create high quality content. That does not necessarily mean that you need the best camera or know the best ways to edit in Lightroom, but using high quality videos and photos for content is how you keep an audience that was drawn into what made your page unique to start with.

Contact Info:

• Website: hikingferret.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/hikingferret
• Other: TikTok: @hikingferret

Image Credits
All images are owned by me, Lauren Smith