Long before Baratunde Thurston became a bestselling author, a producer for "The Daily Show with Trevor Noah" or created his first podcast, the host of "America Outdoors" was a kid who loved being in nature. He credits his mother for that, recalling that his earliest adventures happened on the back of her bicycle, riding around the streets of Washington, D.C..
Once his mom bought a car, the road opened for their family even more. "By the time I was 12, we had visited every state on the East Coast. We mapped them out very carefully," he told Salon in a recent Zoom interview. "And almost as often as a hotel, we would camp." They stayed at KOA campgrounds or in state and national parks camping areas, using borrowed gear from co-workers.
