Nikki Bettis turned a simple hike on the Appalachian Trail into an audacious plan to thru hike the entire trail with her fifteen kids, ranging in age from 4 to 21. As a single mom in rural Virginia facing financial and emotional strain, Nikki hoped the physical challenge and months spent outdoors together could help her family reconnect and find a way forward.
Nikki Bettis turned a simple hike on the Appalachian Trail into an audacious plan to thru hike the entire trail with her fifteen kids, ranging in age from 4 to 21. As a single mom in rural Virginia facing financial and emotional strain, Nikki hoped the physical challenge and months spent outdoors together could help her family reconnect and find a way forward.
Connect with Nikki:
Explore the REI and Intrepid Travel collections
Shop The North Face Universal Collection
Thank you to our sponsors:
Shelby Stanger:
When I first heard about thru hiker Nikki Bettis, I had a lot of questions. Nikki's a single mom to 15 biological children, all from the same marriage. In 2023, she and her kids were all living under one roof in rural Virginia, and they were struggling financially and emotionally. The kids were fighting a lot, and the family couldn't afford a vehicle or even basic resources like power and water. Nikki knew that something needed to change. During this challenging period, she spent a lot of time on local trails to clear her mind. One day, a small hike on the Appalachian Trail turned into a much wilder idea.
Nikki Bettis:
I was out hiking one day with one of my kids, and we happened to intersect with the AT. And I was like, "What if we just hiked? What if we all came out here, somehow got out to the trail head, and we didn't have to go home?" So I began to plan. I went home and asked my kids, "Would you do it with me?" So I had some hell-no's, and then I had like, "Let's go." And over a period of about six months or so, I started prepping and really researching. I loved to research. And once I did that, I was like, "I think we can do this."
Shelby Stanger:
With that, Nikki decided to take all of her kids ages four to 21 on the Appalachian Trail. That's a lot of people, a lot of logistics, and a lot of miles. But in the back of her mind, Nikki hoped that pushing themselves physically and spending time together in nature would help their family write a new chapter of their story. Spoiler alert, she was right. I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Co-op Studios production presented by Capital One and the REI Co-op Mastercard. A note before we start, there's a brief mention of domestic violence in this episode. Please listen with care. Nikki Bettis, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living. You are the super mom.
Nikki Bettis:
I'm so excited to talk to you.
I think my children would be a better judge of that, but I try to be. So yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
Let's start with your wild idea. I mean, you have 15 kids, which is a wild idea on its own. And you had this wild idea in 2023 to hike the Appalachian Trail with all 15 of them. I don't even know where we start. We should probably start with, you have 15 kids. That's pretty remarkable.
Nikki Bettis:
Yes, I do. Lots of people ask why. Oh, there's a lot of whys. Why do you have 15 kids? So I'll backtrack a little bit and clarify that. I was born into a very upper middle class, normal American family. I just have two siblings. But in my early teens, my mom and dad got ahold of a belief system that was very cult minded. And I think it's important to note too that I don't fault them. I love both of my parents, and I think as parents, we just do the best we can. And when you see something that has good morals, good values that you want for your kids, you tend to go down those roads, and I think they did. So with that in mind, we went down that road, and it did not go so well.
Shelby Stanger:
The religious community that Nikki was raised in had strict rules about how women and men should act and dress. She was taught from a young age that having kids was a way to be blessed by God. And at age 23, Nikki had her first child. Over the next 20 years, she gave birth to 14 more kids.
Nikki Bettis:
So I married into that belief system just for familiarity sakes. And I stayed in it for 20 years. That's another question I get asked a lot. Why didn't you leave sooner? How did it take 15 kids to come to the devastating end that it did? But I think it's important to know that when you marry into a very patriarchal stereotypical system, that it's very hard to leave it because you fear it's very mental and you fear punishment from God, punishment from your spouse, and then you're also shunned from the family, which makes it very difficult to leave. And especially when you love the person on the other side of it. And your whole entire life is just built to do the honorable thing and to love that person. So when you see someone going downhill, you want to help them. But it took alcohol abuse, and it finally turned into domestic violence.
And so eventually once the domestic violence started, I tolerated it for a long time because it was just to me. And I kept thinking if I would do better, if I just loved more, that he would get better, and it didn't work like that. But when it finally transitioned over into the kids, we had one incident, and so he was taken away in a domestic violence call. And after that, we did not hear from him or see him. He just disappeared. And I say all that to say, this is how the Appalachian Trail began to take shape is because of our past. So the whole family imploded. We lost power, we lost water, we didn't have a vehicle, we didn't have phones, and it crushed my heart because everything I worked to build up in the kids and their self-esteem and independence and all the things you want to see in your kids began to just fall apart, and their relationships fell apart.
And so during that time, I was out hiking one day with one of my kids, like little four seater cars, and I had two of the kids with me, one older and one younger, and we happened to intersect with the AT. And I was like, "What if we just hiked? What if we all came out here, somehow got out to the trail head, and we didn't have to go home?"
And at the time, my little one was three, but she could do about 11 miles because my motto is, "Once they reach three, I am not carrying you anymore. You got to walk." So I was like, "If we could do 11 miles a day, could we do the AT and just stay out there?" So I began to plan. I went home and asked my kids, "Would you do it with me?" And there was a lot, I mean, you get that many and you get all kinds of opinions, and they're all very outspoken, very feisty, and they're very independent.
So I was like, "Would you do it with me? " So as a family, let's sit down as a group and discuss this. We already know what it is to go without power and water, so it's got to be better out there than what we're living. And over a period of about six months or so, I started prepping and really researching. I loved research. And so it was like, "Are we going to die out there or could we really actually survive this thing?" So we had no money. We get everything used. I don't buy anything new. The kids will tear it up, and I don't want to spend the money. So I was like, "If I really, really get some good deals, I think I could make it work." So I would just stash any tiny little bit of leftover we had.
And I figured we could. It would take a while, but we could. And as I got more and more excited and began to chip away at the education and research aspect of it, I was like, "You know what? If I really began to chip away at gears, I think this is possible." So in July, I started purchasing, I would save every little bit I could get and started getting things from the Facebook marketplace and Black Friday sales. I knew that Thanksgiving would come, and a lot of stuff we needed would be at that point. So as I began to tell people our story on Facebook as I would send messages, it was so cool because I would usually cut them in half. I will never ask for anything for free. I'm not going to do it. I don't expect other people to provide for my 15 kids.
And as I would tell them their story and see if they would come about half off, the majority of the people, not even a small percentage, the majority of the people were so moved by our story that they were like, "We'll just give this to you." They were so positive and willing to make it work that we were given a lot of our gear.
Shelby Stanger:
These random acts of kindness gave Nikki the confidence to reach out to brands for donations, and it worked. A company called Teton Gear ended up sending the family the remaining packs they needed for the journey. Within just a year of forming her wild idea, Nikki and her kids headed to the trail head at Springer Mountain in Georgia in March 2023. Thirteen of the 15 kids would do the entire through hike with Nikki, and the other two would hike sections. What was that first day like?
Nikki Bettis:
Very interesting. So there's a story to that too. We bought a bus because tax return was large that year. That was the only money we ever got was tax return, and we had to have a vehicle to get us to Springer. So we bought this $1,200 bus, and you get what you pay for in a bus. And the brakes went out in Gainesville, Georgia. We were almost there. It was horrific. So that delayed... I mean, the whole trip just started with a bang by the brakes going out. So we had Bobby the Greek, who was the most amazing trail angel. Oh, my God. We still have a relationship with that man. And he came and picked us up from Gainesville, Georgia, and we still were able to get to Springer on March the 7th. So we spent the night there, and then we, after all the chaos and everything, started hiking out March the 8th.
And that first day was more funny than anything. It was the absurdity of what we were doing, but we've all got really great senses of humor. And it's just you might as well laugh about it rather than be miserable. And the kids are pretty good about that. The very first night, this was so great, we didn't know water sources. We were still new to it. And we camped in this four-wheeling ATV little turnaround where they were doing donuts and stuff, and there was a mud puddle, and we drank all our water by that time. And so we were actually using our Sawyer filters to draw up water out of this mud puddle that had tadpoles in it. And we had videos of the four and six-year-old going, "Look at all the tadpoles," and "Don't suck up the tadpoles." So to this day, it's a family joke that we started the trail with Boba.
Shelby Stanger:
Slowly but surely, Nikki and her kids made their way north from Georgia on the Appalachian Trail. Each night, they posted up at a campsite with six tents, mixing and matching who slept where so no one got sick of each other. The group did their best to fairly distribute their load between packs, but Nikki had a pretty strict, "You want it, you carry it," policy. Her kids were responsible for their own needs and specific requests. For example, one of her sons hauled his own hammock the entire 2,200 miles. A few others packed honey despite how heavy it was because they wanted a sweet treat on the trail. Tell me a little bit about what you ate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Nikki Bettis:
So I'm a firm believer. I hate to cook. I cannot stay in the kitchen. And I am also a firm believer in being independent and do it yourself. I'm not cleaning up your dishes. I'm not fixing your food. So they each had their little pocket rocket, Black Friday sale, camp stoves, and they each individually fixed their meals. I think that's also part of teaching them independence and building those skills of knowing you can do things. So for lunches, we didn't cook. We had a rule don't cook for lunch because it took too long. You get the stoves out, you got to clean up and all that. So we had tortillas, peanut butter for lunches. Usually we did not cook for breakfast. Every once in a while after we got over the oatmeal phase, because there for a while, we had oatmeal all the time, but after we got out of that and realized how time-consuming it was to cook, breakfasts were quick, lunches were quick, and then we cooked dinners and they were usually ramen bombs of ramen and mashed potatoes.
But each kid did their own except for the four and six-year-old, and we had people cook for them.
Shelby Stanger:
Nikki, tell me how many miles you did on trail every day.
Nikki Bettis:
We started with five in the beginning, and they were very humble beginnings, full of dire predictions from people. And then we ended the trail with our highest day being 24 miles. It was a huge success. We evolved, and we grew a lot during that time.
Shelby Stanger:
So hold up. The four-year-old did 24 miles?
Nikki Bettis:
Yes, she did. She absolutely nailed it. Okay, granted, that was Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania's very flat. It's very rocky, but very flat, but we happen to love the rocks. People hate them, but we loved them, and she absolutely nailed it.
Shelby Stanger:
How did you get her to go 24 miles? That's got to be a record for a four-year-old. I can't even get my seven and 10-year-old niece and nephew to do a mile with me.
Nikki Bettis:
I think by that time, we'd been on a trail five months at that point. And so I could never just put a four-year-old on a trail and expect 24 miles. So those are very through hiker legs. She very much had her trail legs by that point. And so I think it's important to note too when all these other parents ask that, no, a four-year-old is never just going to go out there and do 24. But after five months of doing it day in, day out, she's a kid, and kids are so resilient with so much energy, and their body adapts. And she was a hiking machine by the end of it. She outpaced me. That kid stayed up there with a fast group the whole time and never out of breath, just laughed and talked. She was great. She's amazing.
Shelby Stanger:
Did you guys each have a trail name? I know having a trail name is a huge part of all these big trails. Did all 15 of you or 16 of you each get a trail nickname?
Nikki Bettis:
Yes. We each gave each other trail names. The rule was you couldn't have one when you first started, and you couldn't make one up yourself because that's not authentic. You had to earn it. So it took everybody about a week or two to get a trail name. And by the end of it, we each had trail names.
Shelby Stanger:
What was your trail name?
Nikki Bettis:
Hot shower.
Shelby Stanger:
Hot shower. Why is that?
Nikki Bettis:
My kids gave it to me because they were so fed up. We would get into town, and all I wanted was a shower, and I would be the first ones that they were always so kind and considerate. So they would let me take a shower first up until they realized I used up all the hot water. After that, they're like, "I'm going first."
Shelby Stanger:
And the youngest is not oatmeal.
Nikki Bettis:
Yeah, the youngest is not oatmeal. That kid, man, for the first seven days, the only thing she would eat was oatmeal. Man, she would not eat anything else. And then she OD'd on it. And after that seventh day on trail, she has never eaten oatmeal again. She cannot stand it.
Shelby Stanger:
In 2023, Nikki Bettis took her 15 children with her to hike the Appalachian Trail. Sometimes it's hard enough to get one kid to go hiking. Imagine getting 15 of them to log more than 11 miles a day. As you might guess, there were plenty of hard moments on the trail, grueling tantrums, sibling arguments, and certainly times when everyone wanted to throw in the towel. But for the most part, the family was resilient and were able to make it through even their worst days. It helped that they know how to make each other laugh. What was the funniest day?
Nikki Bettis:
We had a lot of good days. The funniest that they still look back on is when we got frozen in our little tent jail. Our coldest night out there, I think the actual temperature was four degrees, but the windchill was, I think, minus 15 or 14. It was cold. And we camped up on a summit because we didn't know better at the time. We just wanted the views, but we could not get out of our tents. We were actually frozen into our tents. We still laugh about that.
Shelby Stanger:
What do you mean you were frozen into your tents? Like one zip open?
Nikki Bettis:
Yeah, the condensation from all of us being inside, because we had crammed so many people inside for body warmth and to keep warm, which actually was really toasty in there, but it built up condensation, and it was so cold that night that it froze the condensation on the zipper, and none of us could get out of our tents. So we're all talking to each other back and forth in our tents because we couldn't get out of them.
Shelby Stanger:
So what did you guys do? I mean, that could have been a serious emergency.
Nikki Bettis:
We laughed a whole lot. And then we all started taking turns and breathing on it with our hot breath so we could unfreeze the zipper. We freed ourselves.
Shelby Stanger:
Oh, thank goodness. That sounds pretty wild. Was there a day that was especially awful and you were like, "I don't think we're going to do this. We're just not going to keep going."
Nikki Bettis:
Yep, that happened too. And that was in Front Royal, Virginia. And we hit an all time low. The whole group did. And it was so rare for all of us to be down at the same time. But lots of people hate Virginia on the AT because it's the longest state of the trail. And it was our home state though. To us, it was everything we knew and loved. We had hiked every single portion, so leaving that was pretty depressing for everybody. And it was also going into the north and a lot of the unknown. We knew the south really well, but then there was so much fear that surrounded the north that we all dreaded it. And so there was an all time low where we had a division in the group, and the older kids wanted to go home, and they were very adamant about wanting to go home.
And I just kept thinking just through a parent's eyes, if I just knew the root issue, if I could find out the root issue, then we could communicate and have something to work with. So I finally asked my oldest daughter, the one that I go head-to-head with, was the ring leader of wanting to go home. And so I finally sat down with her and was like, "What is the issue?" And I finally figured out it was the fear of the north and what we faced that we just didn't know. And when we were able to sit down as a group and really address that fear, we were able to work it out. And once we worked it out, we continued on.
Shelby Stanger:
Once Nikki and her family hiked north from Virginia, the trail got more intense. They encountered long climbs in big boulder fields. Eventually they made their way through the white mountains, which are some of the tallest peaks in the northeast known for erratic weather and relentless rocky terrain. Most thru hikers finished the AT in a few months, but it took Nikki's family seven. Part of this was intentional. With Nikki's four-year-old in the mix, they needed to summit Mount Katahdin, the northern terminus, before the weather got too cold. So they flip-flopped, tackling sections out of order to make the timeline work.
Nikki Bettis:
We actually were asked, Opye was only four at the time, not oatmeal, and she had to have a permit to Summit Katahdin from Baxter State Park. And they have an age limit of six years old. So as we got closer, Baxter, unbeknownst to us, had been tracking us the entire time. And this is really important to note too, because a lot of people ask questions about this because it's so, I think, negatively looked at for anyone younger than six to Summit Katahdin. But Baxter actually contacted us and said, "We know you're on trail. We know this is your intent, and we would like to go ahead and record your miles and verify all of your miles," that she herself, not oatmeal, had actually hiked all those miles. So I put together a list for them, and they talked to park rangers, hostels, trail angels, anyone that could verify that we were actually hiking the miles we said we were doing.
And once we got to the Whites, they said that she would be allowed to summit if we completed the Whites. But because we were facing winter, they wanted us to go ahead and flip and come up there before Katahdin. They actually closed summited Katahdin. So we got the Whites over with, and as soon as we were done with the Whites, we went ahead and flipped up to Katahdin and summited Katahdin and then hiked south through the state of Maine to finish up our miles.
Shelby Stanger:
Nikki and her family's AT route was unconventional. They didn't complete their trek at Mount Katahdin in New Hampshire or at Springer Mountain in Georgia, which are the northern and southern ends of the trail. Instead, they hiked their final miles in the smoky mountains where their last day was low-key and intimate, but very emotional. For Nikki and her kids, finishing this trail was a major milestone. How did it change you? How long did it take to process after you got done where you realize we really changed?
Nikki Bettis:
Trail depression is a real thing. I will say that. Coming home was very difficult, more difficult than I ever imagined because you go from the healing journey that it was and being so together back into your house where nothing has changed, except your mentality about life. But you come back to the same house that has not been kept up, that is very dilapidated due to the nature of how we lived. And you all look at each other like, "What now? Do kids go back to work?" And you've just spent your entire 24/7 life with them. It was like a death in some kind of way, and it's hard to explain, but it very much feels like something died when you come off trail. So readjusting to that, I had it the worst. The kids, they're so resilient. They're like, "Yeah, we're home. We can see the dogs now." They were so great.
So I definitely took it the hardest. Some of my older kids did go through it, but once we got over that hump and that hiccup of having to emotionally adjust to being home, they have flourished. It's cool because as our following grew while we were out there, I had each of the kids write their bios because people always wanted to know what are the individual kids like, which is fair. So they each wrote a bio of their dreams, their visions, what they're like, where they are in the lineup of kids, and they came home, and they were able to accomplish those things. And right now, in fact, we're on the Mountains to Sea Trail right now, and I only have six kids with me because those older kids went out and did all the things they dreamed of.
I have one in nationals and rugby, the May State, they're in MMA. It's really cool to see. And each of them defer back to how the trail changed them and enabled them to be where they are.
And once they got settled and are doing their thing in sports, I took the year of '24 off to deal with my personal issues that I just couldn't address before the trail that I didn't have the courage to. So I went ahead and filed for my divorce when it was very... It was a very brutal experience, but I think the AT gave me the courage and I think maybe the hope within myself that I could do something as hard as that. And even though the repercussions might not be optimal, it was worth it. And then I went and got my diploma. So at the age of 48 years old, I finally got a diploma because that was one of the things that bothered me the most. So, yeah, the year '24 was filled with milestones of my own personal accomplishments because while the kids made their goals of what they wanted to do when they got home, I had made mine as well.
And so I just went down that list and just started checking stuff off until I had accomplished everything that I wanted to do.
Shelby Stanger:
Hold up. Back up. That's incredible. So you have a little bit of depression after the Appalachian Trail, but you get through it and you realize I could just do this 2,200 mile trail with 15 kids. You came back and you did the hardest thing. You got out of a really terrible relationship. You divorced your husband, and then you went back to school at age 48 and got your diploma? That's incredible.
Nikki Bettis:
Yeah, that's exactly what I did. A lot of it in wanting my diploma was pretty much to prove a point to myself that I could do it and I didn't want to be ashamed of it anymore. But the other part is we could not be a legal homeschool. I homeschool. And we could not be a legal homeschool with me not having a high school diploma. So we had found all kinds of creative ways around it. And my ex had stayed as the superintendent of the state registered school because as a homeschooler, you have to be state registered in North Carolina and Virginia. So I went back just so the school could be in my name because I was so devoted to my kids. I'm like, "But you get CPS threats. Once you get a following and everything, you hear it all." And I just wanted to protect us as much as we could.
And so I went back, got my diploma, and then I put the school in my name and did exactly what I set out to do, which is pretty cool.
Shelby Stanger:
How did you get well? Did you go to therapy? Did you read books? What happened? Because when you have a belief system that is so strong, changing that belief system is challenging.
Nikki Bettis:
I hiked. Honestly, I tried therapy. I tried therapy for the kids because what they saw that last night when it all went down and he was removed is disturbing, and no one is going to be okay and whole after that, including all of these billions of pieces of these 15 kids I have. So I tried therapy for them and counseling, and I tried it for me. And while I absolutely advocate for therapy and counseling, there's only so much telling your story can do to someone else. And they may have empathy and understanding, but there's only so far it can go, and you have to experience it and believe it in yourself. And so to hear someone tell you it's okay, it's still not okay. At least it wasn't for me. And it didn't work like that for some of the kids. And that's a lot of the reason why we hiked is because you get out there and it allows you to deal with it because it takes the noise away from everything else and all the voices, and you're just together.
So really in order to get over it and to heal as a family, that is why we hiked.
Shelby Stanger:
That's incredible. Did you have some epiphanies on the trail? I know that when I am at the top of Avista or just, I don't know, all my best ideas come from hiking. I came up with the podcast idea while hiking. It just happens.
Nikki Bettis:
I love to write, and so we did not vlog the AT. It was very personal. It was very quiet, but I did write. And a lot of my processing happened through the writing that I did. And in the writing were the epiphanies because I was able to process and work through it and ride out the emotions, which allowed me to release it. And in releasing it, the epiphanies began to come where it's like, "I'm so free. I'm out here with my kids, and we're safe, and we're whole, and we're free." And I think the largest epiphany that just happened over and over again was the realization that you're free. And not only are you physically free because you're on top of a mountain, but you're freeing yourself as you walk.
Shelby Stanger:
The AT was a catalyst for a lot more change in Nikki's life. For the first time, she's financially independent, and she's also gone after some new wild ideas. In 2025, Nikki and six of her kids canoed the entire Mississippi River. When we talked to her earlier in 2026, they were on the mountains to Sea Trail in North Carolina. They actually took a zero day so that Nikki could talk with us. If you want to learn more about Nikki and her family, check out 32 Feet Up at www.32feetup.com. You can also find them on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI Podcast Network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, produced by Annie Fassler, Sylvia Thomas, and Sam Pierce Knitsberg of Puddle Creative. Our senior producer is Jenny Barber. Our executive producers are Paolo Motola and Joe Crosby. Thanks again to our partner, Capital One and the REI Co-op Mastercard.
As always, we love it when you follow the show, take time to rate it and write a review wherever you listen. And remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.