For all of the tragedy that the COVID-19 pandemic brought, it also sprouted some impactful things. For Asia Bright, that includes a new appreciation for the outdoors.
“I’ve always been an outdoor nature type of girl,” Bright tells ESSENCE, recalling a childhood filled with capturing fireflies, playing with friends, and lying in the dirt, carefree. The love of nature was always in the Baltimore native, but with adulthood, immersing herself in the wonders of nature could no longer be a priority. That is until the pull to return to it became immensely strong amid COVID lockdowns.
“The world was kind of shutting down, and we didn’t have anything else to do but go back outside,” she says. That’s when I was like, I missed this. This is where I’m supposed to be and what I’m supposed to be doing. And I’ve been doing it ever since.”
Baltimore is surrounded by greenery: mountains, lakes, and parks. Bright began hiking in the area and brought some of her girlfriends along. They quickly noticed they were the only Black people doing it.
“I was hiking with my friends in Baltimore and Baltimore is predominantly black. It’s a historically Black city, and we were hiking for maybe five hours, and something spooked us,” she recalls. “And in those fight or flight instances, you’re wondering, Where do I go? Who do I call, where am I running to? And it was in that moment I was like, wait, we’ve been out here for five hours and we literally haven’t seen any other Black people out here. That is crazy.”
And so, she turned to social media. Bright took to Instagram to see if she could find other Black women hiking. “The whole premise behind it was, tag me where you are so that I can see what your landscape looks like and see you in nature. And I would come meet up with them, or they would come meet up with me, and it kind of snowballed out of that.”
Out of those initial meetups birthed Black Girls Hike, helping to expose Black women (and men, too, by the way) to the benefits of getting outside and walking. “We do local parks, we do city parks, we do pavement walks, cement walks, anything,” she says. Hikers of all experience levels are invited, and different gatherings offer different distances. “Some are easy and flat, some are more challenging and more hilly than others,” Bright says, noting some walks are as short as one mile, others, up to seven.
She quickly realized how impactful this group was becoming. “I had a hike in Maryland in Patapsco Valley State Park, and we had a participant. She told me that she drove from Chicago to Maryland to hike with us,” she says. “And it was then I was like, it’s just necessary. We all need a community of people to hike with. We feel safer with each other.”
Hikers also literally feel better. It’s a given the cardiovascular benefits of walking, as well as the benefits to one’s muscles (“Your butt might be burning at the end of [a walk]”), but walking in nature, with a community, is a game-changer for one’s well-being.
“There have been studies about the benefits of nature and I don’t know if it’s been scientifically proven, but when you’re outside and spending more time in nature, you’re just more aware. You develop your senses a little bit better,” says Bright. “Of course, there’s the physical aspect of it, but just as a whole, I feel more regulated in my emotional state. I feel clearer in my mental state when I am just hiking and walking and paying attention to all of those different things. It gets your brain working in different ways. So I feel just more mentally sound.”
Black Girls Hike members benefiting from this are both young and old. Bright fondly mentions a recent walk with a 78-year-old woman and says people of all ages find BGH through social media, including through their bustling Facebook community. Some meet up for hikes in groups, others alone. But everyone connects and meets someone new. “I’ve gotten a lot of partnerships and collaborations from people that I’ve hiked with,” she says.
Bright was initially working in the manufacturing and supply chain industry, managing accounts. It was the first opportunity she had to see the inner workings of a business. While doing that, she was getting a master’s degree in nonprofit and for-profit organizational development. After trying to juggle those things, meeting up with people as Black Girls Hike grew when she wasn’t at work, she eventually found a way to focus on her organization full-time.
The connections made, even just during her hikes, have helped BGH grow significantly. It has since become a business that offers ticketed events in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware and more, and has expanded to yoga and Pilates offerings as well. They have hike leads in different states now to meet the needs of their large audience and participation base. If that weren’t enough, hikes are also starting to go global to the likes of Costa Rica and Ghana. The latter opportunity came about after a woman came to hike with Bright and other members while visiting Maryland from New York and told her she hosts guided trips in the West African country.
“I have always had this dream of just traveling. Personally, I love traveling. And now because of, and through Black Girls Hike, it’s like, okay, now I can bring people with me,” she says. “Wherever you want to go, we can go at this point. We can just do it together. This is a family.”
Tanzania is planned for 2026, and she hopes for Jamaica, Belize, and Mexico next. The community continues to grow as the vision for the organization does. And what better time for it to do so, as Black folks grapple with a second Trump term and the chaos and confusion that comes with it? We need to be amongst one another. We need to be in nature. We need to feel safe.
“Black Girls Hike was born out of Black women supporting the organization and Black businesses in general. But now I definitely feel that the larger community, we see how important it is to have our own safe spaces and to invest in them appropriately,” she says. “You can express what you want to express, you could say what you want to say, and we just give you the space and the opportunity to do so because you’re safe with us.”
If you’re interested in joining in on the experience, in addition to bringing a sturdy shoe, Bright says to come with an open mind. She’ll bring the snacks and a good vibe. “I feel like the best expectation is to have no expectations and just be open to the experience. You’ll survive. You’ll get through it, and you’ll have fun.”
