I Wrote Off Traveling With an Influencer. Then I Tried it.

Why do you think people follow you? I asked Haleigh on our winding drive out of Yosemite, back to Indian Flat.

“I don’t know why, I really don’t,” she said. Maybe it’s because she was just a person who had barely 1,000 followers, she said, and then one day woke up with a gazillion more. “I guess people relate to my story?”

“But your story isn’t that special!” I said. No offense. “You’re not Taylor Swift!”

She agreed. “I’m just normal,” she said.

Then again, Swift, with almost 300 million followers on Instagram alone, may be the world’s preeminent influencer because she built her reputation on being normal, too. I guess people relate to Haleigh because she really is just a regular person. A woman who hated her job, quit, went camping—and got lucky with a lot of likes.

By the end of the trip, I felt lucky, too. I’d signed up for a week in the wild with an influencer and her fangirls, bracing for some sort of mashup of the Fyre Festival, Lord of the Flies, and The Bachelorette. Instead, I had fun. I even left Yosemite with new friends (or at least a new group thread, titled “Yosemite”), and something perhaps more lasting: a new faith in online humanity.

People aren’t always what they seem, on social media especially. Haleigh, though, as everyone reiterated throughout the week, is real. “She’s exactly the same person online as she is in person,” said Jeanne.

I don’t disagree. I’d been expecting to witness some sort of dissonance between Haleigh on Instagram and Haleigh on-trail. An eye roll or a terse retort, constant primping, incessant posting. But no. Haleigh was just super nice. Still naturally pretty in the dirt on day six. And, in fact, iPhone-free. She was the only one who didn’t pull hers out once all week. “I’m so sick of my phone!” she said. She lugs around an actual camera instead.

I’d assumed that I’d come home telling everyone that traveling with an influencer and tagging along on her dream life was a total nightmare. That, yup, it’s true: Instagram makes everything look better than it is. Instead I came home, cozied up with my phone, and concluded the opposite.

There were Liz and Jordan doing their complicated choreographed handshake all over Yosemite. There were the two Kelseys in Carhartt hats, kicking up their heels at the count of three. And the flickering fire pit, the thundering falls, and the alpenglow illuminating Half Dome. And multiple mugs of coffee clasped by multiple hands. And there was everyone, backed by towering granite: beaming into Haleigh’s camera, sharing their takeaways. “Never be afraid to push your limits.” “I can do harder things than I ever thought I could.” “If you let people in, they will make room for you.” There was Dena doing a happy dance and Jordan hoisting her Hest pillow into the sky for $300.

I watched the handshake half a dozen times and played Haleigh’s reel on repeat and couldn’t help but smile, too. If I hadn’t dusted off my backpack and gone on this trip, I probably would’ve viewed this random travel influencer’s feed like I do all travel influencers’ feeds: with a mix of envy and irritation. Then I’d scoff at the absurdity of it all and scroll to the next one.

Instead, I felt the spray of waterfalls and chatted on a log in the sun and swung in a hammock strung between pines (it was brought for everyone, after all). And months later, as I lay on my couch thumbing through every perfect post, I realized my takeaway: Yosemite with Haleigh was actually more fun IRL than on IG.