About
My name is Bryce Campbell.
I grew up in Charleston, South Carolina, where I was homeschooled and could often be found barefoot in the marsh.
I've been writing for 6 years now, originally because I simply wanted to be heard. But that desire goes back far further, to when I was six: in the back of a Chrysler minivan, I was so hot I could not breathe. I said something, but nobody heard it. So I said it louder; my dad looked up in the rearview and cracked the window. I put my face in that gap and could breathe.
Life comes at you fast, and when I was seventeen, my father got diagnosed with Stage IV pancreatic cancer and was given six months. The same year I was taken advantage of by someone older. Life at home was a struggle: I had quit my job in fast food, and now spent my days wandering around town... into the forests, walking on the beach... occasionally though, I was drawn back to reality whenever my dad needed to be driven to chemo.
It wasn't long until I felt I had to run, so I did. I spent $4,000 of Chick-Fil-A overtime on a flight to Geneva and spent 2 weeks in the Alps. I came home and had found something new to me: an escape. It wasn't long before I was searching for a new job, which would come through the local surf shop. There, surrounded by people who went out there, I was inspired to do so as well. My father still sick, despite being diagnosed with, effectively, death, gave me his truck. I spent my small savings on a rooftop tent and hit the road; South Carolina to New Mexico, to Oregon, to Montana, all across the west for 3 months.
That was when I started sharing photos online. But escaping is far more aspirational than practical, as I would come to learn: one afternoon, I sat on the interstate onramp in Idaho when my mother called. She told me that my younger brother Heston had taken his life. I flew home for a few weeks, including my 19th birthday, but eventually returned to spend the next months in a tent.
One evening in the Appalachians I prayed to someone I wasn’t sure was there.
My dad is still alive (miraculously). I married Grace, who is from New Zealand. We live between her country and South Carolina and the same Toyota Tundra. I write the free letter Far Out most Wednesdays — grief, roads, the marriage, sometimes God when He is in the week and other times what sits in front of my eyes. Some people pay $7 so that stays free, and we call that the Out There Club.
Have something on your mind? Send me an email below.
Some people pay $7 a month. Out There Club.
Mail: bryce@brycercampbell.com