Kay Rodriguez is the founder & CEO of Urban Outdoors, an online platform that provides in-depth resources on local outdoor adventures in metropolitan areas. Urban Outdoors is on a mission to increase the number of people who get outdoors weekly, starting with city dwellers.
The inspiration for Urban Outdoors came when Kay was living in Chicago, feeling frustrated with the lack of information and resources available to help her get outdoors in and around her home. Since its inception in December 2019, Urban Outdoors has helped over 1.3 million readers get outdoors with content on more than 50 cities in North America. As a Filipino-American woman, she is immensely passionate about diversity and inclusion in the outdoors, and aspires to share the physical and mental benefits of going outside with the masses.
Kay’s work in the outdoor travel industry has been featured in National Geographic, Lonely Planet, Business Insider, AP News, and more. Previously, she worked as a management consultant at Bain & Company and as the Associate Director of Digital Strategy at National Geographic, and she has a Bachelor’s Degree in Cognitive Sciences from Rice University.
Kay currently lives, works, and travels full-time in her converted Sprinter van with her dogs and makes time for outdoor adventures nearly every day. When she’s not working, you can usually find her snowboarding, surfing, roller skating, running, hiking, camping or teaching yoga somewhere beautiful.