When Dom Acharya first set foot in Erie, Pennsylvania, he carried more than a suitcase, he carried the weight of displacement and the hope of beginning again. As a newly arrived refugee, the noise of uncertainty often clouded his early days. But it was the gentle hush of waves at Presque Isle, the rustling of leaves along unfamiliar trails, and the vast sky above Lake Erie that offered him a kind of quiet healing he hadn’t known he needed. In nature, Dom found calm. In walking the woods, he found clarity. And in those moments of stillness, a deeper sense of connection began to take root.

As he built a life - improving his command of English, studying medicine, and serving his community as a caseworker and later as a healthcare provider, Dom never strayed far from nature. Parks became sanctuaries. Trails became teachers. And over time, he realized that what he had discovered in those early walks wasn’t just personal - it was universal. Everyone, he believed, deserves the chance to feel at home in the outdoors.

That belief became the seed for Inspired to Explore. Co-founding the organization was a way to widen the circle to invite others into the forests and fields that had once embraced him. Whether it’s a youth seeing the stars without city lights for the first time, an elder sharing memories beside a campfire, or a healthcare worker finally taking a breath after a hard season, Dom wants every journey to be more than a hike. He wants it to be a shared experience of transformation.

With a background in healthcare and a heart shaped by resilience, Dom bridges his professional knowledge with his passion for connection. He brings people from different generations and walks of life: educators, artists, clinicians, students, into dialogue with each other and with nature itself. For Dom, the wilderness is not an escape but an invitation: to reflect, to heal, and to imagine new ways forward.

To walk with Dom is to understand that the trail is never just about the destination. It’s about the stories that surface with each step, the conversations sparked by a shared view, and the bridges built between people who may never have met otherwise. And that, at its core, is what Inspired to Explore is all about.