International Women’s Day Mount Kilimanjaro Climb

SmartGirls Staff
Amy Poehler's Smart Girls
2 min readMar 9, 2015

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This is a guest post by Smart Girl Kathleen Rellihan

Whoa, talk about women moving mountains! WHOA Travel (Women High on Adventure) led their 2nd annual International Women’s Day climb on Mount Kilimanjaro. About 30 women from 10 different countries, including the US, Sweden, Estonia and Kenya, summited the roof of Africa together on March 8, 2015. Showing the world what women coming together can accomplish, these brave women pushed each other along as they made their way to the top of Africa’s highest mountain together. And even more incredible? They danced their way to the top. That’s right, WHOA Travel believes full-heartedly that there’s always time for a high-altitude dance party.

The founders of WHOA Travel, travel-loving friends Allison Fleece and Danielle Thornton, met while climbing Kilimanjaro back in February 2013. Tackling one of the world’s toughest summits together was so life-changing, they knew they wanted to share the experience with others. They quit their jobs and started an adventure travel company with a mission to motivate women to step out of their comfort zones…and onto the tallest freestanding mountain in the world.

In the spirit of experiential giving and connecting to the local women, WHOA sponsored two women from Kenya to join the trek. “When we are on Kilimanjaro, and we hike with women who have lived at the foothills of the mountain their entire lives, it makes everyone’s experience more authentic and real,” says Fleece. “Not to mention, local women show us their homes from 19,340 feet high — if that isn’t empowering, we don’t know what is!”

It must have been the powerful combination of a company built on friendship, local women climbing beside each other, and busting out a few dance moves no matter how depleted they were, because all 28 women on last year’s International Women’s Day climb made it to the summit. Best of luck to all those climbing this year!

Follow the women as they climb Mt. Kilimanjaro together this International Women’s Day via Facebook, Instagram and Twitter (@whoatravel) with the hashtags #likeWHOA and #kili2015.

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