Equestrian travel journalist Darley Newman brings a lifelong passion for horses and travel to her series, Equitrekking

How did you get involved with the equestrian lifestyle? At what age did you start horseback riding? And what brought you to EQUITREKKING?

I started riding when I was 7 years old at camp in the mountains of North Carolina and was fortunate enough to be able to take lessons there. Like many people, I wasn't fortunate enough to have easy access to horses at home, so these summers were an awakening for me and caused me to continue to seek out horses in my adult life. In college, I had my first chance to combine horses with another passion, travel, during a riding vacation at the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina. Riding on the same trails that George Vanderbilt's guests traveled during the Gilded Age was a special way to learn about the area's history, while doing something active with my mother, a fellow horse lover who hadn't ridden in years. I loved it.

Even after I moved to New York City to work in television, I was horseback riding every chance that I got. My television skills, from working on such series as 48 Hours and Frontline, combined with my passion for horses, nature and travel led me to EQUITREKKING. It is a great thing to be able to work on something that you love on a daily basis. Riding horses in beautiful settings, meeting interesting people and exploring the world is a dream for me and a joy to share with others.

In the series, you visit beautiful coastal cities across the nation, including some overseas destinations like Spain and Ireland. How do you come up with the concept for each episode?

Each episode is completely unique from the next, because we look for the best and most interesting horse and riding destinations, not necessarily the most popular places to travel. This makes a unique travel series. Each episode tells its own story. For instance, we went off the beaten path to ride small, furry Icelandic horses on historic country roads for an inn-to-inn ride in Vermont. In Jerez, Spain, we watched enchanting white Andalusian horses dance at the Royal Andalusian School of Equestrian Art.

In every episode, we meet people who have a passion for horses and for whom horses are a way of life. We ride with them to get a really local sense of each place. In Colorado, we rode up to 13,000 feet with Anne Rapp, who has been exploring the San Juan National Forest for over 25 years. She has a love for the horses and the land and took us to heights with stunning vistas and a sudden hailstorm that awed and humbled us.raveling opens doors to unexpected discoveries and situations.

Did you come across any finds that really fascinated you? Or, what obstacles, if any, did you encounter while filming?

Filming can be harrowing, because it is done on horseback and involves going to places you cannot reach by any other means. In the Great Smoky Mountains our cinematographer was filming while riding. Thank goodness we were riding Tennessee Walking horses, a gaited horse that is smoother on the trails, or our footage would have been hard to watch.

Sometimes our cinematographer and his camera look like a predator to horses. Horses are prey animals and their flight instinct tends to kick in when we round a corner at a gallop and he is crouched in the bushes with his scary black camera. We work hard to introduce the horses to the cameraman and his film equipment so that they are a little more prepared during our filming. I have gotten very good at staying on a spooky horse, but some of those shots are for the bloopers reel.