
Erica Wheeler
Trainer. Speaker. Songwriter. Creative Mentor. Sense of Place Advocate.
Erica Wheeler is an interpretive trainer, TEDx speaker, award-winning singer-songwriter and creative mentor. She works with communities, organizations and individuals across North America and helps parks, museums, and heritage sites. She has worked extensively with the National Park Service providing her Sense of Place and the Art of Interpretation Training to help staff deepen their storytelling skills, strengthen visitor engagement, and elevate their interpretive practice
As a keynote speaker, Erica explores themes of tourism, storytelling, sense of place, and stewardship. She has keynoted at several of the Governor’s Conference on Tourism as well as at national events. As a songwriter, she has released six critically acclaimed recordings.Her music has charted in the Billboard’s Gavin Americana Top Ten, and she’s been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered, Yankee Magazine and more. She also leads writing workshops and retreats centered around her core framework: using a sense of place as the gateway to creativity, curiosity, belonging, and identity.
Her work is dedicated to helping people uncover personal stories of connection to places, to enrich their lives and increase caring in ways that help people and places thrive.
About the Sense of Place and Story Framework
Central to Erica’s work is a framework of proven tools, techniques and experiences that effectively guide people toward their stories to help them gain and share a sense of place and belonging.
Her approach has been honed through decades of in-the-field and hands-on work with park rangers, educators, communities and creatives,
There are four quadrants for the framework:
Find Your Stories- Know yourself and inner landscape
See Through New Eyes- Know places outer landscapes
Craft Meaningful Stories- Integrate and find meaning
Share and Engage- Hone techniques and polish craft
Whether you are currently working on a personal project, designing a public program, or offering a community event, this framework will help you find and share stories that matter.
While the outcomes may be different for each person or group, but your journey will include a similar path.
For Interpreters and Guides
Programs to help you transform your approach to program design and delivery by crafting experiences that inspire genuine connection.
Explore Interpretive Training →
For Community Organizations
Programs that will enrich your work and your community. Engagement programs that bring your mission to life. Help people rediscover their own stories of place together.
Explore Engagement Events→
For Individuals
Programs to help you follow your creative path, gain inspiration, and strengthen your writing, storytelling, and self-expression skills to use in your personal or professional work.
Explore Writing Programs →
More about my journey to this work...
From aspiring wildlife biologist to touring songwriter.
I entered Hampshire College (Amherst, MA) to become a wildlife field biologist. It was there I first saw how story—especially a personal story, could move people to care in ways facts alone could not. I went on to became a touring singer-songwriter, writing songs rooted in a deep sense of place.
As I traveled, I often fell in love with landscapes, only to return later and find them changed or gone. I started to wonder if people noticed. And if they cared. I believed they did, and do. But their stories, like mine, needed remembering and reclaiming. I began teaching workshops to help people find their stories. I shared my own creative process for writing songs, and this began what would become my framework, and is still at the heart of l the programs I offer today.
From conservation advocate to interpretive trainer.
In 2008, I released “Good Summer Rain” in partnership with the Trust for Public Land, and the year before I gave a keynote for the National Association for Interpretation, which began my career working with interpreters.
Now, almost 15 years later, I’ve worked with museums, parks, historic sites, and communities across North America—helping individuals and teams design experiences that awaken connection and inspire stewardship through the power of story.
Core philosophy
Personal stories of connection to places inspire caring for and about places. And today we need more people caring about more places .
A little more…
Women’s Wellness Retreat, Attean Lake, Maine| June 2025
❊ I grew up in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. My Dad was a journalist and my mom a cellist turned Scandinavian and American crafts gift store owner. I’m the youngest of four and became a bird nerd in junior high.
❊ During high school I completed a 30-day biology expedition with NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School) in Wyoming, (where I learned many skills I still use today.) In 12th grade I received National Science Foundation Scholarship to live in Colorado and do field work. I studied the habitat utilization of marmots and pikas and lived in a cabin on a ridge top alone.
❊ While touring in support of my recordings, I’ve had the honor of opening shows for many of my favorite songwriters from Shawn Colvin, Indigo Girls to Ferron. I’ve also played at some of my favorite festivals, from the Telluride Bluegrass Festival to the Winnipeg Folk Festival.
❊ I don’t have a favorite National Park (people always ask!) I love them all. I’ve offered my Sense of Place and the Art of Interpretation Training at more than 45 NPS sites —from Hawaiʻi Volcanoes to Independence Hall—and I love each one for its unique stories, landscapes, and significance. Learning the history and nature of these places brings deep joy.
❊ A few favorite things: small towns, agricultural fairs, Froggy Bottom Guitars, soaking in natural hot springs in the western mountains, museums, historic sites, and hiking. Old cabins and spending the night in wild places where wolves, bears, and buffalo still roam.
❊ I am based in the hills of western Massachusetts and live with my partner in a 125-year-old house beside a rushing stream, surrounded by forests, dairy and maple sugar farms.
Enjoy exploring my website. Hope to meet you someday! Sign up on my mailing list so we can stay in touch.