Javi Velazquez
Writer and naturalist in the Cohutta Mountains of North Georgia. I make things and write about the country they come from.
About
Hi! I'm an entrepreneur, girl dad, husband. I write about the southern Appalachians from a grandfathered in national forest cabin on Holly Creek, at the edge of the Cohutta Wilderness. My essays and films follow the slow work of paying attention. Creek water and cold mornings, small towns, the simple pleasures, and the people keeping them. I fundamentally believe that aliveness is the glory of God. I wish to be a man fully alive.
The Field Guide to the Cohutta Mountains is finished and out in the world, stocked in shops around North Georgia. I am usually at work on the next thing. Thanks for visiting my page.
Writing & Film
Exiled Heart
My personal essays on Substack
Read →
Field Notes
My naturalist ramblings and where I publish them
Read →
Reborn in Wonder
Films on YouTube
Watch →
Field Guide to the Cohuttas
A Guide to the Flora and Fauna of the Cohutta Mountains
Learn more →SELECTED SUBSTACK ESSAYS
The Poverty of the Modern Traveler
On the recovery of the near, and why the modern traveler goes everywhere and belongs nowhere.
Remembering The Coosawattee Gorge
Planting impossible seeds in an age of concrete
A Field Guide to Authentic Culture
Aristotle, the tea path, and design for the good life
Places
Sherpa Camp
Scout Cabin on a Trout Creek | Cohutta Wilderness - Cabins for Rent in Ellijay, Georgia, United States - Airbnb
Book on Airbnb →
Townward
Townward began with a simple conviction: a place becomes more valuable when it becomes more fully itself. The towns worth visiting, and worth investing in, are the ones that understand their own character and have the confidence to build from it. Our work sits where community identity, tourism, hospitality, entrepreneurship, and real estate meet, because in our experience the strongest places need all of those disciplines pulling in the same direction.
Learn more →SCENES FROM THE FIELD
Man fully alive is the Glory of God. I try my best to capture the sophaic and aliveness of creation in the photos of my adventures.
More at @javissworld