Kate created Bucket List Boston as a freshman in college at Boston University. It was her freshman fall and she found that she wanted to really get to know Boston — she had a yearning to explore the city.

Growing up in New York, she had thought NY was the one and only city, but moving to Boston for school piqued her interest in falling in love with another city. She began to take herself on little adventures to different neighborhoods and coffee shops, always stopping along the way to snap photos of her surroundings on her iPhone.

Before long, her phone storage had filled up with all these vignettes from her adventures, but she had nothing to do with the photos.

She took winter break to brainstorm how she could make use out of all her pictures. In her research, she came across an “innovative photographers’ community” called @igboston — a community of which you could apply to become a member. Kate applied using her personal instagram and was quickly rejected with the feedback that her page “didn’t have enough Boston.”

In defiance, and so that she could apply again, Kate created a page solely for her Boston content, and the idea for Bucket List Boston was conceived.

She poured through pages of the dictionary one night in January in her freshman dorm, now back for the next semester, in search of a word that began with “Bu” — an homage to her beloved Boston University — and stumbled upon the word “bucketlist” — it felt perfect, and because it was only 2016, the handle “bucket list Boston” was available. Kate later applied twice more to the IGBoston community and was rejected all three times.

This lit a fire in her to share with her own blossoming community her adventures and photos — and almost 10 years later, she has never stopped.