A guest blog by Bel Jackson Prow, a travel writer and researcher with a passion for adventure and nature connection.

I lay in the tent in the corner of a farmer’s field, hoof-stomped clay digging into my back. My heart pounded as the chorus of high-pitched badger screams drowned out my thoughts. I wondered if my dehydrated ration packs would be mauled in the night. Then it hit me; I had made a potentially fatal error. I hadn’t checked the field for cows.

I rose the next day with the sun and an unusual sense of completeness. I felt free. Under the twittering and chirping of the June dawn chorus, I set the stove alight to make a morning brew to toast my survival. My first night of solo wild camping was a success; all I had to do was ponder why I felt so good.

Some months later, I interviewed solo wild campers for a research project on microadventures. This group is a secret army of campers who regularly leave their comfortable homes to sleep out under the trees and amongst the hills of the U.K. Their desire to lie beneath the stars is not for Instagram or any other social media but to experience something more authentic.

This community of humble adventurers taught me many things; firstly, I wasn’t alone with my fears of sleeping out solo. Each person had found their first campout daunting, but they remained until the morning despite their fears. On waking, they also reported that something magical had happened.

‘When you experience nature this closely, in a different way to just looking at it, it completely changes your perspective.’ I was told, ‘It makes me feel alive.’

As they lay, often fearfully under the night sky, listening to the owl call and the rustling in the undergrowth, they had left behind their busy, often stressful lives and let nature in. That magic, that feeling of being fully alive, is us connecting to nature.

To connect with nature, we need to have a purpose; we need to involve all our senses in the experience; wild camping and bivvying out have all these elements making it a perfect way to connect to nature. In addition, we know that nature hugely benefits both our physical and mental health, so not only do these experiences improve our well-being, but the connection to nature has been proven to increase our desire to protect nature. So, connecting with nature makes us better advocates for the environment and the places we camp.

Reduction of risk and the management of adventure experience means that, in many ways, we are commercialising and commodifying the adventure space; we are applying human-constructed laws on wild places. However, microadventure, defined as an adventure that is close to home, cheap, simple, short, and effective, still captures the essence of big adventures. There is still the challenge, the fun, the escapism, and the learning experiences, but microadventures can address the issues around social inequality, access to green spaces, the cost of adventure and the decarbonisation of travel. Such adventures are short, accessible, sustainable experiences in wild places; they allow us to live adventurously.

The greater the connection, the more meaningful the experience; such experiences aren’t about shiny new tents or super fast stoves; they are about being exposed to the elements. So whether consciously or not, this form of adventure is a choice to escape to something more simple, it isn’t tourism, and it isn’t a trend, but it is, in many ways, a social movement.

Wild camping, as a form of microadventure, may not yet have the power to change the world, but it can connect humans back to the nature we are part of, and that connection is the first step to change.

Bel Jackson Prow is a travel writer and researcher with a passion for adventure and nature connection.

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