On the surface wildcamping ticks a lot of boxes for me.

It’s hiking and camping, both things I like separately, but it turns out it’s way more than that.

Getting out on my own, summiting a mountain and then hanging around long enough to see sunset and sunrise has been great for my mental health.

Otherwise I’d be sat at my desk typing away at something ridiculous.

How

The actual event that got me into wildcamping was a weekend in a friend’s brand new caravan. This thing was nicer than the last apartment I had lived in. It reminded me of camping as a child, but that always felt like “roughing it”, so it was nothing like that.

Everything was clean. We had the music on because there was power available. It felt wrong.

To get there I’d needed to travel coast to coast across the UK, from west to east, which meant buying a better bag to hold all my things. This involved looking at lots of bags online and some of those were meant for serious expeditions. Which made me realise it was possible to go camping by yourself.

I’d gone camping as a child, in the car, with loads of heavy things, so I thought you needed a car to go camping. Later I would go camping with friends at university, where we each carried part of a four man tent, so I thought you needed a group to go camping.

And yet here were bags that could carry all the things you needed to go camping by yourself.

What

My mind was blown. I needed to have a go.

So I started where most of us do when getting into a new hobby and went on YouTube. There’s always one person into that weird thing you just found out exists. Maybe I could find out more about this on there.

And I did. There were loads of videos, from all around the world. Even better than that, there were people from the UK who were sharing their opinions on gear and whether or not they were suitable for the weather we get over here.

When

A few months later and I had amassed enough gear to do it. I would head out into the wilderness and survive for the entire night. I probably wouldn’t die and I really hoped I wouldn’t need to call Mountain Rescue.

So on the 29th of October, 2022, I headed out to an area I had walked in just a week before. I would be somewhere somewhat familiar but wild enough for it to still be exciting.

I had read that it was easier to fall asleep in your tent if you were tired, so my plan was to tire myself out during the day so that falling asleep in the wild would be easier.

After walking all day, up and over two separate hills, one with a burger named after it in the local pub, I found a suitable pitch.

Half an hour of messing around with my tent in the wind and it was up and I could get in and lie down.

And lying down there in that tent was when it hit me.

“Why did I do this?”

It had been raining all day. My fingers were wrinkly from the moisture. My waterproof trousers had slipped down at some point and my trousers had gotten wet from the rain. My underwear was soaked.

My bum was cold. Very cold.

And all I had was a tent and all the things I’d carried with me. None of which were a towel.

I wasn’t very happy.

But in the morning?

Why

I had survived.

I had done it!

I’d spent years of my life inside, sat at a desk working on a computer, sometimes two. I genuinely didn’t know if I had it in me to make it through the night.

Which would probably be a very important step in surviving the zombie apocalypse, because that’s what I was actually interested in. Improving my fitness, learning new skills, getting outside. None of it mattered unless there was a good reason I was doing any of it.

And that reason was to improve my chances of surviving the undead.

What’s yours?