I have a wanderer streak in me, itchy feet, you might say. I get irritable if I haven’t been somewhere different and explored, if too many days are spent in the same place, with the same routines, the same roads… and the same boring, congested commute (the blummin A5!) I’ve learnt that this has a direct effect on my mindset and mood, and it creeps in without me noticing. When I finally notice, usually when it’s too late, I need to move and move quick.
I feel at my calmest when I’m moving, and that’s not the same as simply going somewhere. I’d rather take a twenty minute detour than sit in standstill traffic for ten; the former feels more like living, the latter like wasting life behind a steering wheel. I like flying, but I hate queuing, and that seems to account for about fifty percent of modern air travel. (I’ve ranted about that elsewhere if you fancy it: timbermane.co.uk/airports-then-vs-now-a-love-letter-and-a-rant-but-mostly-a-rant)
Some people reset with a weekend on the sofa watching telly, fair play, but not me. I reset by going on what my daughter calls “A Venture”. That’s adventure for those who don’t speak toddler. Preferably into the fells. The Lake District is my pressure valve; the place I head when life feels too loud. I like roaming from valley to valley, hopping between Youth Hostels, following a path simply because it leads to the top! Once I’m at the top, I let the landscape remind me that the world is much bigger than my to-do list and that somebody else’s agenda really isn’t that important.
I’ve recently finished reading Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey, a cracking book if you’re that way inclined. In it he talks about living for long stretches in a big silver Airstream caravan, rolling into filming locations and staying put, parking up in remote places between jobs, chasing good surf in summer and escaping into wild places to think, write and reset. He loved the idea that everything he owned came with him, no mansion anchoring him, no permanent postcode defining him. If something felt off… he could just up sticks and leave.
Reading that didn’t make me want to become a Hollywood actor, no chance.., But it did make me want a lighter life. McConaughey frames wandering not as running away, but as stepping far enough from routine to hear yourself think again. That idea resonated with me. It helped me confirm that I need movement and variety to stay sane, and that wandering, for me, is actually a form of maintenance. A way of listening to what’s going on in your own head.
I’m not about to hitch up to a shiny silver caravan and disappear. I’ve got a family, a business and people who rely on me. Not to mention I hate caravans. They should be banned, in my opinion, for clogging up tight country lanes in beautiful parts of the world. I’m not convinced people even use them properly either. My wife’s dad has one that lives in the same place all year… which slightly defeats the point, doesn’t it? Surely the clue’s in the name. Anyway, I digress.
The philosophy still speaks to me. The urge to keep life mobile in small, deliberate doses. To walk where there’s no phone signal. To let the weather, the daylight and the landscape rather than schedules dictate the day. And lately that’s made me curious about taking things a step further, beyond hostels and hotels, into the world of wild camping, carrying everything I need on my back and seeing just how far I can roam before civilisation catches up with me again.
It’s made me realise that the pull I feel toward the fells isn’t some midlife crisis. It’s part of how I stay grounded, curious and quietly ambitious for the years still to come.
For now, the adventures must be done in small doses. A few days here, a long weekend there, phone on airplane mode rather than permanently “off-grid”. I still crave the silence, no notifications, no phone calls and no expectations just my own thoughts for company. I can’t fully unplug yet; life doesn’t quite allow for that at the moment. But I like knowing the idea is there and waiting. That one day the wandering might stretch a little further, the maps a little wider, and maybe it can be something I can share, not as an escape from family life, but as an extension of it. I like the thought of bringing the family along, raising little wanderers who think getting lost is part of the plan and that being unreachable now and then is one of life’s great luxuries… All part of a huge “VENTURE!!”
Happy Wandering!
TM
