How to become part of the mountains and it’s people Last year I was living a comfy life when one day my love Lisa noticed a bump in my neck, hidden under my beard. It was a golf ball sized tumor. Luckily benign, but It had to be surgically removed. So I found myself four days in the hospital. It made me think about life, about my life. Then I read the following sentence in Myra’s latest book, about her amazing solo journey in Norway: “Everyone who has the opportunity, should make a long wilderness journey sometime in their lifetime. …

Unlock the power of nature to fulfill your dreams Tim Voors is author of The Great Alone, about his epic journey on the Pacific Crest Trail. One day, flipping through a magazine, I stumbled upon an interview with Tim Voors, Art Director, writer, father and long distance hiker. He tells about his epic journey on the Pacific Crest Trail, walking through stunning wilderness from Mexico to Canada. I was mesmerized, it touched a string deep inside me. Tim encourages people with a sleeping adventurous spirit, to step out of their daily routines. To hike in nature in an unfamiliar location, …

I love this map because it shows the elevation of the path on the left border of the image. The trail truly goes over the crest, the ridge, of mountain ranges created by tectonic plates colliding. The same process which caused the great San Francisco earth quakes. That makes me feel small and realize we’re part of something bigger. The map underneath shows a more clear overview of the trail. Also amazing to see how large the state California is. To cross the state from the border of Mexico is a 2723 kilometres hike. Only then I’ll reach the next …

Of all trails on this planet, why the Pacific Crest Trail? Well, follow me back to when I was fourteen years old. I was living a happy life in my home town Nijmegen. With my parents and sister we had a cozy family. I loved wild swimming, going around with my friends. But then one day… My father announced we were going to the United States for a year, for his work. Berkeley, California was soon to be our new home. Now, if you know the Bay area, San Francisco and the Sunshine state, you know this a superb region. …

Or you could say: your context shapes you… My assignment for Art in highschool was: make paintings with as theme ‘A hiker is part of the landscape’. This made me ponder: is our identity and how we look, shaped by our surroundings? Or is it the other way around: do we choose the context which matches our personality and interests? The high school paintings I made, play with the idea how we mirror our contexts. Not knowing I was soon to be part of a process, shaping me in an urban animal. Luckily, this process can be reversed 🙂 …. …

Have you ever been in between two life-stages and felt lost? Past a threshold but not yet arrived, in the corridor from the old to the new? The kind of feeling you can also get in an unknown airport, an empty parking lot, a windy train station or an empty hall of a hospital? You’re are not alone. ‘Liminality’ causes this feeling. Liminality originates from the Latin word līmen, meaning a threshold. In anthropology, liminality stands for the disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of a ‘rite of passage’. Researching why people go on ultra long wilderness hikes, I …

(My friends mostly call me Pepe (PP) in stead of Peter Paul 🙂 When I was young, I loved animals and played in nature whenever I got the chance. Swimming in clear blue lakes and watching the shiny fish made me super happy. But when thousands of dying fish surfaced in the river of my hometown, due to chemical spills, it broke my heart. That’s why I decided to study behavioral psychology, years later. Because I believe: “If humans are the problem, they are also the solution”, For many years, I worked as consultant. But there was something wrong. The …

For me, this image shows a metaphor for what nature and stepping outside your routines can do. Besides, the image gives me a pleasant feeling when I look at it. It’s somehow soothing, just as being in nature is. The image also tells me I need to feed the process, to nurture my brain… or is that my alter ego taking a leak? 😉 Just, kidding.(That’s what sprang to my mind when I first saw a small thumbnail of the logo, see below). But it’s true: all things you value, need attention to grow. That’s why I embark on a …