Embracing Comfort & Spontaneity to Break Free from Routine

My brain racing to a never-ending list of to-dos. The farm duties. The film production work. The fractious conservation efforts happening in my backyard. The fifty-miler I wanted to run. I hadn’t even set my feet on the floor before my intrusive thoughts threatened to take over.

Four deep breaths in. Four deep breaths out. 

Today was not a day for to-dos. 

Today, Johnny and I would set off on an RV camping adventure in Oregon. This week would be the culmination of months of planning, all for the sake of unplugging. But we weren’t just going to visit beautiful places: this time away from home would be an opportunity to see a place healing from wildfire and experience a rural landscape undergoing destination stewardship. In short: we’d get to lean into everything I stand for as a storyteller and climate justice advocate. 

Science tells us that time in nature heals. "People who are exposed to natural scenes aren't just happier or more comfortable; the very building blocks of their physiological well-being also respond positively," writes Adam Alter in The Atlantic. Maybe more importantly, unplugging from our everyday lives can help reduce the seven hours of screen time that the average American spends online.

Cue our time outside, exploring the fire recovery effort in the Umpqua National Forest led by the National Forest Foundation with the support of THOR Industries.

This work intersects reforestation with sustainable recreation principles: from rebuilding the campground at Diamond Lake to drone seeding the forest fire burn scar below Mt. Thielsen, this majestic landscape transported us back in time. As we settled into our 2021 Jayco Melbourne Class C RV that first day—I realized—the years I’d spent living the vanlife as a digital nomad, adventure seeker, and scrappy entrepreneur had prepared me just for this moment.

Years ago, I realized that outdoor media had drawn me a mental map illustrating the two predominant ways people go outside: I was taught to frame my experiences as either big, adrenaline-seeking missions, or calm, low-commitment moments.

But years of rock climbing, trail running, and splitboarding across the Americas had taught me something different. There was so much more to my experiences in nature than this binary way of being.

Time outside could help me heal relationships, connect with kin, and grow as a person. Relationships that need healing can be with yourself or other folks, or even with the land. 

Connecting with kin entails digging deep into that which binds us together. And growing? Well, growth always tickles the edge of discomfort, that ten percent of “outside my comfort zone” that pushes me to try new things and explore new places.

That first day we arrived, I remember walking out to the shoreline of our campsite. As I sat down to take in all the beautiful forest surrounding me, my mind ran away with the mountains we’d climb in the short week we were here, the miles of trails I’d run. But as I made dinner with Johnny later over the fire ring, or watercolored the next morning, I asked myself: Wouldn’t enjoying this short time we were here, rooting into our temporary home, give me the respite I needed? Was proverbially burning the candle at both ends going to give me the recharge I so desperately craved?

Regardless of what you need for your time out(side), you’ll have to put the guardrails in place to make it all happen. Whether that means blocking off the time on your calendar, ghosting PTA meetings, or just setting your out-of-office email, you’ll need to figure out the best way for you to create the mental and emotional space to pursue your personal needs. I know this is a radical idea, but hear me out.

If you have a real, actual plan on where you’ll camp, the likelihood that you’ll follow through with this plan will skyrocket. Get inspired by browsing different campsites (and ways to see their reviews!) here, on the THOR blog.

Second, decide who needs to be along for this adventure to make it what it needs to be. Is this a friends-only trip, a couples’ getaway, family time, or a solo campout? Company plays a huge role in the way that your time on vacation will be allocated, so put some thought into the space you’re creating by considering all those who would be involved. 

How will you travel? Now that you have a general idea of how you want to spend your time, where you’ll go, and who will be along for the adventure, it’s time to bring your dream to life. To immerse yourself in nature in a camping experience, you need to decide: would a tent adventure or RV adventure best serve the goals of your trip?

For Johnny and me, this trip to Diamond Lake was about enjoying the maximum available time with the minimum applicable effort. Certainly, we’ve spent many, many days in tents together.  In fact, when we first met rock climbing in Argentina, we were both living in tents! 

Tent camping has its benefits: being able to go to spaces vehicles can’t access and giving your adventure a more rustic vibe (we love a good tent camping experience). Yet one of its biggest drawbacks—the time and effort to pull the adventure together—meant that this time around (and on the heels of a few hectic months) we wanted to sample a slower-paced adventure with fewer moving parts. 

Enter RV camping! Because we’d never been RV camping before, we wanted to try a small Class C diesel RV instead of a larger one (which felt a lot more committing). We found the Jayco Melbourne we’d rent on Outdoorsy, an RV rental website and marketplace. Other options we found included campervans, travel trailers, Class B RVs, and motorhomes. 

Pro Tip: This guide from THOR gave us a helpful orientation to get started.

What I loved about our small RV wasn’t just that all our belongings were self-contained, that inside spaces like our kitchen or living room remained bug-free because they were indoors, or the sheer convenience at having an entire home lakeshore at Diamond Lake.

Choosing an RV spot like the one we found at Diamond Lake campground meant we were within easy reach of amenities at the Diamond Lake Resort. Paddleboard rentals and local trails, boat docks and a famous cinnamon roll all beckoned when we wanted to escape our little paradise. The lesson within the lesson of unplugging: Always leave room for the unexpected.

As we watched the alpenglow from a pontoon boat on Diamond Lake I mused: how strange and unexpected that self-care could look like this. For the first time in months, I felt calm as we bobbed across the small waves of the massive, tree-ringed lake. I’ve always associated time off with big solo runs in the mountains, a yoga class snuck between meetings, or a backcountry hut trip snowboarding with friends.

Yet the last several years have shown me, unequivocally, that slowing down allows for unexpected delights to enter my life. Allowing myself the comfort of an RV, the convenience of a campsite with a lodge nearby, and the proximity of so many ways to be outside that showed me something I’ll never forget.

This is the lesson, I think, of finding self-care in nature: remember that it can take many forms. Self-care morphs and shifts depending upon what you need, and where you are in life. But give yourself the space, the room to define this intention, and you might be surprised at what you find.