1. I love the wilderness.
I’m not just talking about the occasional car camping outing. I’m talking about hiking, mountain biking, swimming, trail running, canoeing, fly fishing, backpacking, climbing, kayaking, stand-up paddleboarding, skiing… you name it. If it involves the outdoors, I’m down any day.
2. I’m obsessed with cabins.
Yes, actually, I do happen to have an entire Pinterest board dedicated to ideas for how I’m going to build my future cabin in the woods.
3. There’s something about having no cell service.
Of course, we all have jobs, we all have friends, and we all indefinitely pick up our cell phones and use them. But, there is something so intrinsically satisfying about going out of service, throwing your phone the other way, and experiencing what’s happening in front of you to the fullest.
4. I like the un-modernity of living off the land.
I am thankful beyond words for the lives that our ancestors have built for us today, and I think it would be really interesting to experience, even in the slightest, what it might have been like in years past (i.e. becoming independent of modern technology, living tens of miles away from the nearest road, depending on your own hands for food, etc.).
5. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love people, but…
Let’s face it. We all love a little quiet time in our special place in the woods safe from the hoards of tourists.
6. I’m all about respecting nature.
By the time you tear down all the trees for your three-story mansion that should be an HGTV dream home, pave your two-mile long driveway with grey cement, and live off of meat that was treated with hormones and raised in a slaughterhouse… I’m just saying that logically, it would probably be a bit more environmentally successful in the long run of planet earth to cut down two trees that you use for firewood, build a small, two room cabin, and live off of meat that you hunt yourself.
7. I’m a small town kinda girl.
I’ve never been a city person. To me, basically anything bigger than 15,000 or 20,000 people is a city (but 5,000 even seems big). Unlike it apparently does for some people, being alone in the wilderness, miles and miles from civilization, doesn't really freak me out. In fact, I love it, hence this article.
8. I already live smack dab in the middle of grizzly country.
Born and raised, home of where humans occupy bear habitat, not the other way around. When you’re surrounded by Forest Service on three sides and a National Park on another, civilization tends to stay on the low side of the human occupancy scale one to Beijing (most of the time). So, why not go deeper into bear country, and eliminate the ‘most of the time’?
9. Nature makes me HAPPY.
Last, but definitely not least, I couldn’t imagine my life without the outdoors.
