Journey 2

I want to live wilder

Shelter, fire, tools, wild food and crafts: practical skills that let you stay out longer, make more and give back, from the garden to further afield.

Books & Wilding activity guide collections

Practice Keys for this journey

Choose a way in.

Live wilder234 Wilding activity guides

Support nature64 Wilding activity guides

Map & navigate naturally32 Wilding activity guides

Search all the Wilding activity guides →

From the Wilding Rucksack

Books & Wilding activity guide collections

Wilding: Wisdom for a Wilder LifeThe heart of the Rucksack: why connecting with nature matters, the Wilding model, the 15 Practice Keys and the three journeys, with every Guide linked by QR code.The core book →

Everyday Wilder LivingWork with simple tools, make useful things, shelter and manage a permitted fire, so you can return to your sit spot, garden or wood all year round.Book + 43 Wilding activity guides →

Food from the FireFollow a meal from the invitation to the final thanks: choosing fuel, preparing firewood, managing cooking heat and recipes to share around the hearth.Book + 36 Wilding activity guides →

A Walk in the WildA walk with someone who knows the woods: plants and trees, their relationships and gifts, with safety, restraint and gratitude alongside any use.Book + 50 Wilding activity guides →

Wild CraftsRepeated making with natural materials: from a familiar object to closer study of material, shape and use, and a growing relationship with what you gather and grow.Book + 50 Wilding activity guides →

Supporting NatureBug hotels, bee homes, hedgehog highways, nesting boxes, ponds and citizen science.Book + 72 Wilding activity guides →

Venture FurtherPrepare for a weekend on the moor: planning, what to carry, navigation, shelter, water, hazards and leaving no trace, with care for the right to camp.Book + 43 Wilding activity guides →

Wild AncestorFire by friction and flint, cordage, baskets, clay, ember cooking, shelter, skins and invisibility: the skills of those who came before, ending in the ancestral challenge.Book + 59 Wilding activity guides →

Safety, and where the Wilding activity guides come from

Look after yourself and others. Outdoor activities carry real risks: fire, tools, water, weather, heights, plants, fungi, animals and getting lost. Every Wilding activity guide includes safety notes, but you are responsible for your own safety and for anyone in your care. Supervise children closely, get the landowner's permission, follow the Countryside Code, never eat anything you cannot identify with complete certainty, and only light fires where it is allowed and safe. If in doubt, leave it out.

With gratitude to the lineage. Wilding and its Practice Keys are inspired by the work of Jon Young and colleagues: the core routines of nature connection in the 8 Shields approach, also known as Coyote Mentoring, shared in Coyote's Guide to Connecting with Nature (Young, Haas & McGown). Many of the Wilding activity guides grew from those routines.

These ways of noticing and belonging are far older than any book. They grow from the knowledge of Indigenous and land-based peoples around the world, who have lived in close relationship with the land for thousands of years and have kept that knowledge alive, often in the face of great loss. Jon Young describes 8 Shields as built on patterns of nature connection he found in Indigenous cultures around the world, and on what his mentors taught him, including the teachings passed down through Tom Brown Jr. from Grandfather Stalking Wolf. Our own ancestors in these islands once knew the land in this way too.

I offer Wilding with deep respect and thanks to all of them. It does not claim or copy any culture's ceremonies or sacred practices. It is a UK way of carrying forward simple, shared human ways of paying attention, giving thanks and belonging to a place. — Jay