I’m not exactly an outdoorsy person. I’m no stranger to a long walk – a mountain hike, even – but I’ve never been the type to go skiing or do any kind of extreme sport.
Meeting the Gen Z stereotype, even a club night is a bit much for me at the grand old age of 26 – sitting in bed with a book, cup of tea, a great episode (or six) of reality TV, and some sort of craft is more my vibe.
Over the last year, though, I’ve been on a real kick to shake up my routine. Having now worked for not even a tenth of the time I need to before claiming my state pension, the days all seem to flow into one, and the dull city grey feels like it’s cemented itself in my heart. TL;DR: I need to try something new, and luckily I hear that’s just the ticket for slowing things down.
OK, so I’m not about to jump out of a plane or start doing cold plunges every weekend just to feel something, but I have started making a real concerted effort to say ‘yes’ to things I wouldn’t have previously. So, when I received an invite to attend Camp Wildfire (which sells itself as ‘a summer camp for adults’) with three of my closest – and more adventurous – friends, I was in.
Camp Wildfire’s website describes itself as an ‘adventure by day, party by night’ kind of place and nothing could be more accurate. By day, the camp – which we discovered is more like a festival – offers 100 activities to enrol in: everything from cyanotype art, to axe-throwing, ziplining, Filipino stick fighting, and archery.
But by night, the camp transforms into a party among the trees of a magical heritage pine forest near Sevenoaks.
Before arriving at camp, guests are prompted to do a quiz that determines whether you’re a badger, fox, squirrel, or hawk, which seemed pretty innocuous on paper. When we pulled up to the campsite, it became clear we were entirely underdressed. Everywhere we looked, adults (all of which were older than us) were parading between the trees in fox tails, ears, and summer camp-style uniforms.
Immediately, I was intoxicated by the live-and-let-loose spirit of the place. And soon by something else, because within hours of arriving on Friday night we were astronomically twatted.
Never mind that we were in the middle of the woods with a bunch of strangers, we felt safe enough amongst our fellow campers to let loose to a playlist of noughties chart-toppers. So much so that we thought it would be a good idea to Uber Eats ourselves a McDonald’s to the middle of nowhere at 4am after all the food stalls had shut down (don’t ask how much delivery cost).
After touching some grass, the rest of the weekend gave way to an undeniably silly sentiment. Luckily for our hangovers, the food at the camp was all delicious, and did enough to cure us so we could take part in the daytime activities. Highlights included an Afrobeats dance class, which none of us had ever done before but left us repeating our routine the entire weekend.
As well as more relaxing activities like yoga, a sound bath, and nipple tassel making (shout out to Cherry for teaching us how to swing and swang like a burlesque dancer), we also snuck in a kickboxing class. Two of us even did a 200 metre zipline, something I never thought I’d do but managed to talk myself into with a lot of gentle yet firm encouragement from the instructors.
I will say, there was truly something for everyone, whether you want to spend the weekend enjoying the scenery, making flower headdresses, and belting Disney songs at the top of your lungs, or learning self defense, sword fighting or engaging in an archery battle.
There was something therapeutic about watching our fellow camp-goers drop into that same sense of adventure, too: groups of people clustered together to fight with sticks, encourage each other to jump from a great height onto a big black bean bag or to rappel off a climbing wall after getting wobbly at the top.
Even though we didn’t feel like going crazy the second night (for obvious reasons) we still had just as much of an electric time. There was plenty of entertainment from the likes of the Dirty Brasstards, a brass band that played covers of pop favourites, which was just one of over 80 other live bands, comedians and DJs performing. Later, we found ourselves building sandcastles in the petanque pit (as you do!) and making s’mores around a campfire.
We all left the weekend with a renewed sense of optimism about humanity and a totally fresh spirit for adventure.
Ironically, we could see the Shard sticking out from the London skyline from outside our tent. The view was enough to put into perspective that work is, at the end of the day, just work – and there’s more than a lot to be said for getting out of bed, turning off your phone, and tapping into your childhood spirit in nature with your best friends.
Camp Wildfire runs two camps per year. Tickets start from £95 for a day ticket or £295 for a weekend ticket.
