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If you’re an outdoor enthusiast, you enjoy a host of benefits from your active lifestyle. Getting outside helps you to exercise, boosts your immune system and works wonders on your mood.
However, if you always do the same activities, you’ll eventually grow bored. Here are five outside-the-box ideas for enjoying the outdoors that you can try on your next adventure.
1. Elevate Your Campsite
Sometimes, you crave nothing more than you, a sleeping roll and a starry sky. However, you might find the hard, cold ground too uncomfortable at times, and it can seem impossible to keep dirt and debris out of your tent.
Why not explore the wide world of glamping on your next excursion? Common sleeping structures include deluxe cabins and elevated yurts, although you can also find more unusual lodgings like Airstreams and treehouses. It’s amazing how far a little elevation goes toward keeping things tidier.
You have myriad options — you can find locations with Wi-Fi for working holidays or those that deliberately make you unplug. Some accommodations feature luxuries like showers, even hot tubs. You won’t have to worry about splashing your pits clean in an icy stream.
2. Test Your Physical Limits
Do you always take the path marked less challenging on your trail guide? While you don’t have to go full black diamond, why not try one that pushes you more the next time you explore the woods? If you are a runner, hilly hikes make the perfect cross-training activity as they work your hamstrings, necessary muscles for pulling tough climbs.
If you have the money to invest in equipment, rock climbing is a fabulous full-body workout. Don’t feel dismayed if your wallet only contains moths, though. Bouldering requires no ropes or carabiners, only a crash pad — like that free mattress you scored on a Craigslist curb alert.
You can also try activities like kayaking and mountain biking on for size before investing in equipment. Seek out outdoor equipment rental facilities to explore your options without shelling out a ton of cash before you find your new love.
3. Locate Hidden Treasure
Have you always hoped to stumble across a hidden treasure? Put your explorer skills to the test by getting into geocaching, an outdoor activity you can do nearly anywhere.
To participate in this pastime, you’ll need first to join a group with established caches around the area. Then, you’ll use the geocaching app or your GPS device to locate stashes near you.
Once you locate your treasure, you’ll need to leave it where it is so that the next person can enjoy their fun. First, snap plenty of selfies with your find to display your prowess on social media.
4. Learn How to Forage
Could you survive if every grocery and convenience store in America suddenly disappeared? Food abounds everywhere, even in urban locations, but if you don’t know what to look for, you could starve amid plenty.
Make like Scarlett O’Hara and declare that, with God as your witness, you will never go hungry again by learning how to forage. While you can learn this skill for recreational purposes, it comes in handy in a pinch, even if you only use your talent to round out a store-bought meal.
You can find tons of free resources online, but it benefits you to take a class or join a local group. Some highly poisonous plants resemble edible species, and you don’t want a case of mistaken identification to land you in the hospital or worse.
5. Explore New Geography
Even if you regularly get outdoors, doing the same routine proves problematic for several reasons. Covering the same route every day can lead to repetitive motion injuries, and the boredom can make you quit — meaning you lose all the benefits of getting moving outside.
If you run, walk or hike, vary your route several times a week. The variety staves off boredom and conditions like IT-band syndrome, resulting from traveling the same uneven surface. As a bonus, it also makes you less vulnerable to attack if you’re on the smaller side and frequently head out solo.
Do you love to travel and have the financial means to do so? If you have wanderlust, why not include all geographical regions of the United States or even the world on your bucket list? The American southwest’s rock formations can resemble the surface of Mars to those accustomed to seeing wooded forests or sweeping plains.
About The Author:
Oscar Collins is the managing editor at Modded, where he writes about cars, fitness, the outdoors and more. Check out @TModded for regular updates!