DEAR READER, don’t you want to ‘live the dream’? Wouldn’t it be nice to spend your days roaming the hills and heading home to wherever you lay your waterproof hat?
Unless you have a sizeable trust fund, that mountain ambition doesn’t always feel within reach. The trials and tribulations of real life and grown-up responsibilities mean most of us simply don’t have the flexibility to answer every call of the wild. Juggling jobs and families with a sense of adventure can feel exhausting.
So, how can you hike more, worry less? One approach is to make the outdoors a part of your work. Drastic and sudden lifestyle changes aren't always needed - by taking simple steps in the right direction, like setting up a social media profile, or starting a novel hiking group, you could find yourself within reach of a lifestyle more orientated towards the summits than the city grind.
Despite the illusions of social media, there are no magic formulas, but in this feature we ask eight people who have transformed their lives – in big and small ways – how they managed to make a life where the hills come first. Is it as enviable as it seems? You decide!
The mountain postie
Laurie Laurie, postal worker, Lake District
Laura Laurie had been a postie where she grew up in Essex for just a few months when she requested a transfer to the Lake District. A “muck-up over annual leave” left her with a week off. So, she journeyed to Lakeland for her first big solo adventure. Upon returning to work Laura asked for a transfer. Her boss told her she’d be lucky: “They take years to come through.” A week later, a job in Windermere opened up, and Laura made the move to Lakeland alone and started her rounds of Langdale.
But it wasn’t an uprooting. In the Lakes, she says, she found a buzzing community of instant friends. It quickly felt like home. Does she miss Essex? “Not a chance,” she laughs, adding she never felt like she fit in. Laura, now 28, grew up hiking with her dad and heading north for holidays to the Peak, Eryri and Highlands with family and friends. The outdoors has always been a social space for her: the best
