About Me

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“Hi, and welcome to my world..,

My name is Lucy (aka Solo Adventurer) and I am a hiker, backpacker and wild camper from Sheffield who is just finding my feet again after a long time away. I just want to say now, that I am no professional. I am a regular girl who enjoys outdoor activities and also writing about my experiences. The entries I make to this site and blog page are purely my own experiences and are written from a personal perspective.

Ever since childhood, I have always had a true passion for the great outdoors whether it be walking, camping or outdoor pursuits in general, right down to simple aspects such as nature and wildlife. I absolutely love it all and can never get enough of it!

There’s nothing better for me than discovering I have a small window of time to myself to go adventuring and exploring new places. I love the planning of them and the buildup almost as much as the actual event itself. It is the break from reality that makes it all the better. That feeling I get when I set out on a new walk always fills me with a sense of freedom and excitement that I have to admit, until my late 30s, I had never felt before. I guess I hadn’t realised just how much I had let slip away from my life.., how much had passed me by. It suddenly occurred to me that there was so much that I hadn’t seen or done… In fact, I’d hardly even touched the tip of the iceberg…

I had to find myself and start being me again. I decided that even if it was only every other weekend or even just once a month, I needed to make time for those activities that bring sparkle to your life and make us who we are.

I started to visit the Peak District National Park again in the summer of 2018. It seemed like an eternity since I had last visited there properly but it is in fact, almost local to me. What started out as short day walks, soon turned into longer weekend treks and the more I did it the better it became. I noticed that at nearly 40, I felt better than when I was in my 20s and could truly appreciate the many benefits which walking and beautiful scenery brings. It gives me a sense of enormous well-being and creates an outlet for any negative energy that may be present at any given time. I find that I can clear my head as it has a therapeutic element to it and I have gone home after many a walk with a more rational outlook than what I may have had that very morning.

Improving and maintaining good mental health has always been an important cause for me. In the past, this is an area where I have struggled a great deal, mostly because I had so much emotion built up inside of me and didn’t know what to do with it. I am only too grateful that there are these wonderful ways in which to release stress available to us.

I came to the conclusion quite quickly, that the great outdoors are severely underestimated. Living so close to the Peak District National Park has made me feel privileged to say the least and I intended to use it to my advantage. The benefits of walking in secluded locations have been worth their weight in gold for me over time, and has provided me with so much scope for improving my walks and building a wholesome and fulfilled life. The many people I have met along the way have inspired me to try new adventures, one perhaps that I might not have known about had I not met them.

And so it leaves me to say that my intentions for creating this personal blog are to share my adventures with like-minded people. Each blog will be based on a particular walk or adventure and will feature photographs, video footage, route maps and what I experience and learn as I explore new locations. Although I am not an expert in hiking and exploring, I do take advice from experts and other adventurers and I use this wisely to keep myself and others safe. If something doesn’t feel right I will not attempt it. For me, adventuring means stepping into the unknown but at the same time knowing and respecting our own individual capabilities.

I get asked a lot by different people what it is like to walk and wild camp on the moors as a solo female. That is a topic which I will look at in more detail at some stage and will feature on this site as an area of particular interest. There are certainly challenging aspects to it which I have had to face and overcome whilst on my journey of discovering myself again.

Finally, the world is a very big place people… Grab it with both hands and hold on to it for as long as you possibly can. I have learned that life is short and we never truly know what is round the next corner. Make the absolute most out of whatever you are passionate about as all too soon life has a way of creeping up on you. I think my biggest fear is one day realising that I’ve missed out. I still have a lot in me to give and I intend to put it to the best use…

Lucy Bailey

Solo Adventurer 23