Follow Sarah D. Tiedemann on her journey from being a nervous wreck to walking cliffside along Kauai’s most perilous trail, snowmobiling through herds of buffalo in America’s oldest national park, and hiking to a windswept summit in the dead of winter. Troubled by anxiety from an early age, Sarah knows just how difficult it can be to step outside your comfort zone.
Do you want to travel to places you’ve only dreamt of? Do you want to navigate trails in breathtaking locations? Do you want to try camping, canoeing, zip lining, or other outdoor adventures? Do you want to do it all and not be as scared?
If you’re longing for a change of scenery but don’t know where to start, Sarah will show even the most apprehensive travelers how to get outside.
This is your book of courage. Does driving long distance to places unknown make you nervous? Have you never set foot in the woods, but always wondered what it would be like? Do creepy, crawly things or wild animals scare the living daylights out of you? Perhaps you’ve been hiking before, but that 3,000 foot elevation gain always seemed like too much. Well, Sarah Teidemann has suggestions for coping with all of those fears and more. She described her childhood as “inherent anxiety coupled with the [sketchy] neighborhood and subsequent sheltered upbringing,” all of which “led to her being a fearful person.” But she learned to be brave.
Her point being, that getting out of your comfort zone can lead to new and exciting adventures that you never knew you would enjoy. Why deprive yourself of such wonderful experiences? Like Sarah’s decision to climb a mountaintop
You may ask, but why do I want to leave my comfortable past behind? I’ve been getting along perfectly fine without stretching my boundaries. Sarah argues that if we never try anything new we risk becoming complacent
Being out and about in Nature also allows us to get out of our cocoons. Perhaps you have always been a loner, or are shy around other people. My observation over the years has been that a trail through the woods naturally breaks down barriers between hikers. It’s as though we have known that person we happen upon for years. There is a familiarity bred from the shared experience.
This book is largely about overcoming fear, of talking yourself through the mostly irrational thoughts you may have about being outdoors. Perhaps your fear is simply about traveling away from home. Maybe wildlife and snakes and poison ivy scare you so you stay away. The thought of encountering other unknown humans out in the middle of nowhere scares many. What if they’re a serial killer? As mentioned above, it is far more likely the opposite is true.
Sarah also talks about what to do in unexpected weather, how to cope with being out in the woods after dark when every single sound makes you scream, “What’s that?” As she says, “If you know anything about sleeping in the woods, you know that the sound of a squirrel or a raccoon can sound like a 400 pound bear!” She also covers how the wilderness is different for women. It is physically more demanding, leading sometimes to mental paranoia.