My name is Tom Smallwood and here you will find my posts and those of guests, on the positive effects of time spent outdoors.
Awesome Maps offer a huge number of decorative maps such as the Hiking Map, Bucket List Map or the Climbing Map and they have been kind enough to offer one as a giveaway to readers of this blog…
Read MoreThe time has come to announce the winners of the The Armchair Mountaineer 2017 Writing Competition.
Once again a huge thank you to everybody who took part. It is the first competition to have been run on the pages of this site and I think it was a great success. I sincerely hope there will be many more!
The competition has been judged by Sarah Lister, Alex Roddie, Chris Townsend and me. Each of us cast our votes blind. In fact there were some very differing opinions which really goes to show there wasn’t much between the top few!
Read MoreWhen I set up the writing competition I was thinking very much about my own story; how I have spent more time outdoors in the last year than in the previous 10 and how nature as been both a catalyst and a coping mechanism when re-designing my life...
Read MoreThis is the kind of Ice Lolly I eat!
We have loads of goodies to give away, including a tent from Coleman, A year of Trail Magazine, Wildlife Trusts goodie bag, Inspirational Signed Books, from Alex Staniforth, Cathy O'Dowd, Ash Dykes, Chris Townsend and a £250 cash prize to be split between the winner and an Environmental Charity. Sweet!
The theme of the competition is: Wilderness & Wellbeing - How has an adventure or an experience in nature helped to change your life? And it doesn't have to be a world first, it just needs to be personal and important to you. I have changed the way I live my life to ensure I spend more time doing stuff in the outdoors precisely because it increases my happiness, and I have managed to do this without losing all my fingers and having to drink my own urine. Go figure!
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