I understand you; I have had the same desire too, many times. But if I am here today, it is to tell you that running away never fixes anything. Instead, the steps to take are:
- Become aware of how you feel
- Seek change (preferably in the medium to long term)
- Minimize the damage
With this, I would like you to reflect on why you feel so bad. Is it work? Your family situation? Or perhaps more general relationship problems?
In any case, what I advise you to do is to go into the woods. Nothing is simpler. Find a quiet place and go there. Don’t aim for the amusement park or the grand hotel with a spa and free drinks; the secret is to go to places that are non-touristy, quiet, and immersed in greenery.
As I was telling you, I have done it many times: I dropped everything and went to the wildest nature I could find in Europe. I often did it in an extreme way, without thinking too much about it, which is why I want to write this article: I want to advise those who have the same urge to get away from a situation they don’t like to do it with the right awareness.
My choices to go away, whether for short or long periods, were driven mainly by states of anxiety that caused me such malaise it took my breath away. After days spent feeling out of place, incompetent, and increasingly apathetic towards the places and people I frequented, the only wise choice seemed to be making a clean break and leaving. But no—or rather, today I say no. With the experience I’ve gained, I know I would have done better to “center myself” and leave with a different mindset. Having said that, I don’t regret any of those hastily decided trips to random places, but if I think about the state of mind with which I started them, often in tears, I would have done something else: I would have planned everything thoroughly!
Proceed Step by Step
The fact that you love spontaneity, in travel as in ordinary life, doesn’t mean you have to leave everything to chance. You can travel without a precise destination but remain in full control of yourself and the territory. So, my advice is to become aware of how you feel and identify a trip that can change the sense of malaise in which you feel immersed.
Everyone has their preferred mode. Some find that trekking or walking is an opportunity to slow down, reconnect with nature, and lower stress levels. Some prefer a road trip, covering long distances by train or car. Others, like me, prefer to travel by bicycle. Pedaling allows you to see the world at the right speed to reach distant countries, savoring everything you experience without staying too long and becoming imprisoned by it. Perhaps the difference with a road trip is precisely this: when you reach a city, you need to stop to recover from the fast movement you’ve made. “The stop” is an important moment for the traveler; it allows them to put their feet firmly on the ground, look at the faces of the locals, eat, breathe, and refuel if traveling by car.
With a bicycle, it’s a bit different. When I arrive in a city or any other resting place, I stop only as long as necessary to grab a coffee, and possibly buy something to eat. I can’t stay longer because I don’t really want to stop my movement; I feel driven by this force that invites me to keep going. In stillness, existential questions would return, and my head would fill with “things to do” that are not fundamental at all but would weigh my mind down again. Movement by bicycle, on the other hand, is a constant reminder to live in the present—to be there, one pedal stroke after another, in that place and in that moment where you find yourself. I have discovered that the best way to put this into practice is precisely to stay in motion.
Movement by bicycle, when powered exclusively by our legs and lungs, activates a perfect virtuous circle between neuroscience and biomechanics. We are not just moving a mechanical vehicle through space: we are literally changing the chemistry of our brain through muscular effort. The bicycle, in fact, represents a tool of perfect integration with the human body. Let’s look on a scientific level at what pedaling entails for breathing and, therefore, for the human body.
The Cyclist’s Breath: The Anti-Anxiety Biochemical Switch
In a state of daily anxiety or under stress, breathing unconsciously becomes short, shallow, and chest-focused. This signals an imminent danger to the brain, keeping cortisol high. The bicycle completely reverses this dynamic.
- Rhythm Synchronization (Entrainment): When you pedal, especially uphill or at a steady pace, a natural synchronization is created between your pedaling frequency and your respiratory rhythm. The body abandons the broken breaths of anxiety and adopts a rhythmic and deep pattern. This regular rhythm acts on the vagus nerve, activating the parasympathetic system which slows the heartbeat and induces biological calm.
- Forced Diaphragmatic Ventilation: Physical effort requires more oxygen. You are forced to use your diaphragm, filling the lower part of the lungs. Deep diaphragmatic breathing increases the expulsion of accumulated carbon dioxide and stimulates the pulmonary receptors that send relaxation signals to the cerebral cortex.
- CO₂ Washout and Mental Clarity: Controlled hyperventilation resulting from exertion clears the blood of excess acidity induced by emotional stress. More oxygen reaches the frontal lobe, improving decision-making clarity and turning off the “loop” of negative thoughts (rumination).
Having said this, I could tell you about my favorite cycling destinations, but it would take too many characters, and I prefer to tell you about it in another post. For now, let it suffice to know that with a bicycle you can reach very distant places. Imagine riding an average of 80km a day (very doable once you get into the rhythm of the trip) and how many places you would cross in those kilometers. Imagine the small towns where no one ever stops, the forgotten narrow roads that climb the hills respecting their morphology, the inhabitants who can’t wait to talk to you after seeing you appear out of nowhere with a bicycle loaded with things to eat, sleep, wash, and survive—so vulnerable and open to human contact.
How to Start?
Before proceeding with the most difficult trips—those in which you cross entire nations and which involve camping and bivouacs in woods and improvised places—we must start from the basics. I didn’t do it; I immediately went looking for that adrenaline of being alone, far from everything and everyone, and I got burned. That is why I advise you to start with a first step that will bring you closer to the world of being in unspoiled nature, even if it isn’t truly wild.
Camping
I’ll start by saying that there are various types of camping. Avoid the overcrowded ones, often close to the sea, chosen by families who arrive with large campers and wagons of food. They are the same ones that welcome teenagers ready to turn every summer night into a party with music and alcohol. Definitely not the peace you are looking for. So pay attention! Look closely at the photos of the place, the reviews, and the location.
Usually, the smaller campsites, located in less touristy places, closer to the mountains than to the sea (though not necessarily), are the ones that best provide an all-encompassing immersion in the most genuine nature. I will give you an example of a place that is just an hour from Rome, in the province of Rieti, at 700 meters above sea level and off the classic tourist routes. It’s called Pianeta Verde, and the couple who created it—and who still manages it—lives according to the values I myself believe in: reconnection with nature, listening to the silence, healthy food, and wildness. This last point is difficult to explain in a few lines; maybe I’ll dedicate an article to it, because wildness is a state of mind (for all living beings, animate and inanimate) that find within themselves a deep bond with unspoiled “natural things.”
But what exactly is Pianeta Verde? It is an ecological retreat with a delicious restaurant where you eat products from the garden and many good things, exclusively plant-based. It is also a place where you can camp. The tents, some already set up, are immersed in the woods (and not ordered in numbered pitches like in the other campsites I advise against). But there is also much more: at Pianeta Verde you can take walks in the woods (forest bathing), do yoga in the Pagoda or in the middle of nature, and attend workshops and festivals that span all seasons.
The interesting thing for you is that you don’t have to wait for a particular event. You can simply go for a weekend and sleep in a tent, allowing you to regenerate and have a camping experience under the stars but still in a “safe” place.
We did it. A camping tent was enough for us, and we slept under the stars, immersed in nature in a way we could only dream of the day before. We were coming from Rome, in fact, from which Pianeta Verde is just over an hour’s drive. Once we arrived, Aurora and Michele, the founders of Pianeta Verde, welcomed us with open arms, offering us everything we needed to completely disconnect from the urban spaces where our minds had become stuck.
If you are not far from Rome, I recommend trying the experience at Pianeta Verde; you can see the festivals they hold during the year through this link.
For Silence Magazine readers, there is a 5% discount on all bookings made for the festivals organized by Pianeta Verde and viewable on this page. You just need to provide the code: SILENCE during booking.
But why is it so important to spend a night outdoors in a tent? If I haven’t convinced you up to this point, this scientific evaluation will.
The Chemistry of Stress: Nervous System Reset
Sleeping in a tent is not just “relaxing” in an abstract sense; it acts on precise biological switches.
- The Collapse of Cortisol: Studies on forest therapy (inspired by the Japanese concept of Shinrin-yoku) show that immersion in the woods drastically reduces cortisol (the stress hormone) levels in the blood. Even a single night reduces the activity of the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) in favor of the parasympathetic one (rest and digest). Your heart rate regularizes and blood pressure drops.
- Circadian Rhythm (Biological Clock) Reset: This is one of the most powerful effects studied by chronobiologists (like Prof. Kenneth Wright at the University of Colorado Boulder). A couple of days (or even just a weekend) exposed exclusively to natural sunlight and total nocturnal darkness are enough to wipe out sleep deficits. In a tent, melatonin (the sleep hormone) production is unlocked, beginning to flow up to two hours earlier than when we are at home under artificial lights and blue screens. You fall asleep earlier and wake up naturally with the dawn light, feeling profoundly regenerated.
- The “Music” of the Woods as an Anxiolytic: The wind through the leaves, the flowing water, or the chirping of birds are not just pleasant: they are sound fractals. The human brain recognizes these natural sounds as “safe” on an evolutionary level, allowing the amygdala (the brain’s fear and alert control center) to completely deactivate—something that almost never happens in the city due to background acoustic micro-pollution.
Conclusions
I hope that reading this article has made you want to camp, or at least spend some time in that silent nature which is increasingly difficult to hear. Travel organizers, whether influencers or not, yell to convince you to travel to dream destinations, reducing the exploration of places to a banal consumption of the location’s image. In other words: we travel more and more to retrace the outline of the images we saw before leaving, rather than to be surprised and let ourselves be guided by what we will find.
The type of experience I am talking about, on the other hand, is extremely intimate and does not follow any already-trodden path. I invite you instead to go to the place where you can feel as free as possible and to stay there for a while. Listen there to your thoughts, the beating of your heart, the movement of your intestines—do you feel good? Do you still have some anxiety? What would you like to shake off?
