Meet the man opening up more of the countryside to wild campers

He developed a passionate love of the outdoors and wild places where he could connect with nature and feel completely free.

As a young man in his twenties he once again found solace in nature when his sister, Katie, suffered near fatal injuries in a horrific car crash that he says were so bad she should not really have survived.

Devastated by his sister's situation and working in a competitive corporate job, he found himself escaping into the mountains with a pack on his back, revitalising and refreshing himself from his intense world with the powerful calm of nature.

It was a time of self reflection.

“When I found myself in a position where I had lost the purpose of my previous job, I wanted to double down and give something back, and create access to the kind of experiences I was having,” says Tom, 32.

He says he wanted other people to be able to experience the same feeling of solitude, the sense of adventure and exploring new places, and the vulnerability to be completely on their own in nature.

As a result, Tom, who is based in Spofforth, North Yorkshire, co-founded CampWild last year with his friend Alex Clasper, with the aim of enabling wilder camping experiences for more people.

Tom and Alex have ambitious aims to revolutionise the way people access, experience and share time in nature by ‘unlocking’ wild spaces, which are designated areas of private land, for wild camping and adventure.

Since launching last summer, they have already unlocked more than 152 spaces – which equates to more than 10,000 acres and includes remote farms in the Yorkshire Dales, a Celtic temperate rainforest, landholdings on the banks of waterfalls, lakes and streams, wildflower meadows, majestic estates, and dense woodlands.

Each wild space is unique in character and offers the opportunity to responsibly experience the natural environment, on an exclusive basis, while supporting landowners with the conservation of the space so it is preserved for future generations.

For £20 members of CampWild get access to the spaces that Tom and Alex have ‘unlocked’ with permission of landowners and 98 per cent of the spaces have exclusive access. Members also get access to discounts and offers as well as other members of the CampWild community.

Tom says being out in the wild is a wholly unique experience.

“Not having the fall back of the world we live in is extremely hard to come by. It starts to unlock a lot of new perspectives.

“There are extremely few people – less than 100,000 who are confident enough, have the skills and are that way inclined to walk up a mountain and pitch a tent there. And the number of people who regularly go wild camping is a few tens of thousand in a population of 70 to 80 million.”

Tom says a lot of the UK countryside is locked up under private ownership – but it doesn’t have to stay this way.

Through conversations with trusts, custodians and landowners, he says he has been able to create a network of completely remote, completely unique pitches for members. "A true, permitted, wild camping experience."

He says: “It is a British persona to go camping, a recent study said over two-thirds of British people go camping, that's 40 million people but you only have tens of thousands who camp in the raw sense, under the stars in the middle of nowhere.

“There are so many barriers to going camping in woodlands and fields – the main barrier is access. Going to the moors, to the top of the dales and hiking is unbelievably inaccessible for the vast majority of people to do.

“But you can connect to landowners and farmers of all kinds all over England, Wales and Scotland that are on your doorstep and you can camp in these breathtakingly beautiful wild spaces that are hidden in the corners of every single farm and piece of land in the country.

“We as a country have become conditioned to not think that that is there.”

Tom says there is nothing like this in the UK – saying camping in camp sites is communal and accessible but wild camping is something completely different.

“You can switch off and explore, connect with nature and enjoy it on an exclusive basis. You have the exclusivity of a large space and can explore your surroundings maybe by swimming in a river or looking at a farm – even getting involved with the farm, like lambing.

“You are miles from people, footpaths and spaces – but ultimately it is accessible, you may only be half an hour away from where you parked your car.”

Surprisingly, Tom says his biggest demographic is solo females.

“This is as safe as you are going to get for a camping experience that is not communal. You are immersed in nature but it is just your space and there is a safety element involved. We have lots of solo females who want to just try something different.”

Tom recalls his early childhood memories.

“My parents got us out camping very young. My parents cared about the camping experience, it was about walking down to the local beach to go rock pooling and finding the best woodlands to build dens rather than pitching a tent and then going to find a play park and a bar.

“I think that has been lost over the last twenty or thirty years. Camping should be the experience – playing in streams, cooking, enjoying the field and kids roaming around and getting dirty – not just camping and then going to pay for a day out. Adults too can let out their inner child, especially if you have your children with you.

“"The wildlife you see in these experiences is more so than I have ever seen before. Because there are no people there you just see more.”

Tom’s mission is to enable one million people to escape into their network of wild spaces and he says he wants to banish preconceived notions that we can’t manage without the everyday conveniences of modern life.

He says: “We want to normalise this experience and do away with the idea that you need facilities – the vast majority of people only go wild camping for a night – it’s not like you are going to turn ferral!”

You can find out more about CampWild at www.campwild.uk – or take a look at the CampWild Instagram page: www.instagram.com/campwild.uk/