I called it an emergency camping trip.

An escape before burnout.

I’m always in front of a screen, cycling through tabs, the routine thoughts, the familiar exhaustion. This time of year doesn’t help either… the days are shorter… but it doesn’t slow down, there is still so much to do.  I could feel myself slipping into that familiar seasonal fog.

Deep down, I knew what I needed. I needed a camping trip. I haven’t taken one for almost 10 years now. And it felt exactly the medicine to just reboot my system. I’ve been fall camping before, and I really enjoyed it, so I thought I would do it again. There are a lot of benefits, fewer insects, no fire bans, and of course, fewer people. 

So I purchased new gear, connected with my buddy, Tyler (you might know him as Daunt1355 on the Internet), and we made it happen. 

The moment we arrived, it felt like stepping out of one world and into another. Setting up camp felt like letting my nervous system reboot. No notifications. No pressure. 

We wandered a bit after settling in. Nothing intense — just enough movement to shake the static out of my head. It’s wild how simply walking in the woods can untangle thoughts that screens only make tighter.

That night, the fire did what fires do. It pulled my attention in without demanding anything from me. No algorithms, no skip ads, no endless scroll. Humans have been staring into flames far longer than we’ve been staring into screens, and I could feel the overstimulation draining out.

The next night, the rain came in. But somehow, it felt right. It made things interesting. Like the world reminding me to embrace the discomfort, the little inconveniences, the natural mess. And weirdly… it was exactly what I needed.

In the end, this trip reminded me that getting away isn’t just about escaping screens — it’s about stepping out of the entire rhythm of responsibility for a moment. The goals, the deadlines, the routines, the pressure to always be moving toward something… it all adds up. And sometimes you don’t realize how heavy it’s gotten until you take it off.

Out here, everything was stripped down to the essentials: sleep, food, shelter, fire.

I wasn’t rushing to cook dinner so I could get back to work. I wasn’t jumping between tasks. I wasn’t measuring my day by progress. Time stopped feeling like something I had to manage, and started feeling like something I could simply experience. There’s a joy in losing track of time. In not being in a hurry.  In letting the day unfold without a schedule or a goal attached to it.

 We didn’t go far. We didn’t stay long.

But this emergency camping trip was the reset I’d been needing. A reminder that you can’t prevent burnout while staring at a screen. Sometimes all you need is a couple of nights in the cold to find your way back to yourself.

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