One of my big passions in life is bringing together a group of people to experience all that I love about adventure; challenge yourself, try new things, face fears and create memories!
When the opportunity to work with Land Rover Explore came up, I knew instantly that I wanted to create an adventure weekend that would enable people of all walks of life, ages and fitness levels, to challenge themselves, have a fun weekend and test this awesome phone. I invited my community to join me in Sussex!
Built for adventure
The Land Rover Explore outdoor phone is built for adventure. Waterproof, drop-proof, it can function in extreme temperatures, wet weather and has a battery that won’t die after a day adventuring, it will last two days from one charge! My fave functionality is that it’s fully loaded with OS maps using ViewRanger so you can plot your route and navigate yourself in the wild with ease.
Our weekend kicked off with an 18km hike from Seaford to Eastbourne along the stunning Sussex coastline. I’d plotted our route to take in the iconic Seven Sisters, which involves a fair bit of elevation, and finished on the beach for a quick swim and ice cream before setting up camp.
Everyone had the chance to use the phone and get a feel for why it’s so useful for outdoor enthusiasts and adventurous souls. I loved chatting to everyone and getting to know their stories. I find it so interesting to find out who had come along and what everyone’s motivations for signing up were. Also more about their passions, challenges they face in their lives and the thing they were most scared of signing up for this weekend. I love finding out who people are under the surface, what’s important to them and why. Lots more of this happened round the campfire later that evening!
Camping in Sussex
Our camp was in a gorgeous valley in Sussex surrounded by horses, wild flowers and rolling green hills. We wanted to wow our guests and treat them to an amazing experience; hopefully we succeeded! We had set up yurts for everyone to sleep in and a big canopy where we hosted an arts and crafts session to unleash everyone’s creativity as well as host a group cooking session where we combined a bunch of fresh, local ingredients to make a vegan friendly mushroom salad and lentil curry. This was all accompanied by a delightful live music set from a Cornish duo.
After dinner we sat around the campfire where I gave a talk sharing my ‘One Life Live It’ philosophy, my story from ditching the 9-5 and reinventing myself as an adventure athlete, and my top tips on pursuing a life of passion and purpose.
One Life, Live it!
All in all, a truly superb weekend with so many wonderful stories from it; from people who wanted to get back into hiking after taking a break, to the hike itself being a big achievement, girls making friends and planning future adventures together and to someone saying it was their best birthday ever! Thank you all for coming and to everyone who helped to make it a weekend we’ll remember forever!
I'm a proud Ambassador for Land Rover Explore. Our Sussex adventure weekend and this blog were sponsored by Land Rover Explore but all views are my own.
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For the techy people amongst you, here’s some more info about the Outdoor Phone:
o The Android smartphone is ideal for outdoorsy people into hiking, biking, snowsports, kayaking or climbing. Sports that often have you getting wet, where you’re likely to drop or it get bashed. Now you can adventure without worrying about protecting your phone or it running out of battery
o Drop tested
o Waterproof
o Huge battery (4000mah) bigger than most mainstream phones will last for a solid day on the hill – that’s 7 to 8 hours with the screen on and GPS running (for example – you’re following a trail using maps on your phone for 7 or 8 hours)
o Includes an Adventure Pack that attaches on the back that effectively doubles the battery life, and also a case with carabiner to make it easy to wear on your back pack / belt
o Also includes the ViewRanger voucher worth 1000 credits (in the UK that would be the whole country at 1:50k) - great value and no need to carry maps
o Techy stuff – it’s Android, 64gb of RAM, 16mp F2 camera
o £599 including the Phone, the Adventure pack, the case and carabiner and the ViewRanger voucher