This Fall, Come Outside and Stay Awhile

Let Autumn Meet You Where You Are 

We’re excited about all the autumn-y things. Except we also know that autumn may look different, depending on where you live, than the super specific one all over social media right now…

Maybe you’re in New England, where the trees seem to wake up one morning and decide to put on a show, turning familiar hillsides red, orange and gold until even your regular neighborhood walk feels special. 

Maybe you’re in the Pacific Northwest, where autumn arrives with mist between the evergreens, mushrooms tucked beneath the trees and that unmistakable smell of rain hitting the earth. 

Maybe you’re in the South, watching everyone else pull out sweaters while you’re still waiting patiently for a morning cool enough to justify one. 

Or maybe you’re in Southern California, Florida or the desert Southwest, where fall has very little interest in performing the traditional orange leaf routine and instead shows up in softer light, cooler evenings, migrating birds, changing tides or the simple pleasure of realizing you can finally spend a few more hours outside without planning your entire day around the heat!

That’s one of our favorite things about being outdoors: nature has never been particularly interested in following somebody else’s calendar.

And neither should you have to.

At Outdoor Afro, we believe the outdoors can meet you exactly where you are, and autumn is a lovely time to practice letting it. You don’t need to fly across the country chasing peak foliage, buy a whole new collection of gear, climb a mountain before breakfast or turn “wellness” into another project you have to be good at.

You can just go outside.

Really. We can start there.

Your autumn can begin right outside your front door, with a walk after dinner simply because the evening feels too beautiful to spend indoors, or with your Saturday morning coffee carried to a favorite park bench with a good view. Call the friend you’ve been meaning to catch up with and walk while you talk, bring the kids along and let them investigate every interesting leaf, rock and stick they find (even if y’all end up going slower than snails) or take the dog somewhere new and let yourselves wander following one very enthusiastic nose. Autumn doesn’t need much planning to become something special; sometimes all it takes is giving yourself a reason to linger outside a little longer than usual.

And if all that still seems like a lot, then maybe you go alone.

No pace to maintain, no conversation to carry, no reason to turn the experience into anything more impressive than it is. Just you, a little fresh air and enough time to notice what has changed since the last time you really looked around.

If you live somewhere famous for fall color, absolutely enjoy it. Go find the maples. Take the pictures. Walk underneath trees that look like they’ve been lit from within and marvel at the fact that they do this every year for free.

But if the trees around you are still stubbornly green, you haven’t missed autumn.

Look for your version.

Start Easy. You Can Always Keep Going.

One of the easiest ways to make the outdoors feel like part of your life is to stop requiring every outing to qualify as an Adventure with a capital A.

A walk counts.

Sitting beside the water counts.

Reading beneath a tree counts.

Taking your lunch outside because the sun feels good counts.

And there is something lovely that happens when you begin there, because once being outside feels ordinary, curiosity tends to take care of the rest.

That little neighborhood walk might eventually turn into a Saturday morning hike. The hour you planned to spend at the park might become an afternoon once you remember to bring lunch. You might rent a bicycle and see where the greenway goes, join a fall birding walk, paddle a calm lake while the shoreline changes around you, visit a state park you keep passing on road trips or gather a few friends for an outdoor meal where everyone brings something and nobody is in much of a hurry to leave.

This is also a good time to remember that movement is allowed to feel good.

Your body does not need to be a project before it can become your companion outdoors. It is already your golden ticket, carrying you into all of this. It lets you feel cold air in your lungs and sun on your face. 

Sometimes wellness can be as simple as remembering that it feels good to be a person with a body in the world.

And other times, wellness can mean taking it slow and sitting down.

Seriously, don’t forget to sit down and stay awhile!

You made it out in nature. Let yourself enjoy it when you:

• Stay there long enough to watch the light change. 
• Bring a thermos. 
• Pack something delicious. 
• Stretch out on a blanket. 
• Take your shoes off if the setting allows it. 
• Listen to the sounds around you until you stop treating them as background noise.

There is no prize waiting for the person who enjoyed nature most efficiently. Sometimes the best ten minutes of a hike are the ten minutes when nobody is hiking.

And If You’re Feeling Adventurous…

Maybe this is the autumn when you try something you’ve quietly been curious about for years.

Perhaps you’ve watched people hike longer trails and wondered whether you could do it. Maybe you’ve always wanted to camp, but your family simply wasn’t a camping family and nobody ever taught you where to begin. Or you keep seeing people mountain biking and think to yourself, Okay, that does look like fun… Maybe you want to try climbing. Maybe you want to put on a helmet and life jacket and find out why people voluntarily get into a raft headed toward whitewater.

You are allowed to be new at things.

In fact, being new can be half the fun when you embrace it by:

• Choosing the most manageable hike 
• Taking your first camping trip somewhere close enough to civilization that forgetting something doesn’t become a grand survival narrative
• Finding the beginner bike trail. 
• Going rafting with trained guides and enjoy the wonderful luxury of having somebody else understand the river while you concentrate on paddling, laughing and staying in the boat.

You don’t have to become an “outdoors person” before you do outdoorsy things, because after all you become experienced by having experiences!

And doing it with community can make that first step feel a whole lot easier. There is something special about looking around on a trail, in a kayak, beside a campfire or inside a raft and realizing that nobody needs an explanation for why you’re there. 

You belong in the picture because you showed up.

Wellness Doesn’t Need to Become Another Job

This may be our favorite autumn reminder.

There is a version of “wellness” that can become exhausting very quickly.

Wake up earlier. Work out harder. Eat perfectly. Drink more water. Optimize your sleep. Track this. Improve that. Buy the thing. Start the routine. Become a better version of yourself by Tuesday.

That is a lot.

Nature offers us a very different rhythm, especially in these autumn months. Shorter days aren’t simply “failed” longer days. A tree dropping its leaves isn’t falling behind. The landscape is always changing pace, putting energy somewhere new, letting something go, becoming quiet, beginning again.

We can borrow a little of that permission.

So your autumn wellness might be a challenging hike because you woke up with energy to burn and want to see what your legs can do. The following weekend, it might be the easy trail because work was a lot and you would rather wander slowly and look at birds.

Both count.

Just like it might be taking your headphones out for one walk so you can hear your own footsteps, then putting them right back in the next day because your favorite album sounds especially good beneath the trees.

You are allowed to ask yourself a much kinder question than What should I be doing?

Try:

What would feel good today?

Or:

What do I need?

Then see which word comes to mind first and feels best:

• Movement
• Community
• Solitude
• Adventure
• Relaxation

Your Autumn Is Already Out There

Some of us are going to spend the next few months beneath trees so colorful they barely look real. Some of us will be walking through evergreens in the rain. Some will watch cottonwoods turn gold against enormous Western skies. Some will paddle through cypress country, wander beaches newly quiet after summer, hike desert trails that are finally comfortable again, bike city greenways, climb mountains, sit beside rivers or simply step outside one evening and think, Oh. There you are, fall.

There is no single correct way to enjoy this season, just as there is no single correct way to take care of yourself.

You can start with ten minutes outside. You might eventually end up near a river.

You can walk around the block today and climb the mountain next year. You can climb the mountain today and spend tomorrow happily under a blanket while you watch the trees move outside your window.

You do not have to prove that you belong outdoors… you already do, and you always have.

So let autumn meet you where you are. And somewhere between the first cool morning and the end of the season, whether that season finds you beneath blazing maples, towering pines, live oaks, redwoods, dreamy palms or an enormous desert sky, you may realize that taking care of yourself did not require becoming somebody new.

Maybe you just needed a little air.

Come outside. We’ll meet you there, just as you are.