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Driven by camaraderie and passionate about the wild planet, Dwayne Fields and Phoebe Smith are challenging the traditional view of the ‘outdoors type’
Dwayne Fields and Phoebe Smith are no strangers to pushing things forward, not least their own powers of endurance. Travel writer, author and broadcaster Smith, who has made a career of wild-camping in extreme locations, and explorer and presenter Fields, the first black Briton to walk to the north pole, will readily confess to little hacks ranging from energy-giving handfuls of Jelly Babies to the indispensability of inflatable pillows for travelling. But their most essential piece of kit is optimism and a sense of humour. Even on gruelling hikes peppered with freezing streams, soaked sleeping bags and muddy tents, they have a motto: “Enjoy not endure”.
It certainly stood them well on their 828-mile, 40-night, north-to-south expedition over mainland Britain last year, wild-camping everywhere from the middle of marshlands to beside motorways. This was both a practice run and a fundraiser for their plan, under the banner of their #WeTwo foundation, to take a group of 20 underprivileged young people from the UK to Antarctica in 2021 – part of their broader mission to change people’s mindsets about adventuring and caring for the planet. Continue reading...