Fliss is a writer and gear tester for Live For The Outdoors. During her time at university, she spent considerably more days in a tent in the Scottish Highlands than she did in the library, which she highly recommends as a study strategy. Fliss also believes that life is too short to eat bad food outdoors, and that cooking good scran while in the hills is easier than you might think with the right kit and some forward planning – yes, you can always do better than a pot noodle.
Fliss truly embodies the ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ philosophy when it comes to outdoor activities. She enjoys everything from ski touring to trail running, winter scrambling, kayaking, surfing, mountain biking, climbing, snorkelling and foraging, and spends almost every weekend outside with pals, chasing that type-one fun. In fact, the only thing Fliss doesn’t enjoy is prolonged suffering: hanging belays, hot-aches, blisters and gale-force winds – or analysing any sort of performance data. She worships not at the altar of Big Strava.
Fliss’ top priority in the outdoors is comfort: if you can do it slowly and with less pressure, then there’s no shame in taking the easy option. Just being outside and enjoying yourself is her bottom line. To that end, her top tip for living for the outdoors is to get your sleeping setup – bag, mat, earplugs, liners – figured out early.
Optimal comfort, warmth and snug-a-bug-in-a-rug-ability are key for getting the best night’s rest, which will enable you to enjoy any activity the next day miles more than if you’ve spent the night tossing and turning. Fliss thinks this is one of the main why reasons people don’t enjoy camping, and refuses to believe that people actively prefer to sleep on beds with duvets when they’ve figured out how to make tent-life worth living.
