Daan timmers - Rewilding
Daan lives on a boat in the heart of Amsterdam, or wherever she sails. Together with her partner, she raises her three daughters with homeschooling, seasonal rituals, and a wild sense of curiosity. She teaches people how to move naturally and leads Verwildernis, a school for rewilding where kids and adults go outside to use their hands, trust their senses, and remember how to live in nature again.
Last year, she won the first Dutch edition of Alone, the tv survival series where nine participants are dropped into remote wilderness, completely alone, with only a few tools and their own cameras to record the experience. The last one remaining wins.
Daan lasted 45 days in the forests of northern Norway. She was ready to stay longer, but the moment the final other contestant gave up, she unknowingly became the winner. Just as the medical team arrived to check if she could continue, she heard a whistle, faint, familiar. Her family’s signal..she turned, unsure, then again, and there they were, walking out of the bushes.
I think I watched that scene at least 20 times and every time I cry. It’s so pure. It is so Daan!
She didn’t join Alone to compete. Daan turned 50 that year, seven times seven. A number that felt like a threshold. “With our daughters we mark every seven years with a ritual,” she said. “Suddenly I realised; I want one too.”
So she went. Not to prove something, but to mark something. To listen. To see. To let herself be seen. She entered the land slowly. She made offerings. She came in reciprocity.
And it was hard. Not the weather. Not the food. The missing. “Can I really be without my kids for that long?” she wondered. Some days, the missing was sharp. But she stayed. And in that staying, she found strength.
She missed butter the most. She drank tea made from spruce tips. Ate mackerel heads for the calories. Wove baskets from bark when she had no bowl. At one point, she ate live grubs. You get creative when you are in the wild.
The body adapts. The mind quiets. And suddenly, you find you’re living.
When it was over, she wasn’t quite ready to leave. Months later, she returned to Norway to say goodbye to the land properly. Because the land had given her something big:
“I’ve become a better version of myself. I feel more grounded. More certain. And even more committed to making rewilding accessible to others.”
At Verwildernis, she now shares these ways of living through weekly gatherings, wildcraft workshops, and real-life rewilding zones where people can sleep under the stars and roam without fences. She’s currently eating only wild-foraged food for three months.
At Campfire Stories, we’re thrilled to welcome her back. Last edition, she brought stories of geese and helped prepare a wild dinner over the fire on Saturday night. And now, after her Alone adventure, we get to hear what the wild gave back to her. What deepened. What stayed. What changed.
Daan’s Website: www.verwildernis.nl
Check out her adventures at Daan gaat Wild on Instagram.
