The Wanderlust Women

My name is Amira and I created The Wanderlust Women a year ago, a hiking and adventure group for Muslim women. My vision is to normalise Muslim women exploring the great outdoors, and to make women feel confident when they are outdoors.

Since founding the group the Women have had so many opportunities, we have run courses on navigation and outdoor skills, the women have participated in hiking, rock climbing , ghyll scrambling , wild swimming, wild camping , paddle boarding, mountain biking and expeditions abroad. The Wanderlust Women also organise retreats all over the UK, each retreat involves learning, skills, adventure, mindfulness and connecting to nature. The retreats are specifically created for Muslim women as I wanted to bring the elements of connecting to God through nature. The Wanderlust Women have now started there expeditions abroad , climbing mountains all over the world ! Our goal is to give women the confidence they need so they can use the skills and explore. We want to see more and more muslim women in the outdoors.

For myself and the other members, representation in the outdoors is important and our aim is to change who the outdoors is perceived for. We know there is an image & stigma of Muslim women who wear the niqab and hijab, this may be because we don’t look ‘outdoorsy’ which can oftentimes form many barriers.Our aim is to change these misconceptions, and have conversations with different types of people and share our experiences. We are here to break barriers and stereotypes, and help those women who have felt unwelcome when it comes to spending time in the outdoors.

We believe the outdoors is for everyone and everyone should feel welcome and represented. We have found it be daunting if you don’t see many people who look like you in the outdoors making people in minority communities feel like hiking and camping is not for them.I feel this can be a hindrance to many in my community as they’re not able to benefit from how much being outside in nature can help you both physically and mentally. The work The Wanderlust Women are doing is giving women who never had the opportunity a chance to try new activities and get involved.

The group is Muslim women from different backgrounds who have come together , we have been able to create a safe space for them to enjoy the outdoors together connecting to nature and God, with all our events our main goal is to bring the spiritual element into it. Women from all paths of life who have come together to enjoy the great outdoors.

We believe in unity and sisterhood , were not just a hiking and adventure group were more than that. We are a tribe.