Wilderness - Penny Watson

Wilderness: The Most Sensational Natural Places on Earth is a fresh and inviting coffee table book featuring 40 of the most sensational wilderness destinations on planet Earth, both the far-reaching and those that exist within reach of human populations. It will be a source of travel inspiration, and a reminder to protect what is still ours.

The word 'wilderness' itself conjures images constantly looping on our social media feeds: towering forests, sparkling streams, the sun’s shadow falling across a desert dune, polar bear cubs walking across a tundra. The fact that our popular culture constantly draws us to these elusive destinations says much about their place in our psyche. In times of inner turmoil or outer chaos they are escape rooms. When we want adventure, they are freedom calls to strap on the walking shoes or backpack. When we seek quietude, inner peace or renewal, they ignite a dormant instinct. A yearning to be among nature.

Our increasingly urban lives have made this call to the wild louder and stronger. And as the population emerges from a modern-age global catastrophe, a new reality dawns: a truth-telling that says the planet’s greatest commodity is not its iron ore or petroleum. It’s our wilderness that needs to be protected, the pockets of the planet where, by definition, we humans have been mostly absent.