Kate Barron

Kate Barron is an author, fundraising adventurer, speaker, former teacher, forest school leader trainee and mother. She is an advocate for solo and family adventure, navigating motherhood on your own terms, and the transformative power of living close to nature. In July 2023, she joined Chris Lewis in completing a walk around the entire UK coastline, raising over £500,000 for SSAFA. Kate spent three years walking and living outdoors, giving birth to her son along the way.

For years, Kate lived a conventional life in London as a dedicated educator, yet beneath the surface her spirit longed for wilder horizons. Trading her classroom for a backpack, she stepped away from the expected path and began travelling solo, moving through places as varied as the jungles of Colombia and remote corners of Afghanistan in search of wild freedom, greater purpose and reconnection.

That journey led her to a windswept Scottish cliff top and a chance encounter with Chris Lewis, a homeless ex-paratrooper walking the entire UK coastline to heal from trauma and raise funds for charity. Their meeting sparked an epic love story and a shared mission. Kate joined Chris on the trail, and together they lived for years in a tent, walking thousands of miles and raising hundreds of thousands of pounds.

But Kate’s biggest challenge was yet to come. Choosing to have a baby without pausing the journey, she navigated pregnancy, a traumatic birth, and the raw realities of new motherhood while living completely outdoors. Choosing to rely on instinct rather than convention and societal expectations, she discovered profound lessons about resilience, self-trust, raising a child in the wild and what she believes children truly need to thrive.

These experiences form the heart of Kate’s talks – an extraordinary true story about refusing to follow the script. Drawing on her background in early years education, Kate now raises her son immersed in nature, holistic child-centred play, and outdoor learning. Her talks are honest, moving, empowering yet also very relatable, inviting audiences to question inherited definitions of success, motherhood and education, and to rediscover the courage to live in alignment with their values and their own pull of the wild.

“A truly inspiring story of courage, resilience and the call of the wild.  Wilderness Mum is a testament to the extraordinary things we are capable of” Tim Peake

Kate’s Book – https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/kate-barron/wilderness-mum/9781035068517