Kate Middleton is sharing where she goes to find a “sense of peace and reconnection in what is otherwise a very busy world.” On April 14, Kensington Palace released a new video featuring the Princess of Wales to highlight the benefits of getting out in nature. Princess Kate, 43, visited the U.K.’s Lake District last month with a group of young Scouts, of which she is joint president, chatting with Chief Scout Dwayne Fields about her connection to the outdoors.
“I find it a very spiritual and very intense emotional reconnection I suppose, these environments,” she said in the video. “Not everyone has that same relationship perhaps with nature, but it is so therefore meaningful for me as a place to balance and find a sort of sense of peace and reconnection in what is otherwise a very busy world.” Fields added,“I think it’s really important for young people to have access to nature because it’s a space where they can push themselves, they can challenge themselves, they learn leadership skills, spend time making friends and those life-long really great memories that we all hold onto. And I think if we can do that, we’ll build up a generation who is passionate about our natural spaces and passionate about protecting them as well.”
After their walk near the shores of Lake Windermere, Princess Kate and Fields joined a group of Scouts between ages 10 and 15 from groups in Cumbria and Greater Manchester as they undertook a challenge to earn their Naturalist Badge.The royal greeted the group by saying, “Hello, everyone! How are you all doing? Good?” and the video showed Kate crouched down to look at a map on the ground.
She said, “What’s so fantastic about Scouts is it’s the same foundations that have always been there, and despite how different the modern day world is now, actually, it still resonates with so many young people and it’s making such a massive difference to them.”
Kate also agreed that the skills learned by Scouts are “life skills” that can be applied at school, work and beyond.
The trip to the Lake District was a return for the Princess of Wales, who grew up going on family vacations to the mountainous region. When she visited the area in June 2019 with Prince William, Kate recalled how she loved to go “boulder hopping” in the streams and said her three children — Prince George, 11, Princess Charlotte, 9, and Prince Louis, 6 — love the area and “walking in the fells.”
Princess Kate has long been an advocate of connecting with nature, including the practice of “forest bathing,” but being outdoors took on a deeper meaning amid her cancer treatment last year.
