Wilderness 4-Day: Skills and Deep Nature Connection, Portugal 2026

The natural world holds endless wisdom, and our relationship with it is the key to unlocking that knowledge.

Unlike a traditional survival course, this experience is about more than just skills. It’s about rewiring your senses, rediscovering a lost way of being in the world, and stepping into a reciprocal relationship with the land, yourself, and community – all through direct experience in the body.

Who is This For?

✔ Adults seeking a deeper connection to nature, wilderness skills, and a transformative experience in the wild.

✔ Youth (age 14+) accompanied by an adult who want real-world survival skills, self-reliance, and an empowered response to eco-anxiety.

We welcome individual adults and adult-teen pairs—you do not need to bring a teen to attend!

This gathering is for anyone drawn to the wilderness—nature lovers, adventurers, artists & creatives, farmers, parents, youth, trackers, healers, teachers, and those longing for a deeper relationship with the land. Whether you’re a beginner or experienced naturalist, this program will expand your awareness, resilience, and ability to thrive in wild places.

What You’ll Learn

This immersion will equip you with practical skills for self-reliance, so the woods may become your living room. Skills include:

✅ Fire-making & shelter-building – Learn to create warmth and protection using natural materials

✅ Foraging wild food & medicine – Identify and prepare edible and medicinal plants

✅ Wildlife tracking & reading the landscape – Understand animal movement, signs, and behaviors

✅ Bird language & silent movement – Move with awareness and interpret avian alarms

✅ Navigating without maps – Use natural signs to find your way confidently

✅ Sacred Order of Survival – Master the essentials: Awareness, Shelter, Fire (when safe), Water, and Food

✅ Stewardship & Wildcrafting – Engage in regenerative practices that make the land healthier than we found it while making wild-harvested crafts

What You’ll Experience

This gathering goes beyond hard skills, offering an immersive experience in nature, fostering connection, resilience, and the opportunity for transformation.

🔹 Living in Community – Share meals, stories, and living with like-minded people

🔹 Evenings in Circle – Storytelling, reflection, song and collective learning

🔹 Sleeping in Nature – Rest breathing fresh air under the sky

🔹 Wild Meals – Enjoy food prepared with local and foraged ingredients

🔹 Personal Connection to the Land – Deepen your relationship with non-human beings and natural rhythms

🔹 Self-Development – Make space for the landscape to teach you something, allowing for insight and personal growth

This is more than a skills course—it’s an opportunity to bring online the original blueprint of your human being.

About your guides

Joshua Glass is a deep nature connection mentor for adults, youth and families. His training in Portugal and the USA specializes in wilderness survival and the 8-Shields cultural mentoring model for nature connection. He guides students to build inspired, lasting relationships with the Earth through hands-on survival and naturalist skills such as fire making, shelter building, primitive cooking, wild foraging, awareness, animal tracking, and storytelling. He facilitates a variety of program types including adult, family and youth wilderness programs, earth-based Rites of Passage for boys, and Father-Son wilderness programs. He has also served as the Land Steward for Traditional Dream Factory in Portugal. Joshua’s purpose is to create conditions for modern people to experience deep and direct personal relationships with the natural world and to thrive by surviving within the nature of constant change. Currently based in Portugal. See and read more at joshuaglass.net.

Melina Feuvrier-Etevenard, a regenerative farmer and permaculture enthusiast, thrives in crafting, cooking, and the art of wilderness awareness. She's cultivated her skills in communities and regenerative farms throughout Europe. Driven by a passion for nurturing both healthy ecosystems and flourishing cultures, Melina has worked with youth and adults in pedagogical farms and nature camps. She guides herself and others in aligning the human lifestyle with life’s natural cycles. Melina applies methods for deepening connections with nature, and transforming curiosity into unforgettable learning experiences. Melina uses wild-foraged edible plants to create vitality-rich, nutritionally balanced and exceptionally delicious meals. Her love for nature, crafting, and togetherness enriches her unique approach as a chef and nature connection guide.

Additional Information

⛑️ Safety: The safety of us all is our priority. We intend first and foremost to provide an experience in which participants can come to realize that nature is Safe, Fun, and to be Respected. There will always be an instructor with First Aid Certification at all programs.

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🥬 Food: We’ll feed ourselves with foraged and garden-grown, high-quality, nutritionally-balanced meals for the duration of the program. We are driven to support healthy bodies with healthy food and can accommodate most dietary needs if you state them at checkout.

​🏡 Accommodation: We will camp for the duration of the program. Please bring your own sleeping system (e.g. tent, tarp, sleeping mat & bag). If you decide you'd like to arrive before or stay after, you're welcome to book accommodation with TDF for dates outside of the program here.

​➕ Additional info: After you register, we'll send you all the necessary details for preparing, packing, an easy arrival and a great experience. 

💰 If you need financial support to attend this program, we have saved just 2 discounted tickets. Our priority is for the program to run with the people who really want to be present! If money is a barrier to join, please email us describing your situation and we'll offer you one of the discounted tickets.

📩 Contact us: joshemglass@gmail.com or @treesnail on Telegram.

Testimonial

Pricing

To be determined.

Register your interest at t.me/deepnature or joshuaglass.substack.com and be the first to know when tickets are available.