Emma Holm hiked Sweden's Gröna bandet alone in 2023 — 700 km through the Swedish mountains, from Hemavan to Treriksröset. She was evacuated by helicopter near the end after falling seriously ill. She recovered, went back in October, and finished the final four days.
She has also, before every single one of her trips — long or short — been absolutely convinced it was a terrible idea.
"Almost regardless of how long the trip is, I get incredibly cold feet in the last few days before I leave," she told us. "I want to cancel everything. I think it's a really, really bad plan."
We heard versions of this story in almost every interview we did. The people who successfully completed long adventures — months-long hikes, solo cycling journeys, family kayaking expeditions — were not people who felt confident and excited right up until departure. Most of them felt the opposite.
The pattern is universal
Kim, who walked Norway på langs with her partner, described being "really scared and anxious" before they left — afraid to quit her job, afraid of what lay ahead. Victoria, who kayaked the entire Swedish coastline, held back from committing fully for a long time, reluctant to say out loud that the trip was really happening.
Jessica McGlynn, who completed Gröna bandet with her family, put it plainly: "Not many people thought we'd make it the whole way — including us."
And Paul-Anton Loss, who hiked Gröna bandet at 19 after a near-fatal health diagnosis, described the mental challenge of being cold, alone, and having to keep going anyway — day after day, with no option to stop.
Cold feet, it turns out, is not a sign that something is wrong. It's a sign that the adventure is real.
Why it happens
When an adventure is still a plan, it lives in your imagination — and imagination edits out the discomfort, the uncertainty, and the risk. As the departure date gets close, reality starts leaking in. You start thinking about what could actually go wrong. The gap between the imagined adventure and the real one closes, and your brain — which is very good at protecting you from risk — starts making noise.
This is not a malfunction. It's your risk-assessment system doing its job. The problem is that your risk-assessment system evolved to protect you from predators, not to evaluate whether a three-month hiking trip through Swedish mountains is a reasonable life choice.
What Emma does about it
Emma's answer to cold feet is elegant in its simplicity: she has learned to recognise the pattern, and she doesn't act on it.
"I know that this feeling will come," she said. "So it's easy to work against it. I know it's not telling me something true — it's just what always happens."
By naming the pattern and expecting it, Emma has defused its power. The feeling still arrives. She just doesn't treat it as information anymore.
Make the decision early — and let it hold you
Several people we interviewed described the same mechanism: making the decision far in advance, and then letting that decision do the work when fear arrived later.
Emma: "Once you've made the decision, you have no choice but to keep going. The decision itself makes it easier to handle the practical obstacles."
Victoria: "Making the decision is the most important step. After that, it doesn't matter if it's a year away or three — you're on your way."
August Helgesson signed up for his hike nearly a year in advance. The registration created a commitment that made it harder to back out when the nerves arrived. "I signed up in December. By the time April came, I was just going."
The thing cold feet is actually telling you
If cold feet is universal — and it is — then feeling it is not evidence that you shouldn't go. It's evidence that you're about to do something real.
The people who go on great adventures are not the ones who don't feel afraid. They're the ones who feel afraid and go anyway — because they've decided, ahead of time, that the adventure matters more than the fear.
As Kim and Lukas reflected after completing two long trails: "We've both realised it's actually easier than it feels. The fear of leaving safety is the biggest obstacle — not the trail itself."