Rest + Wild is a boutique hospitality venture offering beautifully designed cabins in spectacular landscapes. A Rest + Wild stay offers a chance to slow down, switch off, and reconnect with nature.
Can you tell us what Rest + Wild is all about – and what drew you to creating a nature-based hospitality business?
At Rest + Wild we provide space for people to switch off. We place beautifully designed cabins in some of the UK’s most breathtaking locations, giving people some much needed rest.
I started Rest + Wild because of a sense that the pace of modern life has become unsustainable. We are always on, addicted to our screens and bombarded by ads and negative newsfeeds. We weren’t built to live this way, and it’s why burnout has become so prevalent today. I wanted to create a business that provided an antidote to that. A business that reflected the world I wanted to see more of. A place where people can find a little room to breathe.
Each of your boutique cabins is beautifully placed in the landscape. How do you choose your locations?
Location is everything and we don’t compromise when looking for new sites. It’s why we have rejected over 160 locations and launched just three. Each location must have outstanding natural beauty, total peace and quiet and a sense of privacy and seclusion.
Location combined with our design is what makes us unique, and we aim to be the gold standard in this space. Guests find themselves on their own, surrounded by awe-inspiring nature, but they have the comforts of a 5-star boutique hotel, including a king-sized bed, tiled bathroom, and outdoor copper bathtub.
Why do you weave nature into so many elements of a guest’s stay, like outdoor bathing and firepit cooking?
Being surrounded by nature can have an incredible impact on your wellbeing and happiness. So many people don’t have any interaction with the natural world these days, and those that do are often just passing through. But sitting in nature, with no screens and nowhere to be, with a fire, a book, alongside a loved one … it can be so powerful, energising and restorative.
The UK has seen a boom in staycations and rural escapes – how does it feel to be a business owner in your sector right now?
I created Rest + Wild before the pandemic, and we certainly found ourselves in a great position to ride the boom that came. But it’s not been easy. It is more competitive now than ever before, so to survive and thrive you have to offer something different, and you have to be the best. That is our aim.
When starting I naively thought “offering guests fantastic experiences in remote locations? … How difficult can that be?”. Very, as it turns out! But I believe passionately in what we do, and as the world spins ever faster, people will need more space to switch off, so we’re on a mission to provide just that.
- Find out more about Rest + Wild.
