One of my favorite parts of living in Berkeley and the surrounding Bay Area is the amount of nature that is literally everywhere. Not many other college campuses can boast they have creeks winding around academic buildings, huge eucalyptus and redwood groves where students can picnic under, hiking trails basically right outside your dorm, and even sightings of an occasional coyote casually strolling through Sather Gate.
It’s something I definitely took for granted when I first got here, but now I really appreciate how much nature is a part of everyday life here. Even just walking to class, there’s always something to see - and after a ten hour lock-in at Stacks, there is genuinely nothing better than getting outside and remembering that the world exists beyond my laptop.
A lot of my favorite memories at Berkeley have actually happened outside of the classroom and outside of the 178 acres that campus spans. My friends and I try to make a habit of escaping campus every once in a while for little adventures around the Bay. Sometimes it’s an actual hike, and sometimes we’re just looking for a random place we saw online and hoping it’s actually worth the drive (spoiler alert - sometimes the spot is not always as great as Tiktok hypes it up to be!)
Redbud Trail Backpacking
My freshman year, I took a backpacking class where I learned how to actually hike and camp in the backcountry. I had gone camping before, but I had never carried my tent, sleeping bag, food, and basically everything I needed to survive for two days all at once while hiking. Our first overnight trip was along the Redbud Trail in the Cache Creek Wilderness Area, where we hiked, swam in the creek, and stayed up late gazing at the stars.
I think what made that trip so special to me wasn't even necessarily the backpacking itself, it was actually the people I met through it. I was still pretty new to Berkeley and struggling to figure out where I fit in within the sea of 46,000 students, and somehow being thrown into the woods with a bunch of other people who also thought carrying 20 pounds through the wilderness sounded like a good idea was such an easy way to get close to people. We were all learning how to do everything together, so there were definitely moments where we had no idea what we were doing, but it made everything funnier and way less intimidating, and some of those people ended up becoming some of my closest friends and eventually my roommates!
Point Reyes Day Hike
During dead week of my sophomore fall, my friends and I had been spending way too much time in the library, and after sitting inside studying for hours we basically reached the point where none of us were getting anything done anymore. Naturally, we decided that the best thing to do was to fade studying and leave Berkeley completely!
We drove out to Point Reyes for a day hike and honestly it was exactly what we needed. We spent the day walking around, talking, taking pictures, stopping whenever we saw something cool, and just being outside instead of staring at our laptops. I don't even remember exactly what we talked about - which I think is kind of the point - but it was probably a combination of complaining about school, talking about our lives, laughing about something completely stupid, and then somehow ending up in a completely different conversation ten minutes later.
I really love trips like this because they don't have to be a huge thing - and it reminds me just how accessible the outdoors can be. We didn't need to plan some elaborate weekend getaway or spend a ton of money, it was literally just, "we have been in the library for too long, let's go somewhere," and a couple hours later we're driving alongside beaches and cliffs of the gorgeous California coast.
CHAOS Gourmet Trip
And then last weekend, I went on a camping trip organized by CHAOS, the Cal Hiking and Outdoors Society. This was probably one of the most chaotic camping trips I've ever been on, but also one of the funnest.
Over 50 people came, so it was definitely not the quiet little camping trip where you disappear into the woods and don't see another person for three days. There were a few people I already knew, people I had never met before, exchange students, people from different years, and somehow everyone just ended up hanging out together. I got to meet a bunch of exchange students and hear about where they were from, what they were studying, what they thought of Berkeley, and then we'd just jump into completely unrelated conversations while sitting around the campfire and making smores.
I think it's really easy to get caught up in the academic side of Berkeley - there’s always another midterm, another club meeting, another problem set due at 11:59, or another reason to spend your entire day inside, but one of my favorite things about being here is that you can step away from all of that so easily with just by hopping on a train or stepping outside.
And honestly, if you blink, it's really easy to spend all four years here thinking about school, academics, and forget to appreciate all of the really cool things that exist right outside of it. But, if you're someone who loves being outdoors or just a nature enthusiast in general, Berkeley is such a fun place to be. There are so many little places to explore, and even more people here who are down to explore them with you. They’re things that you won't find on an outdated class syllabus, and honestly, memories and traversing places like these have ended up being the parts of Berkeley that I will cherish and look back fondly when I'm all old and wrinkled.
So, if you ever find yourself spending a little too much time in the library, take this as your sign to close that laptop, call your friends, and just go explore.
Your midterm will still be there when you get back (unfortunately), but at least you'll have touched some grass!
Author: Evie Nguyen
Hello! My name is Evie and I am a junior here at UC Berkeley studying Economics and Cognitive Science. Beyond writing for Bear Talk and being a Campus Ambassador, I love hiking and backpacking, sewing thrift flips, and of course trying all the delicious food spots that Berkeley has to offer. Writing is one of my favorite creative outlets and I'm super excited to share bits and pieces of my life through these blogs!