A wilder life

Daniel Allen-Hörnfeldt tells Rowan Clarke how he rewilded his career for a better life in Sweden

Climbing a career ladder, getting promotions – it’s the career trajectory we’re conditioned to chase. But at what cost?

Daniel Allen-Hörnfeldt’s successful career in the restaurant industry led to burnout. Rather than struggling on, he transformed his life. In doing so, he discovered farreaching benefits for his health, wellbeing and happiness.

Now working for Rewilding Sweden, Dan shares how swimming helped him towards his idyllic lifestyle, and how he helps other people immerse in nature.

From burnout

Burnout is a familiar term. It’s one big reason we swim outdoors, to escape and recalibrate from life’s pressures. Stress is cited as a major contributor to the lead causes of death in the Western World, and its physical toll is significant.

“I really liked my years in restaurants, being of service to people. But as I went from running single sites to multi sites, I went from being physical to sitting down, I got bigger and more unhealthy, and I began thinking that working 80 hours a week was a good thing to do.”

Dan’s moment of clarity came during a short break to Ireland. “We were clearing up the Airbnb, and there must have been 15 empty wine bottles from the two of us from a couple of days,” he says. “Something clicked – I had to do something about it.” He started swimming again, but then he discovered swimming outdoors. He’d swum competitively as a child, but cold water and its beautiful community was new.

“I started swimming and quite quickly, because I’d been a swimmer when I was younger, I could see myself getting faster. And so I was like, what can I do with this?” he says. He heard about the Henley Swim, then bought a copy of Outdoor Swimmer magazine where he read that the Eastbourne Sea Swimmers were looking for new members.

“It was two hours from where I lived, but I drove down there without thinking,” says Dan. “It was the first time I’d been in a community of people where there was no agenda, and it was a cross section of society – a vicar, a school teacher, a nurse, and this guy that turned up from London every week.”

Finding home

Slowly but surely, swimming outdoors changed Dan’s life. As he grew in confidence, he took on increasingly awesome swimming challenges including the Hurly Burly, OceanMan, Windermere two-way and the Champion of Champions in Dover.

“I was on this journey, which was a bit about weight loss but more about me becoming comfortable with myself and starting to like myself, and eventually, to love myself. I don’t know whether it was the immersion into nature, finding something other than work, or finding community,” says Dan. “By the year of the Windermere swim, I’d met my wife. I don’t think we would have been compatible when I was that guy walking around in this robotic bubble.”

Significantly, Dan’s wife Kerstin is Swedish, which presented the opportunity to leave the UK and move to Sweden. Not, as Kerstin expected, to Stockholm, but to the wild north into the house in which she grew up.

Throughout our interview, Dan looks out of the window behind his computer. Here, he has found community, nature and swimming.

“The view I’m looking at is the lake, which is about nine kilometres long,” he says. “There’s something about the water here. Because it’s so far north it’s so clean and silky. There’s a network of trails around the village that people set up not for commercial game, but because they enjoy hiking. There’s a group that have fundraised to buy tractors to create a 10-kilometre ice skating track on the lake. It’s this community spirit where people rely on each other.”

Having both worked in restaurants, Dan and Kerstin opened their own restaurant, renovating a community building next to public beach, adapting the old wood-fired bread oven to make pizza. Having learned the Scandinavian art of making ice holes, Dan made one near the restaurant with the idea that a few people might join him in ice dipping.

As the cold-bathing movement grew, what began as a simple ice hole evolved into Umeå Kallbad, a thriving non-profit community with hundreds of members and guided ice swimming experiences.

Rewilding Sweden

Dan and his wife eventually sold the restaurant to focus on this kind of community-building. That journey led him to his current role at Rewilding Sweden, where he works on ecological restoration and reconnecting people with the natural world.

“Rewilding Sweden is a part of rewilding Europe, and I work with something called Nature for People,” explains Dan. “My role is about helping people come back into connection with nature and then helping them find ways of both living near nature and finding work in and around nature.”

Through taking small steps back towards nature, Nature for People hopes to embody a sense of belonging, immersion and protection, leading to improved biodiversity, reversing the decline. It also monitors the impact of nature on people’s health and wellbeing.

It’s hard to imagine anyone being better suited to this job than the man who immersed in nature, in natural water, to bring himself back from burnout.

“I went from this robot in London walking around with my head in my phone, miserable, to finding swimming, then finding I could swim outdoors,” says Dan. “I feel super grateful that I get to do this dreamy work.”

Find out more at umeakallbad.se and rewilding-sweden.com