Why hugging a tree belongs in a countryside holiday

Most of us touch glass all day

Most of us touch glass all day. Phones, Screens, Car windows, Smooth tables, Door handles, Payment terminals. The same clean surfaces again and again.

Then, on a path behind a farmhouse, your hand lands on bark. Rough. Cool in the shade. A little dirty. Nothing happens. And something happens.

You are not “doing wellness”. You are not optimizing your mood. You are standing there with your palm on a living thing, and for once the world does not ask for a password, a booking code or a response.

That is the small embarrassment of tree hugging. It looks too simple. Almost childish. Adults need an explanation for it. Children usually do not.

A countryside holiday gives the gesture somewhere to belong.

Not as a trend. Not as a performance. As one of the many small ways a place brings you closer: walking through wet grass before breakfast, sitting on a wall warmed by the sun, picking an apple, leaning on a gate, smelling hay, following a dog into the trees.

The point is not the hug. The point is that, for a few days, nature stops being a view.

What tree hugging has to do with forest bathing

Tree hugging is a gesture. Forest bathing is slower than that.

The Japanese word is shinrin-yoku: spending time in a forest with the senses open. No swimming. No achievement. No need to reach the top of anything. You walk, stop, listen, touch, breathe. Sometimes you say nothing for a long time.

Science has tried to measure parts of this. A systematic review looked at forest bathing and cortisol, a stress biomarker, to understand whether forest exposure may reduce stress. Another large study, based on 19,806 people in England, found that spending at least 120 minutes a week in nature was associated with higher self-reported health and well-being.

Those numbers are useful, but they are not the soul of the thing. Nobody goes on a rural holiday to count 120 minutes of nature like steps on a watch.

You go because the day changes shape. You wake up and the weather is already in the room. You walk somewhere without needing a destination. You eat outside because the table happens to be there. You sleep differently because the body has been outside long enough to believe in the evening.

A forest helps. So does an orchard. So does a vineyard path after rain, a pasture gate, a farm track, a bench under a walnut tree.

On a rural stay, forest bathing does not have to become an appointment. It can slip into the day.

Why it feels different on holiday

In the city, stopping can feel suspicious. You stop and someone walks around you. You sit and check your phone. You enter a park and still hear traffic counting the minutes for you.

On a rural stay, stopping does not need an excuse.
There is space around the gesture. A path can hold you for a while. A tree can be just a tree, not content. A morning can pass without becoming useful.

That is why tree hugging makes more sense near a farm, a guesthouse, a cabin, a vineyard, a mountain meadow. These places do not make people pure or wise. They simply remove some of the noise that keeps the body at a distance from itself.

A good countryside holiday is not full of experiences. It has room for things that would look too small in a brochure.

A hand on bark.
Five minutes under branches.
A child filling a pocket with stones.
A dog lying down in the shade.
Someone saying, “Let’s not go back yet.”

The benefits, without the miracle language

There is research behind forest bathing. It matters. It also needs clean language.

Forest exposure has been studied in relation to stress, cortisol, mood, blood pressure, immune markers and nervous system activity. Some findings are promising, especially around stress reduction and short-term physiological relaxation. The evidence does not turn trees into medicine. It gives words to something many travellers already feel: the body settles when the place stops attacking it.

The air is different. The light is different. The ground is not flat enough to let you disappear into your thoughts completely. Leaves move without asking you to watch them. Sounds arrive without needing a notification.

Some studies also look at phytoncides, volatile compounds released by plants and trees. A 2024 systematic review and meta-analysis reported that phytoncides may increase activation of Natural Killer cells and related immune markers, while examining effects on nervous system activation, endocrine signalling and immune modulation.

Good to know. Better not to oversell. You do not need to believe that one tree will change your life. You only need to notice what happens when a holiday gives you more living surfaces than dead ones.

Forests, orchards, vineyards, pastures

A forest is the obvious place. Shade, smell, depth, soft ground, the feeling of being held by something older than your plans. In the Black Forest, South Tyrol, Slovenia, Austria, the Harz or the wooded hills of Tuscany, a small path behind the house may do more for the day than a famous viewpoint.

Orchards are easier. Less solemn. Good for families. Children understand fruit trees quickly: blossom, insects, ladders, shade, windfall apples, sticky hands. Nobody needs to explain “connection to nature” when a child is sitting under a pear tree with grass on their knees.

Vineyards and olive groves are different again. Not wild. Worked. Cut, planted, tied, harvested. That matters for Farmtravel. Rural Europe is not only untouched nature. It is also cared-for land. Human hands are part of the view.

That is part of the honesty of a rural holiday. The land is not pretending to be untouched. Someone prunes, mends fences, cuts grass, feeds animals, opens gates, stacks wood. The calm you feel often has work behind it.

Pastures and mountain farms bring another kind of contact. Open air instead of branches. Animals nearby. Cold mornings. Mud on shoes. Space in the lungs. There may be fewer trees to hug. You may not miss them.

The deeper question is not “Where can I do forest bathing?”
It is: where does the holiday let me feel the place with more than my eyes?

Choose the kind of nature you need

Not every tired traveller needs the same landscape.

If you feel mentally crowded, choose a stay near a forest. Shade, repetition, soft ground and fewer long views can make the day feel less exposed.

If you travel with children, an orchard may work better. It gives them trees at their size: fruit, insects, fallen leaves, places to hide, things to collect.

If you want beauty without isolation, look for vineyards, olive groves or mixed farmland. These landscapes are open, cared for and usually close to villages, food, people.

If you need air more than shelter, choose a mountain farm or a place near pasture. There may be fewer trees, but there is space. Sometimes that is what the body wants first.

Before you book, ask one simple question: “can I step outside and start walking without planning the whole day?”

Before you book

Look less at the perfect photo and more at the first ten minutes of the morning.

• Is there a path from the house?
• Can you reach trees without driving?
• Is there somewhere outside to sit when nobody wants to “do” anything?
• If you travel with children, is there safe space to wander?
• If you bring a dog, are there walks that begin close by?

The best rural stay for forest bathing is not always the most remote one. It is the place where going outside feels easy.

How to try it without turning it into a ritual

Do less. Find a tree you like. Not the oldest. Not the most photogenic. Just one you would walk towards anyway.

Put a hand on the trunk. Stay there. That may be enough. If you want to lean in, lean in. If you want to wrap your arms around it, do that. If you feel ridiculous, fine. Stay a little longer than the ridiculous part.

Then walk on without explaining it. No app. No timer. No proof. 
The first minute belongs to embarrassment. After that, the place may get a chance.

Who needs this kind of holiday

People who are tired of being reachable. Families whose children need fewer attractions and more mud, sticks, animals, leaves, paths. Couples who do not need another perfect dinner as much as one quiet walk where nobody performs being relaxed.

Solo travellers who want silence, but not the blank silence of a room. Dog owners, who already know that the best part of the day often begins when the path bends out of sight.

And people who have tried to rest in beautiful places without really arriving in them.
A countryside holiday cannot do the arriving for you. It can make the distance shorter.

When to go

Spring is good for people who notice small things: buds, wet soil, birds, blossom, light that still feels new. Summer belongs to shade. Forests near higher villages, streams, lakes or mountain farms give the body somewhere cooler to go.

Autumn is the season of rough textures: chestnuts, mushrooms, bark, wool, smoke, damp leaves, harvest crates, darker evenings. Winter removes decoration. Bare trees, cold air, mud, snow, fireplaces, shorter walks. Not soft, always. Sometimes clearer.

Every season does it differently. None of them needs to be perfect.

A different kind of wellness

Wellness often starts too late. After the stress. After the noise. After the week has already taken too much.

A rural stay can start earlier. At the door.

You step outside and there is a path. A tree. A field. A low wall. A dog waiting. A bench with yesterday’s rain still on it. Nothing curated. Nothing asking to be reviewed.

That is the luxury: not being entertained for a moment.

Maybe you will not hug a tree

Maybe you will not hug a tree. Fine.

Maybe you will stop on a path, place one hand on the trunk and feel the roughness under your palm. Maybe the day will go quiet without asking you to improve yourself. Maybe that is enough.

A good countryside holiday does not have to be bigger. Closer is often the harder thing to find.