Wild swimming in Portugal
After swimming, I feel deeply relaxed, I have more patience and – I hope – I can give more of myself to my loved ones. Additionally, wild swimming is a great excuse for me and my family to seek out adventure. We really enjoy discovering new places, soaking in the views, and eating a sandwich under the open sky. Meet Piotr Zielewski, who discovered his passion for swimming and now shares it with us, encouraging everyone to explore the wild side of Portugal.
Wild swimming in Portugal
Wild swimming is more than just swimming… How did it all start for you?
I have always been drawn to nature. When I was a child, I climbed trees and spent the whole day getting my clothes dirty with dust from “playing outside.” When I became a slightly older kid, I rode my bike everywhere I could — the farther from the city, the better. Growing up in Łódź, the Łagiewnicki Forest was my zen place. Later, when I needed to find a job, I got into photography, and that’s when climbers caught my interest — photography became an excuse to try different things.
And so I started climbing myself. The freedom that nature offers has always attracted me. Now, at the age of 41, I live in central Portugal. There are plenty of places here where you can experience closeness to nature — without gates or fences. After a few years of exploring this part of Europe, I realized how much water there is here — countless streams flow from the mountains straight into the Atlantic Ocean.
Even though this is southern Europe, the water is still cold, and I always avoided cold water. On top of that, since I was never a swimmer and always thought swimming was reserved for athletes — people who chase records or are always in a hurry — I saw this activity only as a vacation addition to summer.
Lakes may be comfortable to swim in, but only in July and August. Outside of those months, the water is too cold to even think about it. The Atlantic Ocean is cold as well, and in addition to that, the high waves and the strong, cold wind — mostly from the north — blow from March to October. So I never saw the point of getting into water sports.
This changed thanks to my 3-year-old daughter. I had promised her that on her birthday in September I would take her to an outdoor pool. In the region where I live, public pools are popular — as you’d expect, especially in summer — but on her birthday, the 13th of September, the pool was already closed. The regulations are clear: the outdoor swimming season is over for the year. But a promise is a promise. So we drove to the nearest place where I thought we could get into the water.
It was a natural mountain pool that is filled for a few months each year with water coming down from the mountains. A beautiful place, but the water is freezing cold!
When we arrived, the pool was still full. I got changed with my daughter and we went in. Of course, she wanted to go deeper, and then even deeper. So I forced myself to go in up to my neck. It was my first time in water much colder than anything I would have ever agreed to enter before. Very soon after getting out, I realized how good that experience was for my body and mind. I had never felt such a powerful rush of endorphins in my life!
Naturally, I started experimenting after that. Later that same year, I went into the Atlantic Ocean and felt its power. I felt small and insignificant, just like in the high mountains. Maybe swimming — being in the water — is more than just a summer extra… I thought it could be an opportunity to be close to nature.
The beginnings of an adventure with nature
Why Portugal, and where in Portugal?
I live in the countryside, not far from the city of Coimbra. I had never lived in the countryside before — always in a city. The fact that I live here now probably means that nature finally won and managed to pull me in. For a long time, I wanted to live in southern Europe — ever since I went on my first photography project to Catalonia, where I photographed climbers and slept in a tent or in a car, hidden “in the bushes.”
This was before smartphones, before Instagram made VanLife popular. It was my first time in the south, and since then I couldn’t stop thinking about trying life in this climate. Here, where I live, I have everything I loved most as a child. Mountains, streams, forests — it sounds like a scout song — and great people who value community.
Something that capitalism in big cities has overshadowed and replaced with individualism.
A guide that invites you to a real adventure
Your project explorexchange.org is not an ordinary tourist guide, but… well, what exactly is it?
Even though in my articles I direct people to specific points on the map, my main goal is to encourage readers to seek out adventure.
If you try to look online today for information about travel, adventure, or outdoor living, you’ll come across countless texts full of clichés. Overused places, overused perspectives… Because most online content is written for search engines, everything you find ends up being dull and lifeless.
When creating exploreXchange, I assumed that to truly convey a passion for nature, you have to write for the reader. The project is entirely supported by its readers, who have the chance to be part of a community of people who share a similar approach to adventure. I don’t care what the reader bought online in the last thirty days. I don’t care what they liked on a social platform.
Thanks to this, I don’t run ads, and I have the freedom to write with genuine attention to the person on the other side of the screen. While writing, I try to invite people to discover nature in a sustainable way — without negatively impacting the environment, without crowds, without souvenir-shop kitsch, without clichés.
I also want to show that living close to nature doesn’t mean the reader has to give up the comforts of the 21st century. Living close to nature simply requires understanding that we are nature; that we are connected. Wild swimming, which I now focus on, is a wonderful way to remind ourselves of that bond.
Swimming as moving meditation
What does swimming give you and your loved ones?
I mentioned earlier that for most of my life I thought swimming was for athletes, but imagine that at almost forty years old I learned that you can swim at your own pace — and far. It was a revelation!
For me, it’s like meditation in motion. It clears my mind. It strips away stress and haste along with my clothes. It brings me into the present moment. For my loved ones, it’s a moment of respite — just like for me — when I disappear for a while and stop sharing my opinions.
But seriously, after swimming I am deeply relaxed, I have more patience and — I hope — I can give more of myself to the people close to me. And for my family and me, wild swimming is also a great excuse to seek adventure.
We love discovering new places, taking in the views, and eating a sandwich under the open sky.
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Interview by: Maciej Mazerant / Managing Editor, AQUA SPEED Magazine
Photos: Piotr Zielewski / explorexchange.org
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