Experience a transformative 9-day journey into solitude with Rites of Passage’s Wilderness Quest, featuring 3 days of solo fasting in nature. Since 1977, these quests have helped thousands find purpose through wilderness immersion and supportive community.
The call to step away from everyday life and venture into the wilderness alone speaks to something primal in the human spirit. In our hyper-connected world of constant stimulation, the opportunity to truly disconnect has become both rare and increasingly necessary. Wilderness Questing provides exactly that - a chance to strip away distractions and rediscover your authentic self through a profound encounter with nature.
Rites of Passage has been guiding these transformative wilderness journeys since 1977, helping thousands find purpose, resilience, and deep connection through their structured 9-day Wilderness Quest programs. Rites of Passage creates a container for profound personal transformation that works across cultural backgrounds, religious beliefs, and life circumstances.
What makes these experiences so powerful? When you step into solitude in wild nature, facing the elements with minimal shelter and sustenance, something remarkable happens. The noise of modern life fades away. Your senses sharpen. Time slows down. As one participant described it: 'I am changed. I CAN live a fuller life. I am forever grateful.'
When Rites of Passage conducted their first quests in 1977, they were pioneering something significant: bringing the transformative power of ancient rites of passage to contemporary seekers. As the first non-indigenous organization to offer these experiences to the general public, they created new opportunities for making these powerful ceremonial practices accessible to people from all walks of life.
Now entering their 48th year of operation in 2025, Rites of Passage has refined their approach through decades of experience while maintaining the core elements that make wilderness questing so powerful. Their longevity demonstrates both the timeless wisdom of these practices and their ability to adapt them meaningfully for contemporary participants.
In February 2019, Rites of Passage made a significant change, transitioning from using the term 'vision quest' to 'Wilderness Quest.' This wasn't merely a semantic shift but a thoughtful recognition that the term 'vision quest' had become more exclusively associated with specific Native American tribal ceremonies.
This evolution reflects the organization's ongoing commitment to cultural respect while still offering meaningful ceremonial experiences that draw on universal human patterns of transformation. The Wilderness Quest maintains the power of the original program while acknowledging the distinct cultural contexts of different traditions.
The Wilderness Quest approach is deliberately pan-cultural, drawing on universal human experiences of transformation through challenge, solitude, and communion with nature. While respecting the specific ceremonial practices of indigenous peoples, Rites of Passage has created a container that works for people regardless of background, faith tradition, or life circumstances.
This approach recognizes that humans across all cultures and times have created meaningful rites of passage to mark transitions and facilitate personal growth. The Wilderness Quest taps into these archetypal patterns while creating space for individual expression and meaning-making.
For 2025, Wilderness Quests will be offered in carefully selected wild locations that provide both challenge and beauty - essential elements for transformative experiences. Each location is chosen for its capacity to support both physical safety and spiritual openness.
The 2025 schedule includes:
In our constantly connected world, true solitude has become a rare commodity. The Wilderness Quest provides three full days and nights of being truly alone - no phones, no companions, no distractions. This extended solitude creates space for deep reflection that simply isn't possible in everyday life.
This isn't isolation for its own sake, but carefully structured solitude with purpose. Participants report that this time alone allows them to hear their own inner voice with remarkable clarity, often for the first time in years. As one quester explained: 'I reconnected with me, with nature and with love. I am changed.'
Nature becomes both setting and teacher during the Wilderness Quest. Removed from climate-controlled environments and constant technological mediation, participants experience a direct relationship with the natural world. The heat of the day, the chill of night, the patterns of wildlife, the rhythm of sunrise and sunset - all become immediate, visceral experiences.
This immersion triggers both primal survival instincts and profound contemplative states. Many participants describe feeling 'at home' in nature in ways they've never experienced before, recognizing their place in the larger web of life.
Fasting has been used across cultures for millennia to facilitate spiritual insight and personal transformation. During the Wilderness Quest, participants typically fast for the three days of their solo time (though modifications are available for those with medical needs).
The physical emptiness created by fasting parallels the emotional and mental emptiness that allows for new insights to emerge. As the body's energy shifts away from digestion, many participants report heightened sensory awareness, mental clarity, and sometimes profound visions or insights.
This practice also creates a tangible experience of simplicity and self-reliance. When we discover we can survive and even thrive with much less than we normally consume, it challenges our assumptions about what we truly need.
The ceremonial framework of the Wilderness Quest draws on universal patterns while respecting cultural boundaries. Rites of Passage incorporates teachings like the Four Directions (originally shared with them by a Native American teacher), dialogic practices with the natural world, journaling techniques, and other eco-psychological approaches.
These ceremonies are offered as tools rather than dogma, creating space for participants to engage with them according to their own cultural and spiritual backgrounds. The result is a container that feels both ancient and fresh, structured enough to support transformation while flexible enough to honor individuality.
While solitude is a key element of the Wilderness Quest, the community context is equally important. Traditional rites of passage always take place within community, which both witnesses the transformation and helps integrate it afterward.
The Wilderness Quest creates a temporary but profound community among participants and guides. In this space of authentic sharing and deep listening, people feel safe to speak from the heart and be truly seen. As one participant noted: 'I underestimated the impact of doing such a quest as part of a group with skilled and loving facilitators. The community that was created held space for healing, inspiration and growth.'
This community container supports both the courage to venture out alone and the integration of insights upon return.
Life transitions - whether chosen or thrust upon us - often leave us feeling unmoored and searching for direction. The Wilderness Quest provides a powerful container for marking these passages and finding clarity about the path forward.
Participants have used the Quest to navigate transitions such as:
The structured nature of the Quest, with its clear separation from ordinary life and intentional return, perfectly mirrors the process of life transition itself.
Leaders in all fields face unprecedented challenges in today's complex world. The Wilderness Quest offers a rare opportunity to step back from immediate pressures and reconnect with core values and vision.
Through solitude, simplicity, and communion with nature, leaders can clarify their ethical foundations and renew their sense of purpose. Many report returning with not only renewed energy but a deeper commitment to service and a more grounded perspective on their role.
While not affiliated with any specific religious tradition, the Wilderness Quest creates ideal conditions for spiritual exploration and renewal. The combination of solitude, natural beauty, fasting, and ceremonial structure has helped countless participants deepen their spiritual lives.
For some, this means reconnecting with an existing faith tradition with fresh eyes. For others, it means discovering a direct spiritual connection through nature. As one participant expressed: 'My experience was heart opening. It feels so powerful. I feel whole in a way I have never experienced before.'
When we're caught in the routines and expectations of daily life, our deeper purpose can become obscured. The Wilderness Quest creates space to reconnect with our authentic desires and direction.
Participants frequently report gaining clarity about next steps in their lives - sometimes confirming directions they were already considering, sometimes discovering entirely new paths. The challenge and achievement of completing the Quest itself becomes evidence of their capacity to pursue these new directions with courage.
Our capacity to handle adversity is crucial for wellbeing in today's world. The Wilderness Quest deliberately creates manageable challenges - from physical discomfort to emotional solitude - that build confidence in one's ability to handle difficult situations.
This process helps participants:
Our always-connected digital environment has profoundly altered our attention, relationships, and sense of self. The complete digital detox of the Wilderness Quest offers a rare reset for the nervous system and attention.
Participants report rediscovering capacities for sustained attention, direct relationship, and present-moment awareness that had been eroded by constant connectivity. Many implement lasting changes to their digital habits upon returning home, having experienced the benefits of periodic disconnection.
Life transitions require both honoring what's ending and accepting what's beginning - a process beautifully mirrored in the structure of the Wilderness Quest. The program provides a ceremonial container for consciously releasing the past and stepping toward the future.
Through reflection, ceremony, and community witnessing, participants gain the clarity and courage needed to fully accept their life changes rather than resist them. This conscious engagement with transition allows for both completion and new beginning.
In our increasingly isolated society, the experience of being truly seen and heard has become precious. The Wilderness Quest community - both during the program and afterward - provides this essential human connection.
Participants report feeling 'truly understood' and 'deeply accepted' within the Quest community. Many maintain these connections long after the program ends, creating ongoing support for their continued growth and integration.
Our separation from nature is both a personal and planetary wound. The Wilderness Quest offers a direct experience of reconnection with the natural world - not as scenery or resource, but as teacher, mirror, and home.
This healing extends beyond the individual to support Rites of Passage's broader mission: 'to bring about a healed relationship between the human world and the natural world.' Participants often return with a renewed commitment to environmental stewardship, rooted in their direct experience of belonging to the earth.
The call to quest is as old as humanity itself - a recognition that sometimes we must leave the familiar behind to discover new aspects of ourselves and bring those gifts back to our communities.
2025 offers a perfect opportunity to answer this call. Whether you're facing a major transition, seeking deeper purpose, or simply hearing the persistent whisper that there's more to life than your current experience, the Wilderness Quest provides a time-tested container for transformation.
The journey begins with a single step - reaching out to learn more about the 2025 Wilderness Quest schedule and finding the program that's right for you. Like thousands before you, you may find that this ancient practice offers exactly the renewal and clarity our modern lives so desperately need.
Rites of Passage continues their 48-year tradition of guiding transformative wilderness experiences, helping participants heal their relationship with themselves, their communities, and the natural world.
