TikToker tackles winter weather safety and the Highland Way
TikTok rising star @cam.is.exploring is aiming to educate his followers on winter safety as he shares his West Highland Way experience.
Cameron Occleston, 22, is a graduate from Manchester Metropolitan University who has gained over 115,000 followers on TikTok. His camping and hiking content continues to grow after two years on the platform.
Speaking on his motivation behind the account he said: “The thing that got me started in making content was, I was just searching for a creative outlet,
“I felt like coming home from university, after not enjoying the city life very much, being back home and wanting to go out into the beautiful lake district made me want to post and make little videos to share my experiences.”
Through his content Cameron focussee on educating his audience; weather that is on the proper conduct when wild-camping, the ideal equipment for any scenario, or safe practices to follow when hiking in winter.
“I try and emphasise safety whenever you go to the mountains, as opposed to the media narrative that it’s all the social media people’s fault others are going unprepared,” he said.
“Next week I might end up going into Wales to do some more mountaineering-style stuff. If I’m just posting that acting like, ‘oh this is so cool’, without doing maybe a couple videos on winter safety to balance it out – I just feel like that isn’t really morally right.”
In early December, Cameron posted a video on his experience meeting the Fell Top Assessors from the Lake District National Park. This video serves as a further example of his attempts to educate others.
“It’s easy for someone like me to think that I know everything, even though I know I don’t,” he said, talking about his experience making the video.
“Speaking to people like that, who have been mountain guides and have been doing that for their whole life, one of them is even doing Everest! You know, it’s very grounding learning so much from them and just hearing what they have to say.”
In his recent posts Cameron has focused on his completion of the West Highland Way, a 100-mile through-hike in Scotland over seven days. The trip began with six, but only Cameron and another made it to the end, with four unfortunately dropping out due to illness or injury.
He said: “It was pretty extreme. I think the lads that dropped out just pushed themselves too much with the terrain and the weather, it’s harder to recover in the cold.
“I was happy they dropped out when they did instead of pushing themselves into injury. They called it at a safe time when there was a get out with a train station.”
He undertook this hike with other creators, and friends, that he has met through his growing online community.
“I’d never thought I’d ever meet someone off the internet, but I’ve met loads of people now at events like the Kendall Mountain Festival. You get a sense of community in that way as well, that everyone’s trying to do the same thing, because you want to have common interests.”
Looking forward Cameron has some big plans for 2026, and looks to take his content to another level. “I’ve got Everest Base Camp in March, which I’m really looking forward to even though getting all prepared for that is a little bit stressful,” he added.
“It feels only natural to get a van and convert that and, you know, maybe I can eventually go full-time with my content and YouTube. I could just go out on road trips and make videos all the time.”
