Kids’ outdoor adventures without gadgets: how GoЙra! works
If a child spends their holidays in the mountains, they don’t necessarily need a packed entertainment schedule, animators, or constant access to a smartphone. Sometimes, all they need is a backpack, a tent, a forest trail, and a team they can explore with.
This is the idea behind GoЙra!, an outdoor project from Ivano-Frankivsk that organizes children’s camps, hiking trips, expeditions, and other outdoor activities. Here, nature is not just a backdrop for a holiday — it becomes a space for learning, movement, communication, and making first independent decisions.
From a mountaineering community to a dedicated project
The story of GoЙra! began within the Ivano-Frankivsk mountaineering community. Back in 2014, its members started taking children on multi-day hiking trips, gradually turning individual adventures into a systematic approach to children’s outdoor education.
Today, GoЙra! combines experience in outdoor activities with the principles of forest pedagogy and learning outdoors. Children don’t simply visit the mountains — they learn how to feel confident and responsible in them.
What formats does GoЙra! offer?
The project offers several formats that differ in duration, difficulty, and age group.
Stationary camps last 7–10 days and are designed for children aged 8–16. In summer, participants stay in tents surrounded by nature, while in colder seasons they use mountain shelters. The programme includes daily hikes, setting up camp, outdoor living skills, and, of course, evenings around the campfire.
Expeditions are real autonomous hiking trips lasting 3–6 days for children aged 10–16. Participants carry their own backpacks, sleeping bags, sleeping mats, and part of the shared equipment. Routes can take them through the Carpathians or include water-based adventures, such as rafting on the Dniester and other rivers.
GoЙra! City Camp is a two-week daytime camp for children aged 6–10 in Ivano-Frankivsk. Children spend their days outdoors, going on walks and trips outside the city, exploring forests, hills, and the surroundings of Ivano-Frankivsk before returning home in the evening.
There are also one-day adventures and school trips — a format for those who want to discover outdoor activities without committing to a multi-day expedition.
There is no need to invent adventures here
One of the key features of GoЙra! is that children are not constantly entertained with artificial activities.
Instead, there are forests, rivers, rocks, trails, and real terrain. There are challenges that arise naturally during a trip and situations where children need to make decisions together.
This approach is rooted in the principles of forest pedagogy and learning outdoors (forest schooling), where the natural environment becomes part of the learning process.
Children learn not just how to spend time in nature, but how to be part of it.
Guides in nature, not just camp counselors
Participants are accompanied by people with experience in hiking, mountaineering, and outdoor activities. Their role is not simply to organize entertainment, but to act as guides in nature: helping children assess situations, make safe decisions, follow trail safety rules, and gradually become more independent.
Fewer screens, more real experiences
During the camps, children put their smartphones and tablets aside. Instead of endless scrolling, there are conversations around the campfire. Instead of computer games, there is a trail to follow. Instead of a virtual world, there are real rivers, forests, and mountains.
It is not about banning technology for the sake of banning it. It is about giving children the opportunity to shift their attention to the people around them and the world outside the screen.
Independence starts with simple things
Putting up a tent, packing a backpack, preparing food, taking care of personal equipment, completing a route, and helping the team — these small everyday tasks gradually build independence.
On a hike, children can see the direct connection between their actions and the result. Pack your backpack properly, and it becomes easier to carry. Help the team, and the camp gets organized faster. Pay attention to the weather, and the route can be planned more safely.
GoЙra! is about more than camps
An important part of the team’s work is its social and community projects, implemented together with the NGO “Learning Outdoors”.
Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the team has systematically involved children from socially vulnerable groups, internally displaced children, and children of military personnel in outdoor activities, creating opportunities for them to spend time in nature, stay active, communicate, and gain new experiences.
In this context, nature becomes not only a place for adventure, but also a space for support and recovery.
Why does FRAM support GoЙra!?
For FRAM, outdoor is about more than equipment. It is about the people who use it, the community around it, and the culture of interacting with nature that begins to form from a person’s very first hikes.
That is why we share GoЙra!’s approach — showing children the mountains not as an attraction, but as an environment that requires attentiveness, responsibility, independence, and a willingness to help one another.
We are happy to support the GoЙra! team with equipment and prizes and to be part of this work.
Because the outdoor community of the future does not begin when someone buys their first piece of professional equipment. It starts much earlier — with the first hike, the first campfire, the first backpack on their shoulders, and the first experience of being responsible for themselves and their team.
Explore the GoЙra! × FRAM co-branded collection
