In a country where movement was restricted and landscapes were cut off during the war, a growing community of Syrian hikers is exploring its forests, mountains and lakes—not as tourists, but as people discovering their own country for the first time.
Pines stretch into the distance. A green mountain rises through the morning haze, while below, a vast sheet of water catches the first light. It’s the kind of landscape that makes Syrians scrolling through Instagram stop and ask: “Where is this? What country is this?”
Khaled Nwilati is used to answering. “Wallah, it’s in Syria, wallah,” he swears. Then comes the frustration. “They don’t know their land. They don’t know their country. Knowing your homeland is the first step toward belonging to it.”
Nwilati, now 55 years old, grew up camping. His family is from Damascus, and he started joining his father on Scout outings at the age of three. Years later, while hiking with friends, he accidentally wandered into a military zone and ran into trouble with security forces. The experience prompted him to create Me the Syrian, an outdoor community that’s introduced Syrians to hiking, camping and exploration across the country since the late 1980s. Under Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship, registration initially served a crucial, practical purpose: Obtaining permission to travel and access remote areas.
Also known as the Syrian Exploration and Documentation Society, the group documents Syria’s landscapes, wildlife and historical heritage, including places many Syrians have never had the chance to see—from the Roman and Byzantine ruins of Masiqa in the southern province of Deraa, to the volcanic caves of Sweida further south—and shares its discoveries with 76,500 followers on Instagram.
In September 2026, I joined the group for three days, exploring two of seven islands on Lake Mashqita, about 19 miles (30 kilometers) from the Mediterranean city of Latakia, on Syria’s northwestern coast, near the Turkish border.
I’ve been in Syria since Assad’s fall, reporting on the devastation left behind. This was the first time I’d joined Me The Syrian on a trip—I was curious to see what camping looked like in a country still so deeply scarred by war. The lake stretches between forested mountains, its water winding around hills covered in pine and oak, and islands of reddish soil emerge from the water—vast, mountain-like expanses that can be explored on foot.
A small white metal boat approaches the shore, Syrian flags fluttering from its side. At the wheel is 51-year-old Atef Saqer, who’s been driving boats on the lake for 22 years. His nine-year-old nephew, Mohamed, sits beside him. On busy weekends, some 200 to 300 people come here; on quieter days, around 20. They arrive from nearby towns, but also from Damascus and Aleppo. “It was very different during the war,” Saqer says.
“People in Syria are surrounded by nature, but many do not camp. Nobody told them about this … Of course I wouldn’t do it by myself. I would be scared of everything.”
- Taim, first-time camper from Aleppo
Between 2011 and 2018, only locals came, he tells me. Foreign visitors slowly returned from 2018 onward, until the lake went quiet again for around six months after Assad’s fall in December 2024, ending 54 years of Assad family rule.
The country was still gripped by uncertainty when Ahmed al-Sharaa, an Islamist leader, took power. Unsurprisngly, after 14 years of war that killed more than 500,000 people, forced over 6 million to flee the country and displaced another 7.4 million, Syria is still grappling with these events. More than 100,000 people remain missing, many after being forcibly disappeared into Assad’s prisons, while renewed sectarian violence continues to threaten stability.
But life around the lake is picking up again. Boats, like the one I am now on, move freely across the water. From the water, the seven islands appear one after another.
After about 15 minutes, the island where the group will camp comes into view. Around 50 tents are scattered in a loose semicircle along the shoreline, on a patch of green grass at the foot of a rolling hill that rises across the island.
It could easily be somewhere in the south of France. In another country, camping here might look completely ordinary. In Syria, camping culture is still niche. Me The Syrian has spent years trying to change that.
At the center of the camp, young women in red, wearing Me The Syrian T-shirts, sit beside a tent. Sandi Khalifa who’s 21 years old has long brown hair that reaches down her back. Next to her is 18-year-old Joman Jakob. “This is our first time for all types of adventures,” Khalifa tells me.
She first joined Me The Syrian during a tree-planting project organized in the aftermath of the devastating wildfires that swept across Syria’s western coast in July 2025. Both now volunteer with Me The Syrian, keeping things running behind the scenes, from logistics and finances to documentation and security. For Jakob, the group also provides something that would be difficult to find elsewhere. “Camping culture, it’s not really common,” she says. “It’s a bit scary in Syria to go alone. It’s kind of unsafe. It gives a bit of security.”
Later, under a pink, star-filled sky, Nwilati tells the story of Lake Mashqita. Before 1995, there was only a river here, but the Tishreen Dam transformed the landscape into the reservoir seen today. As water levels change, so do the islands. Some grow, some shrink, some can even be reached on foot.
Seen from above, the reservoir’s branching waterways create the impression of seven separate lakes, giving the area its name, ‘Seven Lakes’. “The lake is very big, so every time we come, we visit a different island,” Nwilati says. “There are also new people who come with us, so we want to show it to them.”
At night, he hides a scarf somewhere in the mountains and shines his torch into the darkness. A young participant sets off to find it. Some 40 minutes later, he returns with the scarf. His reward? A nickname. He’ll now be known as Crow, after the bird renowned for its intelligence, memory and keen observation skills, as a mark of recognition within the group. It is a regular Me The Syrian game, another way of getting people into the landscape.
Among the newcomers are seasoned adventurers too. 47-year-old Samer Akkad became the first Syrian to climb Everest in 2019—he’s also climbed Mount Fuji, and a small mountain tattoo marks his leg. “I climb, I camp, almost every month,” he says. “I always need more. And I love to do it in my own country. We want to show other people what we have in Syria.”
Around the fire, two young teenagers sit on plastic camping chairs and roast marshmallows. Others make tea or eat pasta from boxes. 16-year-old Taim, from Aleppo, wears glasses and sports clothes. It’s his first time camping, seeing the islands and sleeping under the stars. His brother convinced him to come, and he brought a friend from school.
“People in Syria are surrounded by nature, but many do not camp. Nobody told them about this,” he says. For Taim, the cost matters too. The trip costs around USD$30, a significant sum for some families. “Of course I wouldn’t do it by myself. I would be scared of everything,” he says, explaining why he joined Me The Syrian.
Nearby, a group of nine students from Damascus are awake until 4am. 19-year-old Yamen has never slept in tents with his friends before. “It’s the first time I see Syria from this view … like paradise.” That sentence keeps coming up in different forms: ‘I saw Syria differently.’
Already, they’re talking about their next expedition: A hike to Samra village, the real-life setting of a popular Syrian TV comedy Daiʿat Dayaʿa. For a generation that grew up with parts of the country difficult to reach, the map is beginning to unfold itself.
Foreign hikers are beginning to join the trips too. Khalifa says some have joined them from as far as Denmark and Italy. “They make up five percent of the people who join the trips,” she says. And among the newcomers are seasoned adventurers too. 47-year-old Samer Akkad became the first Syrian to climb Everest in 2019—he’s also climbed Mount Fuji, and a small mountain tattoo marks his leg. “I climb, I camp, almost every month,” he says. “I always need more. And I love to do it in my own country. We want to show other people what we have in Syria.”
The next day, around mid-afternoon, we set off in three boats to explore another of Lake Mashqita’s seven islands: Deer Island, a forested, uninhabited island in the northern part of Lake Mashqita, known for its wildlife. The group named it in 2017 after spotting and filming a Syrian deer, al-yajmur al-Suri, a species they say had never previously been recorded in Syria. They shared the discovery with authorities. The island is wilder than the campsite. Hiking shoes replace sandals as the group enters a dense pine forest. The trail steepens in the shade.
During the trip, I could sense how simply setting off to explore a forest or sleep under the stars could feel like paradise. In Syria’s city centers, access to nature can feel out of reach, and a sense of ‘normal life’ even more so. Yet, on a land scarred by conflict, what struck me most is the deep pride people continue to feel in their homeland.
On the island, 19-year-old Adnan Hanouneh looks out across the blue horizon. A dentistry student from the area, he wears green sports clothes and a T-shirt that reads, “You will get stronger.” It’s his first trip with Me The Syrian. He borrows a line from New Zealand singer Lorde’s song Team: “We live in cities you will never see on the screen, ” he says.
For Hanouneh, the words take on a different meaning: “When people talk about Syria, they only talk about the war.” Many of his friends want to leave. He does not. “I can’t go and camp in another country and feel as comfortable as here. I’ve been to Amman, Canada, Lebanon. But here it’s my country, my home. I belong here. I will always give my country a chance. We’re dreamers and we’re full of faith about it all.”
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Paloma de Dinechin is a French investigative journalist and documentary producer with a focus on Latin America, and is part of Forbidden Stories, a consortium of journalists that pursues the work of threatened reporters. Her articles have been published in Le Monde, Liberation, Die Zeit, Washington Post, Expresso, Knack, El Faro and others.
