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Swap the big smoke for the great outdoors.

Ask anyone if they feel stressed from time to time and the answer is a guaranteed, and probably extremely vocal, yes.

Meditation and mindfulness are popular fixes, but if you're not yet ready to embrace them you can achieve similar rewards with a hit of nature: Studies suggest surrounding yourself with greenery for just 30 minutes calms you down, and even the sounds of nature soothe your fight-or-flight response.

With that in mind, I decided to escape Sydney one weekend and immerse myself in the great outdoors. (Only for the day — I'm not prepared for an overnight camping getaway just yet.) There are nature destinations close to every Australian town and city, and reaching them is pretty simple… if you have a car. Being an inner-city resident who walks or public transports everywhere, I do not have a car. So I loaned one from DriveAway Holidays, , a specialist in self-drive holidays and relaxing nature drives.

After picking up my Nissan Pulsar from nearby my house, my nature-seeking troop and I set off. Driving through city streets I've only walked down before is weird (pedestrians don't have to stress about trying to read road signs and merging at the same time), but once we're out of Sydney the drive is liberating — particularly once we get into the Blue Mountains west of the city, where the roads are wide and overlook the bush. Our destination is the National Pass, one of the most iconic bushwalks in the Blue Mountains and probably all of Australia. I'm embarrassed to admit today is the first time I've taken a crack at it despite living in Sydney for more than a decade.

The circular walk begins not far out of the town of Wentworth Falls, and starts with a descent down a tremendous cliff via the Grand Stairway etched into the rock face. I feel less like a day visitor from Sydney and more like an expeditious member of the Fellowship of the Ring. Even in the grey and gloomy weather the views over the Jamison Valley are spectacular.

The walking trail cuts horizontally across the cliff face, and at the other side we climb more winding steps back up the cliff. These stairways aren't as grand as the Grand Stairway — but they have the advantage of passing by waterfalls. A lot of waterfalls. A lot of extremely beautiful, ready-for-Instagram waterfalls. As an added bonus, there's a cafe in the Conservation Hut at the top, where I reward myself with scones. But was it relaxing and stress-beating?

Unquestionably. The National Pass walk takes two to three hours and is pretty exhausting (coming back up the stairs is brutal on every part of your lower body) but enriching. Even the commotion of Sydney traffic doesn't even seem so bad on the way back.

It's unlikely you need to go far from home to find a place where you can forget you live in a harried modern civilisation, and you don't even need a car to discover one (many are reachable via public transport). But if the pace of your life is stressing you out, you need to find one of these places.