Recently we did a two night stay at the Bandipur Tiger Reserve in Karnataka… while we were unsuccessful in spotting any tiger or even lepoard, we saw a host of other wild animals amidst nature’s fresh air and jungles. Just driving into the forest, knowing that it was the domain of animals in the wild, with the early morning fog or the late evening dusk enveloping our jeep, was enough to connect us to the real earth and take us away from the our daily urban scrambles.

With urbanization rising steadily—today more than half the world’s population lives in cities, compared to less than 40% in 1990—more people will retreat to nature to escape the pressures, noise, pollution, traffic and other stressors of the city. We’ll also see this urge manifest in other ways, from an embrace of natural, organic elements in décor to ever more nature-themed entertainment programming.