What if I’m not adventurous enough?

Most people browse adventure holidays and have absolutely no idea whether they’ve got the drive to actually go on one.

You might be scrolling through dramatic photos of mountain passes, desert camps and jungle rivers thinking:

“That looks awesome, but I could never do that.”

The funny thing is, nearly everybody on our trips once thought exactly the same thing, including me.

Nobody Starts As an Adventurer

“Adventure travel” (in inverted commas) has a marketing problem.

For the last few years it’s been a load of turbo-fit twenty-somethings hanging off cliffs in expensive jackets. It takes a good photo but it also convinces loads and loads of perfectly capable people that adventure travel isn’t for them — this is complete rubbish.

A few years back, I received a redundancy payout. It was just before Christmas and I decided I wanted to go somewhere different, really different. I booked a flight into Rwanda, a flight home from Uganda and absolutely no plan in between. Then I spent the next six weeks sitting at my desk sweating and wondering what the hell I’d just committed myself to. It turned out to be a life-changing experience; I met people and experienced challenges and growth that changed the very way I look at “holidays”.

And I’m not alone.

A woman I met kayaking through Botswana once worried whether she’d survive a day’s walk let alone kayak one of the world’s biggest deltas.

A guy I met crossing Peru on horseback was once terrified of travelling alone and his family asked him not to go.

A couple I hiked with in the Indian Himalayas spent weeks wondering whether they should just have booked another week in Spain instead.

These are all real people I’ve run into over the years. The common theme across all these people, me included, is that “adventure” isn’t a personality type, it’s a decision.

Nobody wakes up one morning and suddenly becomes an explorer, marathon runner, accomplished author or stars in a blockbuster movie.

It happens gradually, one slightly uncomfortable decision at a time.

Adventure Doesn’t Always Mean Extreme

Another big misconception in travel is that adventure and extreme are the same thing.

They’re not — they mean different things to everyone. Adventure simply means stepping into the unfamiliar.

The first time I personally managed the courage to do this was on a snowboarding trip I took by myself at 15, where I stayed with a French family I’d been emailing. I saved up my part-time job salary over 6 months and booked everything secretly online. I didn’t tell my mum — that was until the train to Birmingham airport was cancelled on the day I needed to fly. She said, “you’re not going, I’m not taking you,” which only motivated me further, but didn’t make me any less terrified.

You don’t need to climb Everest.

You don’t always need technical equipment.

You don’t need to enjoy sleeping in a tent while being eaten alive by insects.

Adventure comes in many forms.

The important thing is that curiosity does not have to be suffering.

Something Nobody Tells You

A lot of people arrive on any adventure trip slightly terrified — even if they don’t admit it. Give it twenty-four hours or a few drinks and by the second day you’ll hear stories like:

“I nearly cancelled.”

“I wasn’t sure I’d be able to deal with the walking.”

“My family thought I was completely mad and told me this part of the world is dangerous.”

The internet and social media are really good at showing adventures. But they rarely show the nerves and build-up we all go through beforehand. Yet those nerves are part of the process, part of the excitement, and the first sign you’re about to have an experience you’ll remember forever.

Your Comfort Zone Is Lovely. It’s Also Boring.

The problem with always choosing the safe option is that after a while every year starts to look exactly like the last one. The best stories and personal growth tend to start with a bit of uncertainty, not an itinerary.

That doesn’t mean danger, or recklessness, but just enough uncertainty to make things just a bit spicy. That could be visiting a new country, travelling alone for the first time, or simply trying something different.

You Don’t Need To Feel Ready

The people having the biggest adventures aren’t necessarily the bravest, or the stupidest. They’re simply the people who stopped waiting to feel completely ready and just booked the flight anyway.

If you’re nervous, that’s normal. If you’re excited and terrified in equal measure, that’s normal too. Also, if you’ve read this far, you might be more adventurous than you realise.

If you’re curious? Give us a call to chat, it could be the start of something big…