TOP 7: BRING ADVENTURE HOME
How can we experience adventure, relive past journeys, dream of future endeavors...at home?
The mighty mountain has been conquered, the tempestuous sea has been crossed,
The indomitable language mastered, the dangers braved without loss
The journey has ended, o traveler, so hitch up your ride and move on
Home to the place where you came from; you'll be back on the road before long
Now it is time to go home. The journey has ended.
And thus begins the part that perplexes many an adventurous one. For we all relish the trail, but what of our "real" lives, stuck as they are in the mundaneness of day-to-day routine? How can we experience adventure, relive past journeys, dream of future endeavors...at home? Indeed, what might be done to feed the flame of adventure burning within, despite the fact that one is working a nine to five, paying bills, and arriving home exhausted evening after evening?
Never fear, fellow travelers. There are solutions to the in-between perplexity of daily life. Thus we present this month's TOP 7 WAYS TO BRING ADVENTURE HOME...
Perhaps the most obvious of the Top 7 is this: FIND AN ADVENTURE HOBBY. We recommend SCUBA diving, though simple activities like hiking or even running (do you dare train for a marathon, a half-marathon, or a triathlon?) would work as well. You may be surprised to discover how much adventure lies literally just past your doorstep. Get on the internet and do some research about your area--even if you've lived there for years--and look for trails, dive spots, camp spots within 50 miles of your address. Adventure isn't just about places; it has as much to do with attitude as geographic location. You can find it almost anywhere. Case in point: one AJ reader from Provo, Utah took three weeks of SCUBA classes at night, earned his certification, and suddenly realized that there were worlds he'd never been aware of all around him--namely, water-filled craters and other inland dive spots, some of them thermally heated. Now, when wanderlust hits, he grabs his SCUBA gear instead of staring longingly out the window, and makes for the water. It may not be Palau, but it gives him a taste! And a taste is all you need to hold you over until your next great journey.
ADVENTURE IN PRINT
TO START YOUR COLLECTION
+ All Elevations Unknown by Sam Jr Lightner
+ River of No Reprieve by Jeffrey Tayler
+ Seven Years in Tibet by Heinrich Harrer
+ Any book by Peter Matthiessen
+ Any book by Willard Price
A simple strategy, yet extremely effective for some, is to START AN ADVENTURE HOME LIBRARY. Though we recommend your collection be made up primarily of good books, your library might also include great adventure movies and music. Build up an assortment of books to match your interests, and give your library diversity--some fiction here, some travelogues there, photography books, tomes of history, language references and phrase-books, a good atlas. Sometimes, late at night, when the adventure travel bug is particularly active, a good book--selected from a wide assortment of similarly good books--can take you wherever you want to go. We suggest you start with the three books we've listed here and build from there.
ADD SOME "LIFE" TO YOUR HOME by getting a fish tank and some real plants, to start. Aquavista (aquavistainc.com) offers one option, which they term "living art"--a hang-on-the-wall tank set in a picture frame. With a good backlight, this could provide the ambiance of escape you sometimes seek.
"LIVING ART"
TASTE AND SMELL
Don't laugh, but this one actually works for most people. LEARN TO COOK TWO OR THREE EXOTIC DISHES. That's right. With an Adventure Library to stimulate your mind, and an Adventure Galleria (see #5) complete with some "living art" to stimulate your eyes, a good exotic dish can bring back fond memories of the road--through stimulation of two other senses: smell and taste. Plus it's just a good thing to know.
{
WHAT'S IN A ROOM
photographs (lots), maps, framed posters, your book collection, a reading desk, curios, mementos, framed adventure goals, cultural/historical artifacts, a telescope, a decent stereo system...
}
So you can't fly to Peru as often as you'd like. You might as well TURN A ROOM INTO AN ADVENTURE GALLERIA of sorts. Frame some tourist posters from your favorite places. Hang up a whole gallery of photographs from your adventures. Put up a world map, and chart your past journeys on it with pins and string. Type up a set of Adventure Goals for Life and frame them. This would be an ideal place for your Adventure Library. Sometimes you just need to get away--and a room that provides "escape" is a whole lot better than nothing.
{
HOW TO SIGN UP
It's free! Go to ajhub.com and click on "Register"
}
Perhaps it's shameless of us to recommend that you OPEN AN ADVENTURE JOURNEY ACCOUNT, but that is exactly what we are doing. The fact is, when it comes to bringing your adventures home, this is one of the best ways to do it. Not only does a free account provide a venue for publishing and organizing your past journeys, both in print and through photo albums, but it is also the single best adventure travel networking tool in existence. Need to talk to someone who, like you, has spent a few good years in Bulgaria? Has it been forever since you talked with a fellow Tibetan speaker? Planning a trip to Namibia? Adventure Journey allows you to search for people based on where they've lived, where they've visited, their skills, languages, home countries, and other search parameters. Sometimes you just need to shoot the breeze with someone who's been where you've been.
SPONSOR A CHILD
In our view, the best advice would be to GET INVOLVED IN A GOOD CAUSE. As a globetrotting adventurer, you've certainly seen what the world has to offer in terms of poverty, corruption and greed, ignorance, and plain inhumanity. Stay continually connected to the places of your journeyings by getting involved in worthwhile endeavors that help people. Fight injustice wherever you've witnessed it. Help feed a family--or a hundred! Sponsor a refugee's education. Join a tree-planting club. The possibilities are endless, because the need is so incredibly gargantuan. And there's no better time to start than now. Not only are you bringing your journeys home, but you are lending them true meaning.
Perhaps the most obvious of the Top 7 is this: FIND AN ADVENTURE HOBBY. We recommend SCUBA diving, though simple activities like hiking or even running (do you dare train for a marathon, a half-marathon, or a triathlon?) would work as well. You may be surprised to discover how much adventure lies literally just past your doorstep. Get on the internet and do some research about your area--even if you've lived there for years--and look for trails, dive spots, camp spots within 50 miles of your address. Adventure isn't just about places; it has as much to do with attitude as geographic location. You can find it almost anywhere. Case in point: one AJ reader from Provo, Utah took three weeks of SCUBA classes at night, earned his certification, and suddenly realized that there were worlds he'd never been aware of all around him--namely, water-filled craters and other inland dive spots, some of them thermally heated. Now, when wanderlust hits, he grabs his SCUBA gear instead of staring longingly out the window, and makes for the water. It may not be Palau, but it gives him a taste! And a taste is all you need to hold you over until your next great journey.
A simple strategy, yet extremely effective for some, is to START AN ADVENTURE HOME LIBRARY. Though we recommend your collection be made up primarily of good books, your library might also include great adventure movies and music. Build up an assortment of books to match your interests, and give your library diversity--some fiction here, some travelogues there, photography books, tomes of history, language references and phrase-books, a good atlas. Sometimes, late at night, when the adventure travel bug is particularly active, a good book--selected from a wide assortment of similarly good books--can take you wherever you want to go. We suggest you start with the three books we've listed here and build from there.
ADD SOME "LIFE" TO YOUR HOME by getting a fish tank and some real plants, to start. Aquavista (
So you can't fly to Peru as often as you'd like. You might as well TURN A ROOM INTO AN ADVENTURE GALLERIA of sorts. Frame some tourist posters from your favorite places. Hang up a whole gallery of photographs from your adventures. Put up a world map, and chart your past journeys on it with pins and string. Type up a set of Adventure Goals for Life and frame them. This would be an ideal place for your Adventure Library. Sometimes you just need to get away--and a room that provides "escape" is a whole lot better than nothing.
In our view, the best advice would be to GET INVOLVED IN A GOOD CAUSE. As a globetrotting adventurer, you've certainly seen what the world has to offer in terms of poverty, corruption and greed, ignorance, and plain inhumanity. Stay continually connected to the places of your journeyings by getting involved in worthwhile endeavors that help people. Fight injustice wherever you've witnessed it. Help feed a family--or a hundred! Sponsor a refugee's education. Join a tree-planting club. The possibilities are endless, because the need is so incredibly gargantuan. And there's no better time to start than now. Not only are you bringing your journeys home, but you are lending them true meaning.