9 great reasons to go on adventure challenges
I’m glad you’re reading this. It means you’ve got the adventure spark inside you and you want to explore where it can take you. Let me start by saying that there are many more than 9 reasons why you should go on an adventure, take on challenges and tackle expeditions, but these are the 9 that I’ve chosen as the most important.
Adventures expose you to new stimulus
Planning an adventure, can be a thoroughly enjoyable experience, filled with excitement and new challenges. You’ll need to learn new things to make your trip a success, perhaps some first aid, or even bigger skills such as mountaineering and climbing, or polar camping. The decision to take on an expedition is one that will automatically give you great new things to discover and learn, even before you go.
Expeditions and adventure challenges push your physical boundaries
How many people today truly know when it means to be tired, hungry, or sore? Not many I’d bet. It’s really remarkable just how far your body can push itself past your imagined “limits” and taking on an expedition is a great way to find out how amazing your body is. Aside from a great self esteem booster (although you might not feel that way at the time), the physical elements of an expedition challenge- whether it be kite skiing across greenland, driving to Mongolia or trekking the Wakhan corridor, one thing remains the same… fitness.
You are almost guaranteed to come back from your trip fitter, leaner and all round more healthy than before you went, regardless of how fit your are already.
Go on an adventure to relieve your urban stresses
Yes, just getting outside can help with stress, and even some physical ailments. Homo Sapiens did not evolve to remain in one place, or to live in groups of more than a couple of hundred people. Even our ears are designed to trigger spikes in stress hormones when we hear sounds of a certain frequency and trigger a fight or flight response (checkout this cool brand as a remedy for this btw https://www.flareaudio.com/).
So, by living in cities, surrounded by thousands, or even millions of other people, where not living our best lives. Setting out on the road on some kind of challenge is a great way to tune into your inner sapiens, and relieve a lot of the urban mental-baggage you’ve been carrying around.
Planning an adventure is a great way to meet people
Many expeditions and adventure challenges will involve large communities of like minded individuals, anything from 4×4/over-landing enthusiasts, to ski kiters and dog sledders. These are all new communities which you can become a part of, either fully immersive or just as a visitor. Choosing to take on an adventure challenge, is a great way to find and meet people with similar interests, and expand your global network of friends and acquaintances.
This not only is super fun, but it also makes future global travel a little less daunting, and sometimes a lot cheaper!
Expeditions will test your problem solving abilities
Without sounding too boring, expedition experience actually has a lot of carry over into the real world. Researching, practicing, experiencing, and solving a wide range of new kit, scenarios and potentially dangerous encounters is a near on perfect way to tune your problem solving abilities.
This goes a long way in the real world, when you’re faced with an emergency or even a simple office dilemma. You’ll have dealt with stressful situations before, and you’ll know that you can handle it. Even the simple processes like counting to 10 can be extremely difficult when you’re exhausted, dehydrated or freezing cold, and developing coping mechanisms to handle these issues when on your expedition, certainly can help you when you’re put on the spot at home.
Strengthen relationships through joint exertion
Preparing for an adventure, prepping kit, organising routes, fitness plans, technical training as well as the expedition itself are all fiercely strong bonding activities. Groups put through hardship together form tight bonds that are unbreakable in many ways, years in to the future. Taking on a tough challenge, wrought with obstacles and opportunities for chaos or disaster, is an excellent way to test and build upon your relationships, and to grow new ones you never realised you had.
Achieve peace from the mind
Notice how I said peace from the mind, not peace of mind? That’s because your mind is sometimes the thing you need to escape from. Even if your mind is peaceful, it can be buzzing all day and all night and never allow you to truly relax.
A proper gritty expedition will hit the mute button on that peaceful mind of yours, I can promise you that. It’s hard to think of anything else, other than putting one foot in front of the other when it’s -30c and you’re dragging your pulk for 6 hours across the frozen abyss of the polar regions.
During this ordeal, you will have 100% peace from that busy mind of yours, and it will be blissful. Afterwards, you’ll feel like you’ve had an awakening, everything is in perspective, and you’re the real you again. This for me, is the biggest reason to go on an adventure.
Escape the monotony of ‘normal holidays’
Sometimes it’s nice to sit around a pool, for sure. And most of us will be forced to do this by a partner or parent at some point in our lives, and that’s cool. It’s good to relax. But, we’ve also got an itch to scratch… Seeing new things for the first time with your eyes, not with your phone. Discovering things about a culture you never realised existed, or discovering a new people entirely. These are all the things that make adventures and expeditions into the unknown so thrilling.
They are something different every time, they can’t be harnessed and predicted, and they are something very far from the monotony of everyday life. In fact, by very definition an expedition has to be drastically different from everyday life, otherwise it would just be called commuting…
Create mind blowing stories to keep for the rest of your days
There is no substitute for, and no other way to get that glint in your eye, than reminiscing on a fantastic experience. Some of the best stories I have to tell all involve a time when I was in the middle of nowhere, in trouble or in a very, very weird situation. Going on an adventure challenge, rally, or expedition will fill your memory banks with wonderful tales to speak about at bbqs for the rest of your days.
Further reading
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