Alastair Humphreys: Microadventures

This blog was published with the kind permission of Alastair for our #SummerofAdventure series. The original can be found here along with lots of fantastic tips about having your own adventures.

A microadventure is an adventure that is short, simple, local, cheap – yet still fun, exciting, challenging, refreshing and rewarding.

As the world’s population becomes increasingly urbanised, busy, and stuck in front of a screen, microadventures offer a realistic escape to wilderness, simplicity and the great outdoors, without the need to ski to the South Pole or go live in a cabin in Patagonia.

National Parks can be great places for your own microadventure. Photo credit: North York Moors National Park Authority

The appeal of microadventures is that they make adventure accessible to people who may have very little outdoor experience.

There are good reasons why I spent over 4 years cycling round the world rather than doing it in 6 months.

Similarly I chose to run the London marathon in less than 3 hours and collapse over the finish line rather than jogging round at a leisurely pace. There is a point towards me striving for a 1000-mile trek across the Empty Quarter rather than a week-long trip to Dubai.

To everything there is a season…

However, you do not need to fly to the other side of the planet to undertake an expedition. You do not need to be an elite athlete, expertly trained or rich to have an adventure.

Adventure is only a state of mind.

I believe that adventure is about stretching yourself: mentally, physically or culturally. It is about doing what you do not normally do, pushing yourself hard and doing it to the best of your ability.

If that is true then adventure is all around us, at all times. Adventure is accessible to normal people, in normal places, in short segments of time and without having to spend much money.

That is why I came up with the idea of microadventures. Simple expeditions and challenges which are close to home, affordable and easy to organise. Ideas designed to encourage ordinary people to get Out There and Do Stuff for themselves, even in these tightened financial times. This blog entry should tell you everything you ever needed to know to try a microadventure for yourself.

They may be small but microadventures can still be challenging and rewarding. Each one is designed to inspire others to set their own challenges, challenges which may be short but which grasp the spirit of adventure.

This is the goal of my microadventures.

By Alastair Humphreys, Adventurer

This blog was published with the kind permission of Alastair for our #SummerofAdventure series. The original blog in full can be found here along with lots of fantastic tips about having your own adventures.