It is so easy to set up a website, call yourself an adventurer and then proceed to tell everyone that they are wasting their lives sat in offices when they could be out on expeditions all the time instead. Such a crude point is patronising in the extreme and an over simplified idealism at best. Now, many of you may think that's exactly what I do on this blog and maybe I have been guilty of it on occasion bu ...

Expeditions in the twenty first century are rarely necessary. In fact, the vast majority of those conducted last century weren't born of an actual need to accomplish anything either. Not like the old days where crossing a mountain range or sea might have been the only way to survive. In that sense, it seems fair to say that most expeditions are contrived. A set of circumstances are created to produce an env ...

There is no feeling quite like the freedom of standing atop an isolated mountain, nothing between you and the horizon but snow, rock and more mountains. Or perhaps pedalling purposefully along a straight stretch of tarmac, running flat across an empty plane with the sun lowering slowly ahead. And peering from the porch of your tent into the woodland and calm of an early morning, surely, is hard beaten for t ...

"Your tyres are too worn" - "The brakes won’t work" - "It’s too heavy"At the advent of another adventure, the usual voices of doubt began. Some real, some in my head. The list of potential hurdles and hiccups mounted and, as ever, I began to question whether what I was doing was feasible.But I made it. I cycled a rickshaw that weighed more than me, 1000 miles from the Highlands back to London. So, what of a ...

By the time we've wrestled our bikes from the carriage and re-mounted our baggage, the platform has deserted and begun to refill with passengers boarding the next departure. Wheeling our vessels against the flow of the crowd feels like the perfect metaphor for a return to the city. Clothes still a little grubby, eyes still a little wild.The air is warmer here and the streets are lit - not like the hill we h ...

I've written somewhere between 150 and 200 posts on this website over the course of the year. I started off with a high output (four posts a week) but have tried latterly to focus on quality rather than quantity; producing articles that will still be interesting or useful this time next year and beyond. I hope to continue the same next year with more How To articles and 10 Tips from the pros, as well as doc ...

As regular readers will know, I am part of a small group of adventurous people who take it in turns to write articles for each other as part of an Adventurer's Blogging Chain. To mark the New Year I'm very pleased to welcome Dave Cornthwaite to my site. Dave has roller skated across Australia, kayaked 2,500km along the Murray River and is preparing for 'Expedition 1000' - twenty five 1000 mile journeys by d ...

In no particular order, here are my favourite ten blog posts from this year. What do you think? What would you add?Someday, all this will be a memory* - Revolution Cycle10 things we believe - Escape the CityThe Art of Artlessness: On Living Simply and Naturally* - Zen HabitsAlain de Botton on Gratitude - The School of LifeTop 10 Running Quotations - Run with MarkFear of Philanthropy (avert your eyes) - Seth ...

The major sticking point for most people planning an expedition is money. Right? How they can fund it and who will sponsor them. Yet, I've never been on an expedition that had enough money or, for that matter, met anyone else that has. Few are the groups who can afford the latest and greatest bits of kit they've been dreaming of and scarcer still the team who arrives in the Himalaya fresh from a pampered fl ...

The next best thing to the thrill of an expedition is planning one. Poring over a map, tracing the line that you're going to walk/run/cycle/fly and piercing it with a pin as the idea once did your heart. Punching key words into Google, scouring message boards and gulping down Wikipedia articles to feed greedily with one hand your knowledge and with the other hand your enthusiasm. A fine pastime if you've go ...

I frequently get emails from people asking for help with their expeditions - it's the reason I started this website and the reason there's a big green button at the top right of your screen offering as much. More often than not, such conversations peter out and I never hear from the people again (with the notable exception of a young lady who emailed me a while back about trying to become the youngest Briti ...

"I'm tired when I get home from work.""I couldn't do that sort of thing.""There aren't enough hours in the day."I can't help with all of the excuses but, with that last one, I can.I happen to agree though. There aren't enough hours in the day to fit in all of the exciting things in this life.Sometimes we have to get up early and other days we squeeze things into our lunch break. But there are times when eve ...