Why Your Adventures Suck – 10 Insights For An Epic 2023!

Why Your Adventures Suck – 10 Insights For An Epic 2023!

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

Everybody wants to experience an escapade of a lifetime, living out the exploits of Indiana Jones on their next weekend adventure.

Yet when push comes to shove, we often opt for the more well organized, safe and predictable tourists trappings, intent on following a guidebook around a region via a well plotted itinerary of sights, sounds and tastes.

Although these boundaries do us good, to have a true adventure we must diverge from our comfort zones and enter the wild.

Whether large or small, here are some reasons why your adventures may have fallen flat and how to go about doing them properly.

Why Your Adventures Suck – 10 Fresh Insights

Adventures are something out of the ordinary.

To pull one off you need to know your limits, push your limits and — most of all — be open to trying something new.

They don’t have to be phenomenal feats of human courage, stamina or capability (so no, you don’t need to base jump the highest cliff known to man), but they do need to be unique to yourself.

It doesn’t need to be dangerous, it just needs to be different.

Adventures involve a mindset and change of course which will allow you to see things differently, revel in that difference and pursue the unexpected.

After all, trying too hard to plan or make something happen will not make it any more exciting.

Instead, consider the following ten tips for a spontaneous, fun and memorable trip, whether mini, medium or of a seriously epic proportion…

1. Let Go of Your Expectations

First and foremost, remove any and all expectations before traveling.

An adventure is impossible to presuppose.

Removing your expectations allows you to really try new things without expecting any results. This opens up a multitude of possibilities and allows you to be spontaneous.

Adventures often suck because they are loaded with expectations like “the views from the top of this mountain will be life defining”.

Forget it, just go with the flow and allow yourself these fresh experiences without the baggage.

2. Look to Try New Things by Saying “Yes”

This one goes hand in hand with the first point.

To adventure you need to try new things. You don’t have to stride far from your comfort zone, but look to push the boundaries a little bit.

No experience surfing? Try it any way.

Adventures often fall flat because we are too tied up in our cultural and social traditions.

If you let go of both your routine and fear of the unknown, you may find yourself falling in love with a new hobby, activity, food or — you never know — a new person.

One of the best things about setting off on a new exploit is that it allows you to shed your skin and take on another lifestyle.

You can Find Your Next Adventure Here.

3. Ditch The Guidebook

Although you need to know details about the places you are visiting — including the times and frequency of transport, etc. — you also need to be confident enough to put that book down.

By avoiding tourist traps, you can get to know and experience the cultures you visit.

This can involve something as simple as closing the book and heading out with you and your feet alone; be it in a city, town or the countryside.

At a sight like the Great Wall of China, for example, ditch the tour groups and hit a worn and torn section of the wall, hike the area and eat in the local villages.

It’s all about striving for spontaneous authenticity. A guidebook, after all, is only a very general outline.

4. Don’t Be Afraid of Making Mistakes

Fear of mistakes is often as severe as fear of the unknown.

One common mistake which can dampen your experience is creating a safety net.

Don’t be afraid of doing something wrong. Make a mistake, be corrected and learn.

If you are learning a local language, don’t be afraid of speaking it and making errors; if you don’t speak the language, mime.

This opens you up to trying something new. Stretch yourself from time to time.

5. Take an Interest in Others

When you are out there on your journey, speak and socialize with others whenever you get the opportunity.

Whether they are locals or adventurers just like you, socializing can open up new opportunities and experiences. You don’t have to be overly gregarious, but extroverts do tend to experience more adventures than introverts.

Adventures can founder if you are too strung up in yourself and not open to new things – and that includes people.

6. Keep a Checklist

Although this contradicts spontaneity, keeping a list of things you have done, want to do, haven’t done and have been recommended to do, can make your organising far easier.

This is particularly useful when planning an area to visit or hobby to undertake.

If you open yourself up to areas that hold these new activities, the chances of them happening increase.

Never climbed a mountain? Head out to the nearest mountainous area.

7. Be Flexible

Being flexible with your time and planning for the unplanned is a necessity.

This can involve anything from doing less itinerary planning than you’re usually comfortable, to leaving large blank spaces of nothing in your diary.

Pack light and think less.

Living life and experiencing new adventures, wonders and sights requires this flexibility.

By divesting yourself of a prescribed time you become flexible for new adventures. Get open bookings with ample time for you to return loaded with memories.

8. Erase Your Own Knowledge

Thinking things through too much can prevent something remarkable from happening.

Although it is important to be pragmatic, sometimes it helps to remove our prior convictions and embrace randomness. This will allow you to live in a constant state of newness and prevent you from making useless comparisons with others.

Don’t tell yourself, “well if the weather were better…”, treat every experience as a new and exciting one.

9. Travel Whenever Possible Via New Routes

Travel “broadens the mind”, or so they say.

It doesn’t need to be far and it doesn’t need to be wide, but if you can do it, travel. Travel will increase your life experiences, your chance of adventuring, your well-being and general world knowledge.

You don’t need to drop everything and pursue a nomadic lifestyle, you can even just consider new ways of getting to and from places in your day-to-day life.

Adventures often wither if you simply take the conventional route. Take the one with the most opportunity for new traveling experiences.

Ditch the tour bus, take the local bus; ditch the cable car, take the hiking route, and so on.

10. Let Go of Social Media

The last tip on this list is an important one.

Everybody wants to record and preserve their memories. We have become dependent on Facebook and Instagram as representative of who we are as social people.

Although we don’t recommend you doing away with them completely — and certainly don’t recommend you stop 

snapping away on your camera or smartphone altogether — try to mediate the attention you give them.

Don’t do something because of how it will look on social media, do it for the experience. Leave your social media for when you get home.

To your next adventure,

-David Aston