Adventure

[nsew]

Perhaps it’s a personal failing but when I read the endless stream of questions and recommendations on this board about / for planning every damned detail of an often un-embarked upon trip at some point in the distant future, I want to either go to sleep for a month or bang my head against a brick wall. Repeatedly. Which I recognise would only encourage some to proffer more detail on which route to take and what time to arrive.

Here’s the Wiki page on adventure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure?wprov=sfti1

Adventure
Exciting or unusual experience
"Adventurer" and "Adventures" redirect here. For other uses, see Adventure (disambiguation) and Adventurer (disambiguation).

An adventure is an exciting experience that is typically bold, sometimes risky or undertaking. Adventures may be activities with some potential for physical danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting or participating in extreme sports. Adventures are often undertaken to create psychological arousal or in order to achieve a greater goal such as the pursuit of knowledge that can only be obtained in a risky manner.

Motivation
Adventurous experiences create psychological arousal, which can be interpreted as negative (e.g. fear) or positive (e.g. flow). For some people, adventures becomes a major pursuit in and of itself. According to adventurer André Malraux, in his La Condition Humaine (1933), "If a man is not ready to risk his life, where is his dignity?".[full citation needed] Similarly, Helen Keller stated that "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."

Outdoor adventurous activities are typically undertaken for the purposes of recreation or excitement: examples are adventure racing and adventure tourism. Adventurous activities can also lead to gains in knowledge, such as those undertaken by explorers and pioneers – the British adventurer Jason Lewis, for example, uses adventures to draw global sustainability lessons from living within finite environmental constraints on expeditions to share with schoolchildren. Adventure education intentionally uses challenging experiences for learning.

Author Jon Levy suggests that an experience should meet several criteria to be considered an adventure:

Be remarkable—that is, worth talking about
Involve adversity or perceived risk
Bring about personal growth

Mythology and fiction
Some of the oldest and most widespread stories in the world are stories of adventure such as Homer's The Odyssey.

The knight errant was the form the "adventure seeker" character took in the late Middle Ages.

The adventure novel exhibits these "protagonist on adventurous journey" characteristics as do many popular feature films, such as Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a well-known example of a fantasized adventure story.

Outdoors Adventure books may have the theme of the hero or main character going to face the wilderness or Mother Nature. Examples include books such as Hatchet or My Side of the Mountain. These books are less about "questing", such as in mythology or other adventure novels, but more about surviving on their own, living off the land, gaining new experiences, and becoming closer to the natural world.

Questing
Many adventures are based on the idea of a quest: the hero goes off in pursuit of a reward, whether it be a skill, prize, treasure or perhaps the safety of a person. On the way, the hero must overcome various obstacles to obtain their reward.

[Tiggertoo]

Hi, nsew, We all hope you feel better soon.

[BeardyWeirdy]

Possibly because other people don't want an adventure - just a nice time?

[Angstrom]

Hi nsew,

If you mean that the term "adventure" is totally over-used and that the never-ending quest for details on the internet and over-preparation is somewhat in contradiction to the essence of adventure, I totally agree.
We are over-exposed to information and this causes an escalation in vocabulary usage by people who's job it is to sell (marketing). It acts as a blackhole where some folks get drawn into distress.
It irritates me but that won't change anything. It's just the course of human society, at least for now. If you are like me and want to remain sane, then just refrain from spending time exposed to this overflow of information and just do your thing, call it whatever you feel like and enjoy. I haven't found any other way to keep mentally healthy, because I'm like you (if I undestand you correctly), overwhelmed by the inflation of marketing messages that influences society and shuffles many things we thought were solid and long-lasting shared values.

But maybe I'm totally off-topic and did not get your point.

PS: be kind with me. English is not my mother tongue so my words may not be always well chosen and errors in my post are probably plentyfull. I just hope I can make myself understood.

[ossie]

I'm too old for adventures, I just want to cycle, camp each night and enjoy it. I kind of felt it was adventurous when I first started and cycled over the Pyrenees but that buzz faded. Most threads on here are based around mainland Europe so you might struggle to have an 'adventure' pottering around France, Germany or Spain - further afield without doubt. I'm always happy to read about routes, the best way out of a port for example, throw a few ideas around and take what I need. The same with tents, panniers, gearing, navigation etc. Likewise happy to impart advice, accepting there's always someone far more experienced than me.

If people want their hands held they can always go on a supported tour, however few threads pop up in that regard. The assumption then is that the majority who ask for advice are either looking for Inspiration or taking away snippets and the best parts that suit them - no issue with that, its what the place is for.

The frustrating threads are those who haven't cycled since they were a kid etc and plan to do a world tour or similar, never camped, don't listen, everyone repeats themselves and then they disappear. I guess the adventure stays in their head.

[PH]

Perhaps it’s a personal failing but when I read the endless stream of questions and recommendations on this board about / for planning every damned detail of an often un-embarked on trip at some point in the distant future, I want to either go to sleep for a month or bang my head against a brick wall. Repeatedly.

Maybe just stop reading? Which is what I did after the part quoted. It's a forum, reading it is optional.
People don't need others to tell them what their adventure is, it's whatever they want it to be.

[foxyrider]

Perhaps it’s a personal failing but when I read the endless stream of questions and recommendations on this board about / for planning every damned detail of an often un-embarked on trip at some point in the distant future, I want to either go to sleep for a month or bang my head against a brick wall. Repeatedly.

Maybe just stop reading? Which is what I did after the part quoted. It's a forum, reading it is optional.
People don't need others to tell them what their adventure is, it's whatever they want it to be.

what PH said.

Yesterday i had a mini adventure, I went down some roads i'd not previously travelled, I rode on some tow path, bridleways, old railway and even a coaching road, I saw things I hadn't seen before, to wit Devizes White Horse and the Saxon church at Alton Barnes, it was fun and other than falling in the canal, the prospect of personal injury or distress was minimal. None of that was outside of my comfort zone but just the distance, 100 miles, would be quite the adventure for many people (including some on these fora) even without dropping in the other features. Multiply all that by say 14, my average foreign trip by bike and it can feel like a 'proper' adventure, even in 'safe' Europe, I don't go to put myself in peril, that's what climbers do, I do go to experience the roads, the views, the food, the hospitality, its not always an adventure but taking the chance on that track, crossing that high pass certainly can be.

Tomorrows ride won't be an adventure, I will have ridden the majority of the roads, there are no mountains to crack, remote areas to traverse, rivers to ford, it could be a fair distance, it may include some trails, it will almost certainly be enjoyed

[ossie]

Haha, it sounds like I need to get my mojo back. Norway, Sweden or Finland would seem like a bit of an adventure I guess Europe wise. Vast areas of wilderness, forests, wild camping, wildlife, stunning scenery and probably quite challenging in the process. I won't start a thread asking for advice however

[Vorpal]

I have to admit that I chuckled reading the first paragraph.

I kind of understand the planning, when someone wants to do a LEJoG in 12 days.

My last tour consisted of:

Oh, I've got a few days off. Where do I want to go? Oh, I've got those route maps my colleague gave me a couple of years ago. Let's pick one. That looks good. OK. Train tickets to the start... All set

Also, even though I had route maps, I only mostly followed them.

[MrsHJ]

Do you have a mixture of OCD and an adventurous spirit ie you have to read all the threads even if you hate them?

There’s plenty of range for adventures at various scales but I’m not sure about your definition. I love planning and that’s why I do it but in all honesty sometimes I just take off and get pretty similar results but without the fun of planning.

It was more fun/unpredictable of course in the old days when we were more map based and had to test various languages at obscure farms when the expected camping had closed or someone had bonked or had a mechanical en route to civilisation. As for no one has adventures in Europe- I think I have had possibly enough adventures, with some very memorable ones, often relating to dodgy mapping or weather forecasts.

[nsew]

Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes (1879) is one of Robert Louis Stevenson's earliest published works and is considered a pioneering classic of outdoor literature.

It is one of the earliest accounts to present hiking and camping outdoors as a recreational activity. It also tells of commissioning one of the first sleeping bags, large and heavy enough to require a donkey to carry. Stevenson is several times mistaken for a peddler, the usual occupation of someone traveling in his fashion. Some locals are horrified that he would sleep outdoors and suggest it is dangerous to do so because of wolves or robbers. Stevenson provides the reader with the philosophy behind his undertaking:

For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move; to feel the needs and hitches of our life more clearly; to come down off this feather-bed of civilization, and find the globe granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints. Alas, as we get up in life, and are more preoccupied with our affairs, even a holiday is a thing that must be worked for. To hold a pack upon a pack-saddle against a gale out of the freezing north is no high industry, but it is one that serves to occupy and compose the mind. And when the present is so exacting who can annoy himself about the future?

[Mike Sales]

For me the trouble with too much planning is that it leaves little room for happy chances, for serendipity.
I like to be able to stop when I stumble across something unexpected.
I love feeling adrift from schedules and obligations so that nobody knows where I am, and I don't know where I will be tomorrow.
I like wild camping, and keeping an eye open for a good pitch. Even when I am not on a camping ride I notice lovely sites for my tent.
RLS puts it well.

[simonineaston]

Evryone's a little bit different... what may seem commonplace to one of us, may feel like an epic to another - we are a broad church. I remember leaving a bar in Fort William at around 9 in the evening, after a couple of Guinnesses, and heading off up the hill, having borrowed an ice-axe - it was March. I was 25 and should have known better, however I survived, having found the Pony Track descent very much by accident. Now older, what constitutes an adventure is a very different kettle of fish - indeed may well be informed in my mind by sub-consuious memories of my earlier stupidity and ignorance... !

[Vorpal]

For me the trouble with too much planning is that it leaves little room for happy chances, for serendipity.

This is the big one for me. I like the freedom to stop and take pictures, meet a cat, go for a walk, climb a hill, visit a museum, follow a sign, stop at something that looks interesting, or just stop for cake and coffee.

[simonineaston]

I like the freedom to stop and take pictures, meet a cat, go for a walk, climb a hill, visit a museum, follow a sign, stop at something that looks interesting, or just stop for cake and coffee.

Oh Yes! Specially like the bit about cake You see, there's an intersting remark - back when I did more mountain adventures than I do nowadays I didn't give a fig about food matters - I thought pot noodles were neat, for goodnes sake !! But nowadays, I will consider a detour to a special town, to visit that special pâtisserie, for that special creamy tangy tarte aux fruites a real adventure...