The Art of Manliness - #120： Microadventures With Alastair Humphreys

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast do you feel like

00:00:19.120 your life needs a little more excitement a little more adventure there's a lot of guys who say that

00:00:24.600 they want to go on adventures but they always give excuses like i don't have the money don't

00:00:28.780 have the time because you need a lot of money and a lot of time if you want to do some great adventure

00:00:32.540 in the the grand tetons or yosemite or go float a river in south america well our guest today says

00:00:39.860 you don't need a lot of money you don't need a lot of time you don't even have to travel very far

00:00:43.520 to go on an adventure in fact you can find adventure in your own backyard his name is

00:00:49.340 alistair humphreys he was named national geographic adventure of the year so he's done some really big

00:00:54.140 adventures but while that go he set out to go on these little what he calls micro adventures things

00:00:59.320 you can do in a day on a weekend or even right after work and before you go to work the next

00:01:05.480 morning you can find adventure in your own backyard and he cataloged all his micro adventures in a book

00:01:11.540 called micro adventures of all things and i got him on the podcast today because his book inspired my

00:01:17.240 family to take on micro adventures and find things we've for the past two months each week we've been

00:01:23.120 doing some sort of micro adventure and it's been things like sleeping out in our own backyard

00:01:27.900 underneath the stars we went floating we bought a raft on amazon it's like you know not that expensive

00:01:33.620 and then floated a river here in oklahoma and i wanted to share this with you all because i think

00:01:38.360 it's something that can benefit a lot of people because it's really changed our life

00:01:41.800 so without further ado we got alistair humphreys talking about micro adventures

00:01:47.560 alistair humphreys welcome to the show thank you for having me all right so national geographic

00:02:01.460 named you one of the adventures of the year you are an adventurer by trade which is uh pretty cool

00:02:07.580 and your first big adventure was in 2001 and you spent four years biking around the world so tell us a

00:02:16.980 little about that journey how old were you how do you get the idea and what was that like

00:02:21.140 i was 24 years old when i set off and i set off straight after graduating from university from school

00:02:30.340 and i got the idea because i spent most of my university years not studying but reading books of

00:02:39.200 great adventures people climbing big mountains and crossing deserts in the arctic and just loving those

00:02:46.060 stories and gradually managing somehow in my head to switch from just enjoying those stories to

00:02:52.460 wanting to live some sort of similar story myself and i figured that it was now was as good time as

00:03:00.920 any to go and do it so i've been saving up for a few years and as soon as i finished i jumped on my

00:03:05.980 bike and set off to see if i could cycle all the way around the world i didn't actually think i would

00:03:11.100 be able to but i was quite interested to see how far i could get and did you make it i did make it

00:03:17.000 yeah um i was away for over four years and i rode 46 000 miles through 60 countries across five

00:03:25.880 continents and much to my surprise i made it home again um and i did it yeah how do you do so how'd

00:03:32.680 you get across from like asia to north america to the bering street yeah i crossed the the first big

00:03:39.980 ocean was the atlantic from uh africa to south america across that on a sailing boat and getting

00:03:46.780 across the pacific i managed to hitch a ride on a cargo boat um heading out of alaska over over the

00:03:53.180 pacific and then there were a couple of other little sailing boats and ferries in between around the

00:03:57.960 world but i did the whole globe without leaving the surface of the planet yeah we had someone write

00:04:02.900 a post about um sailing across the sea on cargo ships where you can just get on and be sort of

00:04:10.180 like a member of the crew and he just you got pretty cheap passage and you just hung out with

00:04:15.620 the crew it was kind of bizarre yeah it's really cool that i am i was on a cargo ship with a a boat

00:04:22.120 load of bangladeshis and so um they're all muslims they don't drink so saturday night party night for

00:04:27.920 them was just to drink as many soft drinks as they could till they got a bit high on that and then uh

00:04:33.240 dance with each other in the cabins it's a pretty surreal well since your bike journey you've done

00:04:39.500 many other big adventures like you walked across india you rode across the atlantic ocean what drives

00:04:46.140 you to undertake these big expeditions i think the the big trips come from a few factors um

00:04:56.880 wanting to see the the wild places in the world like a i guess a lot of people want to travel and

00:05:03.600 see the world um also there's quite a lot of masochism in me i want to try and push myself as

00:05:11.300 hard as i could and see what i'm capable of uh physically and mentally um and then the bike trip

00:05:19.180 the curse of the bike trip was once you do a big journey like that um it sort of opens pandora's box

00:05:26.320 and i came home from that bike trip thinking wow i've cycled around the world what else can i do

00:05:30.900 so it's a there's an element of it of just seeing quite what i'm capable of doing seeing at what

00:05:36.840 point i break how do you okay we talk about you're talking about adventure here but how do you define

00:05:41.800 adventure i mean what makes an adventure adventure and why do you think it's so important in a person's

00:05:46.920 life because you're sort of an advocate that everyone should be an adventurer i am and i

00:05:51.180 deliberately think that adventure is not specifically about cycling around the world

00:05:56.300 or walking across a desert and i think it's more about the attitude of the way you approach your

00:06:01.580 life so trying to do things that are new do things that are difficult do things that scare you a little

00:06:07.340 bit doing stuff with enthusiasm and excitement and curiosity i think all of those things are

00:06:13.980 are attitudes of adventure um and and i think those things are important and perhaps you can

00:06:20.040 put those into your life by trying to row across an ocean or you could put it into your life in many

00:06:25.980 other ways but trying to have that adventure spirit is it's really important in my life so i imagine

00:06:31.400 a lot of people have come up to you and said you know look i'm really envious of your life but look

00:06:36.940 it's easy for you to go on these adventures it's what you do for a living um but i can't do that

00:06:41.740 because i work a nine-to-five i got kids i've got responsibility i got you know coach baseball

00:06:46.940 is this what spurred you to start thinking about the idea of micro adventures and for those who

00:06:53.360 aren't familiar with it can you explain what a micro adventure is sure um all those things you

00:06:59.100 mentioned um except for the coaching baseball part was was something i was hearing increasingly

00:07:04.800 regularly and it struck me as very strange that people had begun to perceive me as

00:07:11.160 an adventurer with a capital a rather than a normal guy like everyone else who's just chosen

00:07:17.740 to do these sort of things and and i realized that there's this perception that adventure requires you

00:07:23.360 to be tough or rich or live in the yukon all these sort of things whereas i thought adventure was more

00:07:30.060 about making the choice to to get out into the wilderness and so i decided to try to start doing

00:07:36.480 adventures that broke down these barriers that stop people having adventures in their own life

00:07:41.160 mostly things like a lack of time a lack of money a lack of expertise um not living in a cabin in the

00:07:47.560 middle of the yukon and rather than people rather than letting those things stop you doing anything

00:07:53.300 adventurous i tried to find ways to work around that and to just have small adventures that are

00:07:58.620 compatible with real life so in the last couple of years the the big adventures have been on pause and

00:08:04.260 i've been doing these small deliberately little micro adventures much closer to home exploring my own

00:08:10.620 country and these micro adventures they they they're supposed to last you know it could be a few hours

00:08:15.320 that you could fit in after work um it could be a weekend it could be a few more days if you want to take

00:08:21.080 some vacation time um can you give some examples of you know what cost what you know of micro adventures

00:08:27.320 you highlight in the book and what you've done in yourself yeah i think it's important to try to

00:08:34.560 clarify that a micro adventure is no different to an adventure really it's just trying to make people

00:08:40.100 do adventures that fit in with the frameworks of their life so that might be just overnight or it

00:08:44.980 might be weekend as you say or it could be a few days things like and all of those things that you

00:08:49.400 might do adventurous within that time so going on a bike trip cycling from your home to the coast

00:08:55.940 unless you live right in the middle of the u.s um but in the uk no one lives more than 70 miles from

00:09:01.680 the ocean so for example i try and encourage people to just jump on their bike saturday morning cycle

00:09:07.240 to the coast anyone moderately fit can get to the coast that night sleep on the beach the night wake

00:09:13.180 up sunday morning and pedal back home sunday night ready for work monday morning so that when your boss

00:09:19.620 says did you do anything interesting at the weekend for once you don't have to lie and you can say yes

00:09:23.980 i did an adventure so small little things like that um office workers who are very much bogged down by

00:09:30.280 the nine to five routine i try and encourage them to flip it round and instead of being constrained by

00:09:36.820 their nine to five instead to look at the opportunities that might be that in the five

00:09:41.720 to nine those 16 hours of theoretical freedom that we have each day from when we finish work

00:09:48.420 in which that's plenty of time to head out of town go sleep on a hill camp under the stars by yourself

00:09:55.420 with a few friends watch the sunset watch the sunrise the next morning run back down the hill swim in a

00:10:01.660 river jump on the bus and get back to your desk for nine o'clock the next morning and i think that

00:10:06.840 is genuinely an adventurous thing to do but one that's compatible with real life yeah i love that

00:10:12.640 example of you did that you uh you had an office job as soon as you got off you went out slept on

00:10:18.600 a hill came back and i think is that like a common barrier people just don't think that they can use

00:10:24.060 their free time like that because like for me i'm like oh well you know i got the job and i gotta wake

00:10:28.900 up early and i gotta you know there's things i gotta do around the house i mean but when you when you

00:10:33.500 explain it like wow like that's actually doable i mean is that a common barrier people just don't

00:10:39.460 look at their free time as free when i started doing these micro adventures and i was blogging

00:10:45.740 about them and making films about them at first what i was trying to do was to make stuff as big

00:10:51.660 and epic and difficult and exciting as i could within the framework of say a few days um but i was

00:10:58.620 coming up against resistance people saying oh it's all right for you i haven't got a canoe or it's okay

00:11:03.260 for you to disappear for a few days so i had to keep simplifying and simplifying the idea

00:11:08.080 right and the shortest adventure idea i've come up with for an overnight one is this idea of five

00:11:14.000 to nine because the biggest thing that gets in people's way is not money or not owning a canoe

00:11:19.920 it's lack of time and we're all so insanely busy and people are so proud of how incredibly busy they

00:11:25.700 are um and i think the fact that we're really busy is the reason why we need to leave the office

00:11:32.840 maybe just once one nice sunny evening turn off your phone and just sleep under the stars for the

00:11:38.560 night and i think that the reason that trip idea the five to nine is quite popular i think is because

00:11:46.260 it shows people that you can make time for adventure if you choose to do so i think a lot of times when

00:11:53.800 people say they can't do something it's quite a good idea in your head just to switch the word can't

00:11:58.880 for i choose not to so i choose not to have the time for this i choose not to spend my money on this

00:12:04.440 and that helps you realize exactly where your priorities do lie well i think i found like you

00:12:09.920 know i feel like i've like a lot of people like i'm super busy i'm busy i'm busy i'm busy but then

00:12:13.960 when i actually like sit down and like analyze my time i find a lot of it i'm just like dickering

00:12:18.600 around on the internet surfing reddit uh watching tv and i'm not as busy as i think i am

00:12:26.840 and i and i whenever i look at that my my time logs i'm like man i could have done some other stuff

00:12:32.520 yeah and i'm and i'm as bad as everyone else of our generation at that sort of frittering away

00:12:39.100 stuff but but um i think the there's trying to find your use up those little five minutes in the

00:12:45.760 day is an entire different issue really the the thing that we're talking about here is committing

00:12:51.000 to spend a whole night and that might involve finding someone to look after your kitten for the

00:12:56.440 night or taking a clean pair of pants to work so you've got them for the next morning and a little

00:13:01.560 bit of planning and effort not a huge amount but just a little bit a few basic bits of kit and

00:13:06.880 this is partly what stops people doing is anything that involves a little bit of hassle you can't be

00:13:12.600 bothered to to to get up and running yeah and the micro adventures really emphasize minimal amount of

00:13:18.820 kit most people will own most of the stuff you need to go sleep on a hill already um it's cheap and

00:13:25.280 it's simple and the cheaper sorry not the cheaper the more simple you can keep things the more likely

00:13:30.520 people are to actually do them well let's talk about the kit um you know you have a suggestion of

00:13:35.420 a kit you should have at the ready so you can be ready for a micro adventure whenever what i mean what

00:13:39.760 are the very basics someone needs to be able to do a micro adventure at the drop of a hat

00:13:44.240 well i think theoretically a really nice thing to to do would be to have a little rucksack

00:13:51.420 packed by your door or under your desk at work so that if suddenly the sun was shining and you had an

00:13:58.640 evening free you could just grab that and go because one of the big problems in life is trying

00:14:02.960 to work out where your tent is and all those sorts of boring things um so all you really need is enough

00:14:08.980 clothes to be warm wherever you happen to live you need some food and some water um you need a camping

00:14:14.280 mat one of those padded things that you sleep on when you're camping a sleeping bag um in the uk

00:14:20.080 um where it rains a lot you need a bivy bag which is that's probably the only thing i mentioned that

00:14:25.940 people don't already own um who like the outdoors and a bivy bag is essentially a waterproof jacket

00:14:30.840 it's that sort of cortexy type material that just slips over your sleeping bag and it means you can

00:14:36.240 sleep on top of a hill without needing a tent so it's it's cheaper it's simple it's minimal it's a bit

00:14:43.640 silly it's all the sort of things i like in life yeah i love that you you're a big advocate just

00:14:48.240 sleeping under the stars not not having to haul a tent out to sleep yeah i think tents in my mind

00:14:54.380 epitomize one of the real hassles of having adventure you know you have to go up to the

00:14:58.320 attic and try and find it and then you can't find the pegs and then when you and then you can't

00:15:02.440 remember how to put it up and then when you come home it's wet and you have to hang it up in the

00:15:05.380 kitchen until it's dry and it's all just a so things that have become a hassle that you don't

00:15:09.700 bother with so trying to keep things so simple you actually do it that's that's the key how do you i mean

00:15:15.000 i'm sure a lot of people are pretty apprehensive about sleeping just right in the open right i mean

00:15:20.020 the tent sort of makes you feel a little more secure uh even though it's just a thin piece of

00:15:24.620 plastic um what are your suggestions for people getting over their apprehensions of sleeping just

00:15:30.020 out in the open well you're absolutely right that a tent psychologically feels like you're inside when

00:15:36.060 you're in it and even really veteran campers the first time they sleep without a a tent or in a

00:15:43.200 bivvy bag you feel very vulnerable and exposed and it is a little bit you can get a little bit nervous

00:15:49.200 and so i'd suggest if you're worried about it go with a group of friends first and a bit of peer

00:15:53.800 pressure and comedy will soon overcome come those nerves and bear in mind that if you're in the

00:16:01.320 countryside somewhere tucked away on a hill no one knows you're there you're not doing anything

00:16:06.860 wrong no one will see you no one will find you you're going to get up early in the morning take

00:16:11.300 all your rubbish all your trash with you no one's going to mind um so we have a lot of these things

00:16:16.380 that we worry about in our heads and yet we're all quite happy to drive at 50 miles an hour through

00:16:21.280 a town which is an infinitely more dangerous and bad thing to do um but if you're really worried about

00:16:27.940 it then i suggest to people to sleep in their garden um lots of us remember as kids what fun that

00:16:35.160 was to camp out in the backyard and you see the stars and have a midnight feast and then you get

00:16:40.160 scared and you come in and go to bed but a lot of people remember that really fondly so i encourage

00:16:45.060 adults to try it as well you can take your duvet and pillow outside maybe a glass of wine and it's

00:16:49.880 so nice to hear the trees to see the birds to see the stars you get a lot of the

00:16:55.420 the escapist side of adventure just by being out in your garden yeah that's what i'm planning on

00:17:03.000 doing that with my four-year-old son gus uh next week and he's pretty he's really excited about it

00:17:08.320 brilliant and and if it ends up pouring down with rain you just get up and come back inside so there's

00:17:13.140 nothing to lose really um and i think you will probably enjoy it as well i hope you do oh i will

00:17:18.400 i'm really i'm really excited about it is there a micro adventure that was you know your favorite

00:17:24.240 that you featured in the book oh um i know it's like picking children but

00:17:30.340 there are a couple i enjoyed and they both involve rivers one was i i swam down a river for two days i

00:17:39.480 really enjoyed that just because it made me travel so slowly and being at eye level gave eye level with

00:17:47.880 the water gave such a different perspective on the world and i think both of those things are

00:17:52.440 really important to slow down and to get a different perspective on familiar places and then the other

00:17:57.860 and i did that by myself and the other one i loved was getting some inner tubes from tractors we bought

00:18:03.980 four tractor inner tubes they cost 50 pounds for four so that's what 70 80 dollars for four and you've

00:18:10.060 instantly got four boats then you can and drifting down a river on an inner tube that is good for the soul

00:18:16.100 really good fun and when you finish in the evening you haul them out set up camp have a campfire and

00:18:22.480 you can sit on your your inner tube becomes a luxury armchair so that was just pure simple

00:18:27.960 enjoyable fun with some friends that's fantastic um what did you learn about yourself through all your

00:18:35.560 micro adventuring and not just yourself maybe about other people or about your your country your place

00:18:43.480 you know did it did you grow an attachment to your kind your homeland by being out there more often

00:18:48.660 i i began my big adventures cycling around the world and things because i was probably like a lot of young

00:18:56.560 people i was bored with where i lived i thought it was boring and the rest of the world was far more

00:19:01.360 exciting so micro adventures have really helped me discover my own country and to really love and

00:19:07.720 appreciate the wilderness and beauty that britain has so that aspect has been really good for me

00:19:14.220 the second aspect of what i've learned about other people was something we've touched on already is

00:19:19.160 people's almost limitless capacity to come up with excuses rather than to actually get on and do

00:19:26.260 something um which is why i had to boil the micro adventures down smaller and smaller and smaller

00:19:31.460 right to the idea of doing something between five and nine and then the third aspect of what i've

00:19:37.180 learned about myself is that i like so many other people of uh around today i'm just totally addicted

00:19:46.200 to being busy checking my emails being on the phone and i often don't really notice how stressed and

00:19:55.040 frantic that makes me until i leave it all behind one evening after being on the computer all day

00:20:00.540 go sit on a hill watch the sunset open a beer and don't turn on my phone until the next morning and

00:20:06.560 that is i wouldn't quite go as far as to say therapy but it's been very very helpful for me um right in

00:20:13.620 this mad busy world we live in i agree my wife and i just got back from camping just two days out in

00:20:20.820 national forest here in oklahoma and we didn't have internet there's no phone act there's no connections

00:20:26.160 there was no uh wireless available and the feeling that i got was just like that all that stuff that

00:20:32.440 goes on back at home with the internet and email like it wasn't real like you know and like i was

00:20:38.340 just sort of surreal like being out in nature and not having that stuff there and that that just seemed

00:20:44.600 like i was like in a completely different world and it was kind of i kind of dreaded going back did you

00:20:50.180 feel at first though did you feel some sort of withdrawal anxiety yeah i get that yeah i wanted

00:20:55.160 to like go to my phone and yes you know start pushing things but i there was nothing there for

00:21:00.280 me to push so yeah it's yeah i find it it's good for the soul it refreshes and i just i feel better

00:21:08.320 whenever i take a break from that stuff and get outside yeah absolutely so if there's someone who's

00:21:14.600 listening to this podcast right now um they they finish it they're done you know they're probably

00:21:20.120 listening to on their commute to work what's something they can do today right to just sort

00:21:24.580 of implement take that first step towards getting started with micro adventuring well the commute to

00:21:30.460 work is a brilliant time actually to look out of the window if you're in your car or on the train

00:21:36.920 and to notice that between the town that you live and the town that you work once you start to

00:21:43.040 observe you'll see little pockets of wilderness you'll see a little wood maybe a stream that goes

00:21:48.560 under the road and you start to see these lovely little places that you'll become curious to explore

00:21:54.600 so you've immediately found yourself a destination that you can make this focus of your of your mission

00:22:00.740 the next thing to do is to commit to a date so if you think you need a couple of friends to

00:22:07.400 make you actually do it then get a few friends and put a date in the diary that you're actually going

00:22:12.520 to commit to do this uh pack your bag with a few little things i need you need and then uh contrary

00:22:18.760 to what i just said about uh the internet if you go on online and look at the micro adventure hashtag

00:22:25.520 you'll see loads of other people normal people doing stuff like this and i think that's really

00:22:31.440 encouraging for normal people to see that other normal people are doing this sort of stuff and it's

00:22:36.480 not just me some weirdo professional adventurer with too much time on my hands and i think that

00:22:42.000 that that social media side of things has been really helpful for for giving people the confidence

00:22:48.480 to begin okay so speaking of which um where can people learn more about micro adventures and

00:22:53.800 your your own work well my website alister humphreys.com has got loads of videos of all of these trips

00:23:01.500 that we've been talking about today and then all the usual social media stuff um most of the my website

00:23:07.520 my blog has also got lots of um practical advice on what kit you need how to find the hill to sleep

00:23:14.420 on the safety and legality of it all that side of things as well so i think my website's probably a

00:23:19.380 good starting point and your book as well micro my book micro adventures is available on amazon and

00:23:26.020 all those sorts of places as well and the ipad fantastic and i i for those of you listening i highly

00:23:30.440 recommend you go and get it it's a fan the books it looks great the writing's fantastic it's very

00:23:35.700 evocative and it inspires and like i'm gung-ho about we're gonna my wife and i we're gonna do

00:23:40.660 an eight-week micro adventure challenge wow i look forward to seeing that yeah once a week we're gonna

00:23:46.120 do a micro adventure that's a great idea so so thank you for the inspiration oh you're welcome

00:23:51.820 thank you for thank you for having me on it's been great alistair humphreys thank you so much for

00:23:55.360 your time it's been a pleasure thank you our guest today was alistair humphreys he's a national

00:23:59.980 geographic adventurer of the year he's also the author of the book micro adventures you can find that

00:24:04.460 on amazon.com go out and get it it's a fun little book and make sure to check out his website for more

00:24:09.760 great free content about going on adventures and micro adventures it's at alistair humphreys.com

00:24:15.600 and also please please please share your micro adventures with me on instagram take a picture of

00:24:21.440 you doing whatever it is you're doing if you're gonna go float a river if you're gonna sleep out

00:24:24.980 underneath the stars if you're going to go fishing i don't know what whatever it is share it with me on

00:24:29.120 instagram and at art of manliness and make sure to hashtag micro adventure you can also browse the

00:24:34.700 hashtag micro adventure for more ideas to inspire your own so get out there and do it i'd love to see

00:24:39.300 them until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay madly

00:24:44.180 you

The Art of Manliness - June 25, 2015

#120： Microadventures With Alastair Humphreys

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