Alastair Humphreys lives an adventurous life. Humphreys is a renowned British adventurer who was named the National Geographic Adventurer of the Year in 2012 for his concept of microadventures. In his book Microadventures: Local Discoveries for Great Escapes, Humphreys reveals how you can live an adventurous life even with a 9-to-5 job. Humphreys took a break from work to talk to us about microadventures and the importance of exploring the world around us.
Editor’s Note: This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
SuperheroYou: What exactly are “microadventures” or “9-to-5 adventures?”
Alastair Humphreys: Microadventures are exactly the same as adventures. So whatever someone feels is an adventure to them is fine. The difference with microadventures though is that it’s trying to shift people’s mindsets so that they realize that having a small adventure is not a bad thing. It’s better than doing nothing at all. And you can get a lot of the same benefits of adventures, squashed into a small little time away, whether it’s a weekend or overnight. So it’s like a shot of espresso version of adventure. It’s an adventure that fits with the realities of people’s busy lives, lack of time and lack of money – you can still have an adventure around those things.
SHY: What drove you to share “9-to-5 microadventures” with others and make a movement out of them? How did you do it?
AH: The drive came because I realized that people were starting to see me as an adventurer, which seemed really silly to me, because I feel like a really normal guy who’s just chosen to do adventures. So I wanted to try to show them that adventure is not only for adventurers, but it’s for normal people as well. That’s why I started doing deliberately small thing close to big cities that didn’t cost a lot of money – just to show that anyone can do this sort of stuff. And the way I started sharing it was by blogging, taking pictures for social media and by making short films. Not only did it go quite well but also what really helped it grow is that now other people are going off to do this sort of stuff and sharing their experiences with their friends. So now normal people are seeing other normal people doing this stuff – it’s not some adventure guy telling them to do it. It started to snowball a bit from there.
SHY: Why did you think of sharing microadventures by writing a book as a platform?
AH: Well I like writing books, and I think that’s a good reason. I’ve written books about other trips I do, and I think that’s it – I like writing books. Probably in terms of reaching lots of people, books are the best way to do it. They’re a little bit old-fashioned in many ways compared to if I just put all my effort into making an Instagram video. I think the real reason I did it was because I really like books. I like writing them, and I feel very proud having a solid finished product. I don’t think books are very sensible things to write these days, but I like them.
SHY: Can you tell us about the writing process of Microadventures? Where did you start? Did you refer back to your journals? How long did it take you? What was the most challenging part about writing it?
AH: It was quite a long process really. Before the book came the blogs and making these short videos. And I began by having a year of microadventures. In each month, I do something different, trying to encourage other people to do that, which proved quite popular. On the back of those blogs, I started to get a little bit of interest from publishers. Then I started to talk to publishers about what the book might be. I originally wanted to write a really beautiful narrative story, a nicely written book, but the publisher that I got, HarperCollins, they persuaded me to try to make a book that’s more practical and do it almost a bit more like a guidebook. So I think in the end, we compromised in that I tried to make it a book that looks beautiful, is well-written and enjoyable to read, but also is useful like a guide book. Once I decided I had a book, the next thing I tried to do was to cover all the different activities that I wanted to cover – bicycles, boats, canoes, walking, climbing – and do more things to take photographs where it was missing some. I wanted to try and come up with different ideas that would suit all people – men, women, young people, old people, tough guys, lazy people – so trying to do a variety of trips to appeal to different people. And then the hardest part, which I always find hard, is sitting still in front of a computer long enough to actually write it. I find that a difficult, painful process. But it’s worth it in the end.
SHY: You also wrote a children’s trilogy, The Boy Who Biked the World, in addition to encouraging parents to take their children out on microadventures (such as sleeping in a tent outdoors). Why do you think it’s important to introduce microadventures to kids? How do you involve your children in your microadventures?
AH: So I spent four years cycling around the world, and I visited loads of schools while I was doing that, talking to kids all over the world. And I noticed that when I talked to kids, the audience is really excited, really engaged, and really liked the idea of going and seeing the world. You don’t really need to explain to kids why that might be an exciting thing. Sometimes, I’ll talk to adults, and I really have to try to explain to them why adventures might be a good thing, and they look at you like you’re a bit crazy. But kids don’t do that. So I knew that kids like adventure, and I felt that there was a lack of it in the world today. We get a bit obsessed with health and safety, and everyone worries about murderers and terrorists. But the reality is that most nearly everyone in the world is not a murderer or a terrorist; nearly everyone is a nice person. And I wanted children to see that side of the world and to go and read about that side of the world. I hoped that it might encourage them to start dreaming of doing big adventures of their own. But of course, they can’t do big adventures straight away. They still have to go to school. So in the meantime, it’s good to try to persuade them to do microadventures – to climb trees, swim in rivers, sleep on hills – the sort of stuff that adults did when they were younger, but very few children do these days. So that’s my effort towards trying to get kids a bit more wild.
SHY: How do you sustain this movement while also practicing what you preach? Do you subscribe to a ‘normal’ 9-to-5 routine where you have to practice microadventures to maintain a healthy work-life balance? Or is your schedule more unstructured where you can take months off to go on adventures to bring that experience back and share it with others?
AH: I think my life is a little bit of both of those things. I work for myself – I have my shed here where I sit, and I write and read books and plan adventures. Then I can go and do adventures when I want. So I sometimes go away for a very long time. I’m very conscious that many of the things that I’m saying to people is easier in my life to do. I don’t have that 9-to-5 rigid structure. However, I also write books, I write for magazines and I do interviews with people and that then means there is structure to my life. I spend a lot of time sitting behind the computer, working away, just like most people do. And I’ve personally found it beneficial doing the 5-to-9 microadventures when I’m in this phase of writing books. I get bored, I get frustrated, I get a bad back from sitting here. And it’s been really awesome for me to learn that if I just get my bag and go sleep on the nearest hill, that will really help refresh my mind. All the things that are helpful to people with a proper 9-to-5 job definitely have helped me as well.
SHY: Your learning philosophy seems to require full immersion. For instance, you fully immersed into cycling around the world for four years after graduating from Oxford. And if you do subscribe to full immersion, is this something you apply to every type of learning or just for going on adventures?
AH: I think when I do something, I tend to do it a lot and do it to quite an extreme and get really into it. That’s true with just about everything I do. I tend to do it almost too much. Like cycling around the world, I could have done it in one year, but I did it for four years. When I do exercise, I tend to go a bit crazy. When I drink beer, I probably drink too much beer. So most things, I do to extremes. But I’m quite curious and I really like learning. I like being a beginner. I’m really aware that I’m not an expert at things and I really like trying to learn more things. So I think when an idea captures my imagination, then I get quite obsessed with it and really try to work hard to get half good at it, which is interesting because when I was in school and university, I was quite lazy. I didn’t really put much effort into my learning. So it’s really come about since I finished formal education, and I suppose starting to find things that I really cared about and really wanted to learn.
SHY: In your Frequently Asked Questions section, for the question, “Is the world a bad place,” you write, “No! It’s full of good people, beautiful places, fascinating civilizations,” and that “TV loves to show us only the bad stuff.” So how do you feel about the news? How do you prevent it from distorting your perspective of this good world?
AH: I do keep up with the news. It is a bit depressing but I think it’s important to do that, and I don’t want to be an ostrich that just buries my head in the sand and pretend there aren’t bad things happening in the world. I think the way I keep it in perspective is because I’ve been fortunate enough to travel for quite a few years. I’ve been to about 90 different countries. If I hear about bad things happening in Syria for example, I think partly of the things that I see on TV, but also I think of the time I spent cycling through Syria before there was a war there where people were kind and friendly and welcomed me into their homes and laughed at jokes with me in cafes. And I know those are the people who are involved in all of this. So I think having traveled a lot helps me keep it in perspective, which is one reason I try to write these books for children who haven’t traveled so much, to try to offer them a slightly different perspective.
SHY: Do you think microadventures are an antidote to today’s culture of negativity, of violence, and of “if it bleeds, it leads?” How does it fight that?
AH: Well, it’s certainly encouraging people to a gentler and simpler way of life. To be honest, I don’t think it really does fight or even really disagree with the “if it bleeds, it leads” side of things. I don’t think it really addresses that at all. What I think perhaps it does though is it helps in a very gentle way some of the other things that are really big issues for people particularly in the first world: lack of time, stress, and the mental health issues that come from having a very poor work-life balance. People being very disconnected to nature – not spending time in the forests, not listening to birds – I think has a genuine impact on our mental health and our happiness – how well we sleep, how efficiently and effectively we work. Also most of us, me included, are far too addicted to our smartphones, constantly being engaged with the internet. I think going on microadventures helps slow the mind down, especially if you leave your phone behind or go somewhere where there’s no reception. It forces your brain to slow down and to engage more deeply and fully for longer periods of time on one thing, which I think is a very helpful thing when we’re constantly flipping from one thing to another, with about 20 browsers on our screen at a time.
SHY: What does your day-to-day look like as a father, a husband, and a microadventurer?
AH: Well I sort of have two lives. I have the life where I go and do adventure stuff. And there’s my normal life, which is when I’m at home, doing domestic chores, taking my kids to school in the morning, and then running back to my shed, six hours of working freedom to write as much as I possibly can, before I go and do a talk to earn some money, before I have to pick up kids, make them tea, put them in a bath, read them a story, read them The Boy Who Biked the World – the normal life. So I think this aspect of my life, which is very normal, just like millions of people, helps give some authority to the microadventures. Because if I was just some adventure guy who didn’t have any responsibility, it’d be easy for people to say, “Well, it’s okay for you to say that, but this doesn’t work when you’re in the real world.” But I’m sort of in the real world.
SHY: Do you have any advice for our readers mainly in their 20s and 30s on living this more adventurous, exciting life? Particularly in America, we’re so goal-driven and often have tunnel vision towards reaching a career goal. Do you have any thoughts on why we should look outside of work more often and gain perspective?
AH: I have lots of thoughts, which in many ways led me to do this for my career, rather than becoming a banker or a lawyer. I think your career is very long. All of us are going to be working until we’re 70 I imagine, with the pensions running out. So we have so long to go. I know when you’re young, it feels very urgent to get on and chase things, but there’s a very big difference between the words “urgent” and “important.” I think it’s good to focus on the important stuff more than the urgent stuff. You have decades and decades of your career to go. That won’t be harmed by spending few nights out in the wild.
And I ironically think the more time you’re able to spend away, the more time you’re able to work – the more effectively and efficiently you’ll work and you’ll become a more rounded person to help you in your career as well. I think the notion of a work-life balance is crucial for your mental health, your happiness and also for your career. I love it when I see Barack Obama go off to spend a few days in the wild in Alaska. If he’s got time to do it, we’ve all got time to spend a couple days in the woods or sleeping on the hills and turning off our phones for a night and realizing the next morning, without checking our emails, the world has not exploded and is fine.
SHY: Where would you like to see yourself in 10 years? In your FAQ, you say you hope to eventually stop doing trips. Why and with what else do you wish to replace adventures?
AH: Well I love doing trips; there’s an element that I love that I hope I will do forever. I hope I will always want to explore, travel and see new places. But I think what I meant by that was I hope I get to a point when I stop feeling the need to do stuff in order to prove myself to the world or to myself. And to stop always chasing the next ride and thinking, “if I just go there, then I’ll be happy.” I would like to reach a place where I’m really happy doing what I’m doing right here. I’m not dreaming of tomorrow or wishing back to yesterday. So that’s where I’d like to get to. I think the way that I’m getting towards that is trying to become more creative – working more on writing and filmmaking and trying to learn those skills, which of course take a lifetime to do. So 10 years from now, I’d like to be sitting in this very same chair, having written a properly brilliant book that is Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck combined. That is the plan.
SHY: What is your real-life superpower?
AH: I think the nearest I have to an actual superpower is being incredibly stubborn, which is quite a bad thing as well. But it means when I start a project, I keep going until it’s done.
SHY: Who is your real-life superhero?
AH: Most of my heroes are in the world of writing and adventure. There’s a British guy named Sir Ranulph Fiennes, which is a great British adventurer name. He was my hero for many years and he persuaded me to try to turn adventure into my life. So he has a big impact on me.
SHY: How would you like to be remembered?
AH: I’d like to be remembered as someone who was interesting, funny, and kind to people. And then P.S. he also wrote the best book ever made.
SHY: Is there anything you want our readers to know that I haven’t asked?
AH: My new book, Grand Adventures, is coming out at the end of March, which for whatever reason will be on Amazon only in the U.S. starting September.
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Written by Diana Kim
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