SVEN YRVIND
75-YEAR-OLD SAILOR, ONCE SAILED ROUND CAPE HORN IN A 20-FOOT BOAT
When I was young I worked 8am to 10pm on my projects. But I’m getting older now, so I am slower. But that’s OK: I am enjoying building the boat. It’s interesting. I’m more knowledgeable now, more patient as well. The mind wanders. I try new things [design details for the boat]. They often don’t succeed. I try again, I try something else.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, young people often worry that they are too inexperienced to set out on a big journey. Everyone needs to begin somewhere, though, and these adventurers demonstrate that age is no barrier to accomplishing extraordinary feats:
TEGAN PHILLIPS
CARTOONIST AND CYCLIST
I am 21. I think my age actually worked to my advantage because, for me anyway, one of the biggest parts of adventuring is unlearning a lot of things that you didn’t even realise you had been taught. A lot of the time I would think things like, ‘Oh no, I can’t wash my hair in a restaurant bathroom, it just isn’t done’. And then I would think, ‘why the hell not?’ Where did I even get all of these silly ideas from in the first place?
ANDY WARD
WALKED ACROSS EUROPE, FROM THE UK TO ISTANBUL
You’ve got to start somewhere. You don’t need experience. Everyone has walked a certain distance, chatted to random people they meet along the way and set up a tent in the ditch, or asked a farmer to camp in their field. It’s just a case of getting up and getting on with it. I’d been a little worried about getting a job afterwards until I was halfway through my walk and I got two emails from two different investment banks in London. Both asked me to come and work for them. I’ve never applied for a job with a bank before. They had just heard about the walk and the blog, and they got in touch. I spoke to them and said, ‘Why on Earth would you want me? You don’t even know my CV or anything else.’ They said, ‘We’ve got enough Cambridge students. We want interesting people. We want people who can talk to clients and talk about interesting things.’
SARAH OUTEN
ROWED THE INDIAN OCEAN
I guess there’s a bit of naivety that comes in at the age of 21. You think you can take on the world, all of these things. I saw it very simplistically. I can’t think what the right word is, but I looked at other big expeditions and I thought, ‘Well, this isn’t rocket science. It’s just a big project and if I chopped that project down then I can make it happen.’
JESSICA WATSON
SAILED SOLO ROUND THE WORLD
It’s incredible how low our expectations of young people can sometimes be. As I was preparing to sail around the world I constantly came up against people who just assumed that a young girl couldn’t do such a thing. I don’t know why we automatically think something’s not possible rather than looking at how it might be achieved.
ANDREW FORSTHOEFEL
WALKED ACROSS THE USA
I graduated from college with a ton of questions, unsure of what I wanted to do, and figured I’d try to create around myself a situation that would help me engage those questions. I thought I might go abroad for a little bit but then I got fired from a job and didn’t have the money I thought I would have. So I figured I’d just start walking and keep it simple. I wore a sign that said, ‘Walking to Listen’. The idea was to get people curious and hopefully they’d stop and share a story or a piece of advice. And that was pretty much it. I had a few basic rules: walk every mile that was possible to walk. And camp out more often than not because that’s all I could afford.
© Daniel Munoz/Reuters/Corbis
BELINDA KIRK
ROWED AROUND BRITAIN
I had towed the line, worked hard at school and felt that I had done what I was obliged to do for my parents, friends, society, etc. So, completely against my parents’ wishes, I told them I was going to Africa to study monkeys and have an adventure for a year before getting back on society’s merry-go-round and going to university and all that jazz. It was without doubt the best step I’ve ever taken, bar none.
Some people say the first step is the hardest. I think it can also be the easiest. Because really it’s a no-brainer if it’s what you want to do more than anything else. I started as part of an organised expedition. I paid to be there – when you have zero experience to offer anyone then I think you should expect to pay to build that experience. I also knew I wanted to be part of some zoological fieldwork and couldn’t have done anything meaningful on my own.
KELLY DIGGLE
CYCLED A LAP OF ICELAND
I panicked at the realisation that, age 22, I was settling down to a life of conformity. It had just become a norm. I turned my back on pouring coffee for a living, sold the car, waved goodbye to my relationship and left Cornwall. I had no idea where I was headed. All I knew was that I had this burning desire to do something. I wanted to travel, to absorb culture, to meet all sorts of people and to purposely step outside of my comfort zone. After all, I was young, commitment-free and, let’s face it, a little bit naive. So far in my experience, these three things have favoured me extremely well.
SVEN YRVIND
PLANNING TO SAIL ROUND ANTARCTICA
My advice for young people considering their first adventure is, don’t trust the grown-ups! You need courage. You have to be a rebel.
A few years ago I rowed from England to France with Phil Packer, a disabled soldier. Two contrasting memories stand out from that experience. The first was that so many things that are easy for me – that I do not even think about – are either difficult or impossible for disabled people. Daily life is so much harder. On the other hand, disabled people are used to discomfort and difficulty, and this is perfect expedition training! I was on that row in order to help Phil, but I was so seasick that I was actually pretty useless and Phil did just about everything for me! If you think that your physical condition may limit your adventurous ambitions, read these interviews:
JIMMY GODDARD
HAND-CYCLED UP KILIMANJARO
About a month after the rock-climbing accident which left me paralysed from the chest down I was lying in my bed in Stoke Mandeville Hospital. What I really wanted more than anything else was to get back into the mountains and the open air and away from the ‘disability’ that surrounded me at Stoke Mandeville. Having a massive challenge to focus on again really got me moving forward. Travelling to Massachusetts to test-ride the bike and then later to Arizona to train with a friend on the moonscape terrain similar to Kilimanjaro, plus training here in the UK, gave me that sense of purpose and focus that I really enjoy. This was extremely cathartic after the accident. So many people have done so many extraordinary things these days that it’s nearly impossible not to find somebody who has done something similar to what you might be planning. So get on the internet and look for inspiration. Don’t be shy. Approach people and get advice. Most adventurers I’ve met make a point of being really helpful to new people trying to get into the scene. And finally, dream big but start small; learn the processes – kit, funding, planning – and work your way up to something epic!
KAREN DARKE
TWO DECADES OF EXPEDITIONS BY BIKE, SEA KAYAK AND SIT-SKI
I have no idea how my life would have been if I hadn’t ended up paralysed all those years ago. Certainly I’m sure I would have got more into climbing and big mountain/greater range stuff, but who knows? It’s a bit like that film Sliding Doors where one decision or incident totally changes the course of your life. I can’t know what direction my life would have gone in if I had survived the climbing accident with my spine intact. The stuff I’ve done since becoming paralysed has been about who I am deep down as a person – with a love of adventure, sport and the outdoors.