– but then he did spend 13 years on his adventure! Meanwhile climbers can get up and down something special in a couple of weeks. Ultimately, it’s better to do something short than nothing at all.
If it’s not so much the absence of your lovely personality that is the problem but the absence of your useful role in sharing life’s daily chores, can you think of ways to equal up your balance sheet before or after the trip? Bear in mind that you will be perceived to be in debt on this account for the rest of your life, even long after you feel the debt has been settled! It’s the price you’ll have to pay.
If money is the stumbling block, work out between you how much money you can justify spending, then set that as your limit for the trip. You’ll still be able to do something great: doing stuff on a daft budget often makes it more fun anyway. Try pointing out how rich Bear Grylls has become from his adventures. Do not mention that almost nobody else has, though!
If it’s the risk of the adventure that’s causing friction, focus on an idea where the risk (or the perceived risk, at least) is lower. Perceived risk is an interesting concept; people often suggest to me that rowing across the Atlantic in a little boat was very dangerous. But so long as you don’t fall off the boat, it’s really not very dangerous at all, for you are in control of most of the risks. Keep the hatches closed, keep yourself tied to the boat: chances are you’ll be fine.
© Alastair Humphreys
You might know that what you are planning is pretty safe, but the person who loves you may not. A little thoughtful compromise in this department need not dampen the adventure. There is an element of risk in every adventure, of course, just as there is some risk in driving to work each day and massive risk in sitting in front of the TV for years until your heart packs in. The most epic adventures do entail danger. The most prolific adventurers are selfish. It’s up to you to decide where you and your trip are going to lie on the spectrum.
Your choice of expedition partner can be a cause of friction. This is usually for one of two reasons.
1. Your beloved thinks your expedition buddy is a Grade A lunatic who will get you into all sorts of scrapes.
2. Your partner is jealous of your expedition partner, either because you spend waaaaay too much time chatting to each other about your impending adventure and which multi-fuel stove you should buy, or because your expedition partner is worryingly attractive.
Do your best to point out that on an expedition people are smelly, don’t change their pants for weeks, and are too tired to want to do anything except sleep when you squeeze into that too-snug tent in an evening after watching the beautiful sunset slip behind the mountains, just the two of you out there, away from the world, nobody within a thousand miles of you… Be aware that whatever you say will be construed as protesting too much. Of course, you can always suggest to your partner that they can solve this particular problem by coming along with you instead!
Finally, failing that, you’re going to have to split up. You won’t have to endure Pizza Express Couples’ Evenings on Valentine’s Day ever again. You can do all the adventures that you dream of.
But don’t blame me when you’re out in the wild, freezing cold, deeply uncomfortable, starving, scared, stinking, lonely and you find yourself questioning your dramatic decision…
WISE WORDS FROM FELLOW ADVENTURERS
SCOTT PARAZYNSKI
ASTRONAUT AND MOUNTAINEER
There are huge personal rewards in exploration, but they aren’t always enjoyed by your family, and certainly they worry for you deeply when you go away to do these kinds of things. So there is a certain selfishness, I suppose, in exploration. But if it’s done for the right reasons, if there’s some social benefit, some educational benefit... I’ve always tried to have some kind of educational outreach with the things that I’ve done. There can be some broader good as well. There’s nothing wrong with having personal satisfaction with your exploration, either. And when we do go and explore, we come back better people as well. We come back reinvigorated, I think. I came back a better parent, more appreciative of the planet, a better steward of planet Earth.
SATU VÄNSKÄ-WESTGARTH
WHITEWATER KAYAKER TURNED LONG-DISTANCE CYCLIST
[When I was pregnant] the yearning for something, a proper adventure of sorts and the need to hold on to some pieces of the old ‘I used to have a life before the kids too’ kept burning. ‘Are you really going to be away from your kids that long?’ It was an inevitable question but one which I wasn’t prepared for when it first came my way. Not so many people wondered how my main worry, the biking, would go. They wondered how I would survive without the kids. Or the kids without me.
Well, we all survived. I felt more alive than I had for a while, away from the sleep-deprived life of a parent of young kids. I enjoyed being me. Not the mum of so-and-so. Just me. And most mornings I would join my family at the breakfast table at home, virtually, via Skype. ‘Mum goes biking today?’ my little girl would ask. Yes, Mum goes biking. And apparently she was going biking too. To be a good parent or a mum, I don’t have to be with the family 24-7 every day of the year.
The kids need security, love and an example of how life could be lived. The best example I can give them is the one of the true me, the one who dreams of adventures, and goes after her dreams. The one who comes back excited with stories to tell and then takes the whole family on microadventures.
JAMES CASTRISSION
KAYAKED THE TASMAN AND TREKKED TO THE SOUTH POLE AND BACK
I looked at the managers at work who were five years ahead of me, then the partners who were 10 or 15 years older than me, and I looked at the lives they were living and I thought about what was really important to me. I just couldn’t see myself living like that. Conformity has always freaked me out a little bit, so kayaking the Tasman was a way of identifying who I was and what I was capable of doing – and just seeing a bit of the world.
Even at the time, it was the hardest decision I’d ever had to make in my life. If I had to decide now, with a young family, I don’t know if I would have had that will.
I come from a Greek family and my mum and dad had invested so much in my education and had it all planned out for me, really. You go to school, you go to uni, get a good job... To turn my back on that was almost like a bit of a slap in the face for them. Not living up to their expectations, no one understood why I was doing it. That’s what made it so difficult.
SEAN, INGRID AND KATE TOMLINSON
FAMILY CYCLING EXPEDITION FROM ARCTIC CANADA TO PATAGONIA
Sean, our daughter Kate and I cycled from Arctic Canada to the southern tip of Chile on a single bike and a tandem pulling two trailers. We were always inspired by the idea of making a very long journey. We wanted arriving somewhere new and unknown to us every evening to become part of our daily lifestyle. We feared that if we left it a few more years Kate would not want to miss out on school and her social life. This has turned out to be one thing that we were dead right about. We are lucky to get her to ourselves for one day every other weekend now and I’m glad we made the most of her pre-teen years!’
© Alastair Humphreys
Kate offered this perspective on their adventure: ‘My parents took me away because they are crazy. They have been taking me off on adventures for as long as I can remember, although this was the longest.
‘Some of the toughest parts were also the best. The places where we had the hardest times are the moments we look back on with the fondest memories’
If I hadn’t wanted to do it, though, it wouldn’t have happened. I always get a say in the plans. I love looking back on the trip and I often think about it. It was just a way of life for two years. Some of the toughest parts of the trip were also the best parts. Like the