This story originally appeared on the Gents Cafe Newsletter. You can subscribe here.
I remember the long, summer days in my childhood, when I spent time with my gang of ragamuffins, wandering around our neighbourhood, looking for a blend of mischief and discovery. The air smelled different back then. Every tree was a climbing challenge, every forest was magical, every hill was a fort we needed to conquer. Our immediate surroundings provided endless adventures, limited only by our imagination.
Eventually, we all grew up. Our focus shifted to schools, work, and families. We searched for adventures on the screens of various devices, and the world expanded around us. With it grew our expectations and appetite, fuelled by the constant stream of content served to us online. I saw the lavish expeditions, trekking trips to the far-flung corners of the globe, hiking in the Himalayas, and I couldn’t shake off the feeling that my life had become utterly boring, and that I had neither the time nor money to satisfy my wanderlust.
That’s when I stumbled upon the idea of microadventures, a term coined by British author Alastair Humphreys, which he defined as “small and achievable for normal people with real lives”. You need an idea, a single night or evening, and minimal provisions. Examples include sleeping out in your own garden, camping in a nearby field, cycling to a local beauty spot for a sunrise, or exploring a previously unvisited part of your own town. The essence lies in finding adventure close to home, fitting it into a normal schedule, and reconnecting with the immediate surroundings.
I felt immediately drawn to this concept. I was already an avid hiker and cyclist, so I had everything I needed readily available. One of the ideas that caught my attention was following a river or a brook from the source to its mouth, so I scoured Google Maps in search of a perfect candidate. To my surprise, I found a small river just 30 minutes from where I live. I was vaguely aware that there was some kind of stream or waterway there, as I passed next to it hundreds of times, but I never realized it had its own valley, a small waterfall, and multiple lakes along its course. I packed my backpack, prepared my bicycle, and one Saturday I embarked on my first microadventure. Ten hours later, I was back on my doorstep, with over a hundred kilometres in my legs, dirty, half-eaten by mosquitoes, hungry, but with a huge, happy grin on my face. I was hooked.
Since then I’ve embarked on many more small adventures like this. I slept under the stars, visited small towns around my city, swam in lakes and rivers. I knew all these places earlier, but I never really knew them. Setting out for these microadventures gave me an incredible perspective and appreciation of my own surroundings.
I was looking for adventure in remote places, but it turns out it was literally outside my door.
