Pages

Monday 23 September 2013

Taming the wanderlust

Swimming with sharks, free-falling from the Grand Canyon, skinny dipping in Phuket, climbing via ferrata in Borneo, cycling across Siberia… the latest list of adventure travel goes on. Businessmen, world’s top CEO’s, and even meek housewives are donning the new mantle – that of the adventure-seeker. Gone are the days when a lone traveller across the Atacama Desert won records for his daring. Fed up of work tensions and responsibilities, people are out seeking a new high from the independence of thrilling escapades into the unexplored.

The yearning to travel and explore is there in each one of us. It’s just that only 10% of us willingly travel to locations outside our comfort zone. Visiting your friends across the state no longer accounts as travel. The new generation – and even the old – is ready to do the dare. Check out Briton Dan Parr’s experience:    

Full-time director of an international sports marketing company and part-time ultramarathon runner, Parr has raced 250 kilometres over seven days in both the Sahara and Gobi deserts - and won.

On these trips he had to carry his own food, water and equipment.

“I loved the feeling of isolation, being completely out in the desert, completely dependent on yourself,” says Parr.

“I have a wife and three kids, I run an office. There are a lot of things weighing on our minds in day-to-day life. Things become simple in the desert: you need to get from A to B in as quick a time as possible, in the best shape.

“That self-dependence is incredibly liberating. You don’t get that feeling very often in today’s world."

No comments:

Post a Comment