A LETTER FROM A YOUNG ADVENTURER

Dear Dr. Wheeler,

I am a 16 year old Boy Scout from Kansas and I recently read your book “The Adventurers Guide”. I wholeheartedly agree with your opinion about adventure, but the only roadblock that seems to get in my way is lack of money. I would appreciate it a lot if you could give me some insight on how you dealt with this problem, and how I might overcome it. Also, I have read on various web sites that you still lead 2-3 expeditions per year, and I was wondering where they would be to and the age limit, cost, and other requirements.

Sincerely,

Nathan Montgomery

Dear Nathan —

It means a lot to me that you were able to gain some value out of a book I wrote so many years ago. And all during those years I have been trying to figure out the answer to your question. Basically it is a choice: discover some way to make money doing adventurous things, or have a business that makes enough money that you can do adventurous things in your spare time.

Both are not easy. Running your own business is the only way to gain financial independence. It takes constant 24/7 effort, however, so most entrepreneurs can’t take time off to explore the world. The best they can hope for is to make enough for early retirement, postponing an adventurous life until they’re in their 50s or so. But by then it’s too late, physically, to do the same sort of things you could when younger.

When I wrote The Adventurer’s Guide, the adventure travel business was completely embryonic. Now look at all the ads by adventure travel companies in the back pages of Outside Magazine. There are dozens of them, but many are offering the same trips — that is, they are just agents for the same local outfitters who actually run the trip in the Sahara, Himalayas, et al. Running these trips has some real downsides, the biggest being you’re often a babysitter for spoiled adults. I’d suggest two things.

First, take a look at what adventure there is in your own backyard of America. When I was your age, all I could think of was exploring the remotest places of the planet — anywhere except my own country. For the past few years now, my youngest son Jackson and I have been embarked on his “Nifty Fifty Project” — for him to experience and learn something really cool about each of all the 50 states. Jackson has been a lot of places with with me, three times to the North Pole, across the Sahara, the Gobi, and the Amazon, all before he turned twelve. But I wanted him to know his own country as well. It’s been a revelation to me — just how much there is to see and do right here in America.

You’re smack in the middle of it — the radius of a day’s drive for you would get you to any extraordinary number of places you can climb, trek, explore, learn about, on and on. No expensive air tickets. Go with friends, share expenses, take short weekend adventures that don’t cost much. Do your research so you can persuasively explain to your folks the educational value of where you’re going and what you’ll learn so you can make a cogent case for them to foot the bill or at least part of it.

Second, adventure is often like happiness: you can’t aim for it directly. As Aristotle noted, you can’t have happiness in general be your goal. It is only by doing something specific that we can be happy in the doing of it. The analogy here is that being a professional “adventurer,” guiding adventure trips or having an adventure travel company, is probably not the best way to go. It would be instead having a career doing something that involves adventurous activities as an intrinsic side-effect.

What this is I haven’t a clue, as I don’t what impassions you, what sort of work really fires you up. You may not know for some time. I’d say make it your job over the next several years through high school and college to go see, spend time with, write to anyone you hear of whose career seems cool to you. The first thing that would come up for me if I were your age again would be to focus on scientists — there are scientists conducting field research all over the planet in scores of different sciences. If I were to do it all over again, I would likely try to combine science and adventure.

In sum, focus on learning about the world and the work you can do in it.

As far as my own expeditions, I usually offer them to my own mailing list of people I know and like to travel with. I have run father & son expeditions, such as to the Sahara, and it’s possible I will be running one to a region of India east of Bhutan called Arunachal Pradesh in January. I’ll let you know.

My oldest son, Brandon, however, is now leading expeditions exclusively for younger folks — no parents, no oldies allowed. You can find out more on the Wheeler Expeditions web site,www.wheelerexpeditions.com. He’s out of the country now and won’t be back until mid-August, but Brandon will be operating at least two expeditions next summer which could be of interest to you.

I hope this helps. Thanks once again for writing.

Jack Wheeler

Ps: One last suggestion — take your time finding the right woman with whom you want to share your one life and raise a family. Stay single in your 20s and you are free to explore the world and expand your career. Being a husband and a father is one of life’s most rewarding experiences — but it requires a dedicated commitment obviating world-gallivanting. Carpe diem.