[From the Archives] What Does Travel and Adventure Offer Us?
Five Benefits of Wandering in the Modern World
The following is an excerpt from An Anthropology of Wandering: How Adventure Can Alleviate a Fearful Culture. You can read an overview of the book, which includes another excerpt, in my recent post: Summoning the Anthropology of Wandering: A Primer to My Forthcoming Book
Greetings, fellow wanderers,
Today I am republishing another post from the archives. As Those Who Wander approaches 800 subscribers, I recognize that most new subscribers may not have access to or be familiar with some of my initial writings. With over 100 posts in the archive, I want to expose these paywalled posts to newcomers.
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-JSB
Now onto today’s archived post, What Does Travel and Adventure Offer Us?
In every instance of our lives, we are losing out on something as well as gaining. Life is all a grand orchestra of trade-offs. We owe our very existence to those, in the face of the unknown, who dared to wonder and wander. Instead of complacency and security, they chose the path of unknown perils. There is no doubt our forebears of the distant past were conscious of the inherent risks of acting boldly to explore our planet, but so too were they conscious of the potential rewards of doing so. Some of them reaped those benefits by discovering wondrous new lands with plentiful game and resources to exploit, and thus charted a better world for themselves. We are indebted to them for their courage and wanderlust.
Relatively speaking, our species is still young, being approximately 300,000 years old. But in that time, we’ve explored the entire planet. Had our ancestors stayed in place and been located in a small ecological niche, we might very well have gone extinct by now, in the way of all our previous hominin cousins: the Neanderthals, the Denisovans, and the Australopithecines. By pushing into the unknown and spreading around the globe, we unwittingly ensured a greater probability of existence for our future kin because it forced our ancestors to divide, cope, and adapt to a wide range of earthly climes, thus safeguarding a greater chance of survival during unstable times.
What does it mean for an already globalized species to maintain wandering? Why should we continue to explore in a world that already seems fully explored, known, and filled? What’s the value of adventure in our contemporary world? What is it that we come to gain or lose for the sake of adventure? Is it all worth it? The reasons for adventure are vast, as are the responsibilities of the 21st-century traveler. Here I will put forth five of the more important reasons to explore our world.
Perhaps the most fundamental thing we gain from an adventure is increased physical and psychological well-being. Though the physical aspect is pretty obvious and common knowledge by now, there are some interesting scientific findings on the benefits to our psychological health. For instance, it has been found that hiking in natural environments for even a short period (~90 minutes) reduces rumination, more commonly known as brooding, or repetitively dwelling on negative thoughts that can lead to depression, anxiety disorders, and other forms of mental illness due to the increased activity in a part of the brain known as the subgenual prefrontal cortex.[1]
It is projected that 70% of the world’s population will be living in urban areas by 2050. In this hyper-urban future, it will be crucial for us to maintain access to and engage with natural areas and to especially incorporate more green spaces into our ever-populating cities, as urban areas have been known to have negative cognitive effects on people.[2] A growing consensus urges urban planners to reflect on the ecological and psychological benefits urban design can have in alleviating the stressors of many cities by promoting such things as greenways for walking and biking, more street trees and parks to reduce extreme heat, and community gardens.[3]
Natural settings also boost creativity. In a tech-free hiking experiment where participants were immersed in nature for four days, performances on problem-solving tasks increased by 50%.[4] ADHD, the most common neurobehavioral disorder, found to affect approximately 2 million school-aged children in the United States, can have severe impacts on a child’s life.[5] One study has found that engaging children in green outdoor settings can reduce symptoms of ADHD.[6]
What the current research suggests is that exploration of the natural world is vitally important to our psychological well-being. For the regular outdoor enthusiast, this is not news. I’m often amazed at how a short hike in the woods radically boosts my mood on the days when I’m feeling down. In addition, I also noticed a significant decrease in anxiety and I suffered from few if any headaches during the entire time backpacking the Appalachian Trail, something I was prone to before our experience. For the majority of us who have become, or will eventually become, absorbed by the organized chaos of modern city living, we should bear in mind this innate dependency our minds seem to have on being immersed in nature.
Another positive attribute to be gained in venturing is that adventures can be therapeutic in coping with the suffering and strife of life. One of the most astounding things discovered on the Appalachian Trail was the unusual number of people who were suffering from some significant physical or emotional tragedy: The woman overcoming her divorce, the man who had been wounded in war, the nurse who had gone blind at the same time her husband’s body was fatally deteriorating. Indeed, many people in moments of transition find themselves on the Appalachian Trail. Instead of allowing grief and misfortune to define their identities, these people had the tenacity to seek therapy in nature.
Left Turn was a woman with short, graying hair hiking alone and brandishing a very becoming smile. She had “hit a brick wall” in her life when she was confronted bluntly with a divorce. “I went to a talk and the speaker said, ‘When you hit a brick wall, turn left.’ I really liked that, but I was in my 50s, so I didn’t know what my left turn would be.” Reading a book about the Appalachian Trail at the time, she called up her daughter asking, “Would you think I’m crazy if I hike the Appalachian Trail?” Her daughter quickly responded, “I think you would be crazy if you didn’t!”
Doing something like hiking a long-distance trail helps remarkably with coping because, we suspected, the crucial components of what a person needs the most are present here, namely other people—a community, a purpose, and an opportunity to fashion a new identity. In addition, plenty of time, distance, and place grant an individual an environment to share their grief amidst a common struggle with the physical and mental obstacles of the Trail. Being with others, along with having the chance to be alone to process and evaluate these tragedies, can be a tremendous life-improving event.
In a society that incessantly pleads for our time and attention, requiring us to keep in lockstep at an ever-increasing speed, we unsuspectingly trade away these personal connections and intimate moments that are seemingly antithetical to our contemporary system of living. I, too, would come to unsuspectingly benefit from the therapy the Trail provided when we had to momentarily leave the Trail because of my grandfather’s passing that summer of 2014.
Hearing the personal stories of those who had felt loss in life greatly helped alleviate the pain I felt for the recent loss of my grandfather that summer. We all cope and grieve in varying ways, but what became quickly apparent walking in the open piney air along the Trail with so many others who came here specifically to “walk the war out of their system” or stop allowing their divorce to define their lives was that this provided a unique experience for people to actively meditate and walk through their struggle. The Trail provided a remarkable process of healing. Being a part of this community and witnessing others overcome their obstacles uplifts a person to see that they are not alone. Despite being in a society surrounded by many others coping with their struggles, we all appear so indifferent to each other’s pain a lot of the time. The Trail openly brought many people together and provided a powerful form of therapy in the midst of wandering. Experiences in travel and adventure seem to open up a world of possibilities and can provide one with unexpected forms of therapy.
A third critical lesson is confronting and overcoming fear and anxiety. Adventure and travel often put fear in its place. As it is typically the fear of others that preoccupies our minds, one of the most central things a person becomes aware of with consistent new contact with other people and places is a diminishing sense of fear and apprehension about the world in general. We become more familiar with human nature and thus gain a greater affinity for others. This allows us to see through the eyes of those who may, on the surface and from a distance, appear wildly different from us and our cultural ways. Eventually, we gain an insight into just how complex being human is. In the end, our adventures have us look back in hindsight at our previous fears to see how ill-informed we once were—we are enabled to see more clearly the difference between perceived fears and actual risks.
Since our time on the Appalachian Trail, it has been a goal of mine to pay close attention to all the dangerous or violent instances I might encounter whenever traveling somewhere new or just experiencing daily town life. Rarely are such instances encountered. And if they are, they’re never at the level imagined. This is important for each of us to be more cognizant of because we are so bombarded with worrying information all the time that we rarely notice how little of it happens to us. Unreasoned or perceived fears have a great tendency to lead us astray. Travel and adventure tend to push back against all the prejudices we build up over time, and as a result, we can gain more equanimity about the state of the world.
Fourth is a growing sense of self-reliance and confidence in our ability to adapt. Adventures and travel make us more confident and thrifty. When we come to experience life on a long-distance trail or abroad, immersed in a foreign culture where our accessibility to familiar technology and things we previously depended on are limited or nowhere to be found, we can quickly become unsettled. We’re forced to confront our ignorance and inadequacies. But in striving to overcome such obstacles, we meet the creative side of ourselves that once lay dormant within us, and we gradually come to adapt to unforeseen circumstances. As we persevere, we come to find a renewed appreciation and confidence in our adaptability. We often “wow” ourselves with our brilliance for improvisation, and those epiphanies can inspire us to take further steps toward adventures that give us similar experiences.
Problem-solving and being innovative are essential and innate components of who we are—they are hallmarks of human nature. It is very much a part of everyone, whether we recognize it or not. And when we ignite that spark of self-reliance and self-discovery for the first time, we find ourselves full of life because we are reminded that this is what links us to our species’ sustaining ingenuity and resilience.
Ultimately, what we have to re-learn in modern industrial life is our capacity to adapt. Our greatest collective obstacle may just be enabling people to see that they inherently possess the capability to alter their behavior, to be self-aware of their agency, and to channel it more fruitfully. Adventures then provide one of the best ways to see these things for ourselves by dropping us into uncomfortable situations that allow us to tap into our creativity and adaptability.
Many people have responded to us since our days on the Appalachian Trail, “There is no way I could do something like hike the AT!” This isn’t so. What folks are saying is that they don’t have faith in themselves to adapt and overcome their initial fears. Most people actually could hike the AT, travel abroad extensively, or do whatever their dream adventure is if they wanted to, because they already possess this innate adaptive ability. We’ve seen children as young as nine, ranging up to people in their seventies, able to hike the Trail. There are centenarian marathon runners! Every one of us has a dream adventure, but far too many of us fail to make it a reality because of our inability to see this self-reliant, creative, and adaptive side of ourselves.
The fifth but not final lesson is the experience of connecting with other people and sharing a sense of community within a common experience. Adventures restore our faith in humanity. In anthropology, this sharing of a common experience within a community has been characterized by the term communitas.[7] Establishing relationships is something we inherently do being social creatures. Again, this isn’t an exclusive thing among adventurers. However, entering unknown territory in the heart of travel can be daunting. We often find ourselves relying much more heavily on the goodwill of strangers and become overtly committed to building a rapport with others.
Upon arriving in Hanover, New Hampshire, while on the Appalachian Trail, we found ourselves dripping wet from more torrential rains one day. We were utterly exhausted and our moods were souring. The supermarket was crowded, but we needed to gather supplies before figuring out where to stay that night. A young woman exiting the supermarket spotted us with an openhearted smile. Former thru-hikers of the AT can instantly spot other desperate thru-hikers, no matter the size of the crowd, like an archaeologist can spot a piece of worked stone amidst a scatter of natural pebbles. Then again, the stench emanating from their weathered clothes and grungy gear doesn’t make it all that difficult for the layperson either. Without thinking twice, she invited us to stay the night and clean up at her apartment. She hiked the trail two years before and could easily relate to our situation. And when she offered her apartment to us, she was quite literal: she was leaving for the weekend and left us with plenty of food, her Netflix account, a shower, and a bed without wanting anything in return.
These shared experiences of community struck me as profound and unexpected, despite being recently steeped in the study of anthropology, which taught us all about reciprocity and rapport. Another critical lesson dawned on me: learning something from afar, say in the classroom or reading a book at home, doesn’t mean we fully grasp something; many lessons of life require the full physical immersion of all our senses. These cases seemed to occur so regularly that it has made me wonder if all we need to do to gain a better sense of human altruism and unadulterated kindness is to simply wander a bit more throughout the world and inspect humanity a little more face-to-face.
Throwing ourselves out into the world forces us to make contact and establish a rapport with others. When we are nestled in a familiar place, we become habituated. We know how to move around with ease and acquire the things we need and want almost without thinking about it—we don’t necessarily need to interact and engage with anyone on any meaningful level. Technology can also distance us just as much as it can connect us. When we find ourselves in the grips of an adventure and a new place, we’re almost forced to interact with others more authentically. On an adventure, we tend to connect with others more intimately, establishing camaraderie or companionship with those sharing our experience.
One major positive to journeying into the world is that we not only expand our vision of our planet, but also our circle of sympathy casts a wider net. In his popular book, The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress, the moral philosopher Peter Singer observed in 1981 a historical trend of how
“[The] circle of altruism has broadened from the family and tribe to the nation and race, and we are beginning to recognize that our obligations extend to all human beings.”
The fact that we feel the pain and suffering of those affected by a natural or man-made disaster halfway around the world, and may even send relief money to those with whom we’ll never meet or have our kindness reciprocated, says something quite extraordinary about our moral progress. Stepping out into the world in more direct ways will allow us to see this less media-driven side of humanity.
It’s not only in our interest to know a wide array of our physical and intellectual world, but it is deeply critical to our collective interests as well. We instinctively understand this and know that we must continue to venture. We yearn to explore, and it’s neither guaranteed that progress will continue trending upward nor that “civilization” lasts forever. It’s guaranteed not to last forever, as history has shown. All empires and civilizations collapse or radically alter at some point. In an interview with Charlie Rose about humans traveling in space, the famed astronomer Carl Sagan once urged,
“It is important for us, humans, to be out there…we are an exploratory species, the last ten thousand years we’ve been sitting around in civilization, before that, for the last 100,000 years we were wanders, explorers, nomads, and that is in our blood.”
If we care anything for our future kin, we must keep moving, learning, and wandering even if it appears as if we’ve already explored the entire globe. There is always something our minds are yet to encounter.
Thanks for being a fellow traveler with me through this read. Please consider subscribing, sharing, and supporting this project. Much more to follow.
Cheers!
-JSB
NOTES
[1] Gregory N. Bratman, J. Paul Hamilton, Kevin S. Hahn, Gretchen C. Daily, and James J. Gross (2015), “Nature experience reduces rumination and subgenual prefrontal cortex activation,” PNAS 2015 112 (28) 8567-8572. http://www.pnas.org/content/112/28/8567
[2] Ibid.
[3] Terry Hartig and Peter H. Kahn Jr. (2016), “Living in cities, naturally,” Science Vol. 352 No. 6288, 938-940.
[4] Ruth Ann Atchley, David L. Strayer, and Paul Atchley (2012), “Creativity in the Wild: Improving Creative Reasoning through Immersion in Natural Settings,” PLOS ONE 7(12): e51474. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0051474
[5] Frances E. Kuo and Andrea Faber Taylor (2004), “A potential natural treatment for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: evidence from a national study,” American Journal of Public Health, 94(9), 1580–1586. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1448497/
[6] Ibid.
[7] The term suggested here is most inferred from the work of Victor Turner, more specifically, the definition of existential or spontaneous communitas.
This is a wonderful essay, and worthy of becoming canon within the sphere of outdoor / adventure / experiential education. I particularly enjoyed seeing your account of perceived vs actual risk. However, I must say that as an outdoor educator, I have noticed that the fear of going potty in the outdoors weighs far more heavily on the average neophyte over the fears of bears or criminality. I'd like to add a thought to your first and second lessons. The wild offers a meditative state to many (most?) that cannot be found in the day to day lives of average people. While some find it in prayer, Zen, Yoga, or other, many find it in the pursuit of adventure. The best explanation for this experience I have found is through the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. The experience of flow in nature, travel, and adventure is a form of transcendence comparable to the religious.
Beautiful words, Justin. And spot on. Wandering has so many benefits, both direct and collateral. I write a lot about what I call "drinks (or cocktail) anthropology". What can we learn about a culture and its people by studying what and how they drink? Lots of crossover to wandering here. For me personally, one of the biggest reasons we travel (and we traveled with our kids) was to expose them to other cultures. Most of the world doesn't live like we do here in the US. Traveling takes you out of your comfort zone and teaches you empathy and humility. At least it should. Anyway, well done, you. Cheers!