Adventure awaits

“I just want to start by saying that sailing is not the best career option” says Hannah White who’s surprisingly an adventurer, sailor and TV presenter talking on the Adventure Travel Show, Kensington. She admits at just 31, she is still “sort of” in her gap year.
  

She is one of many travel and adventure experts who will spread inspiration and give advice based on their own experiences around the world. 

Hannah recently got engaged on top of the Mount Everest base camp during sunrise, but assures that you can have an adventure everyday without having to spend a lot of money. “The world is everywhere for us to discover, we just need to start doing rather than sit at home dreaming about doing it,” she says. Hannah sailed the Atlantic on her own three times, but says the most epic things she has done have been the cheapest things she has done with her friends.

Felicity Aston on her expedition. (Photo from her website)

Get out of the tent

If you think that Hannah’s solo trips were impressive, the next speaker certainly knows what the word ‘alone’ means. In 2012 Felicity Aston became the first woman to have crossed the Antarctica by skiing solo. Her 1084 mile and 60 day adventure truly made her an expert of persistence. 

After watching the plane that dropped her to the Polar region disappear to the horizon, she sat down and cried. Terrified of the adventure ahead, the reality sunk in: “I was supposed to know what I was doing. It was not my first expedition, but after a month or so, I became sure that I could not finish. Every morning I had to keep pushing myself to get out of the tent,” she describes.

She later started to value her stubbornness more than ever before. The motivational message she wants to share with other people is to keep getting out of the tent.

She says:  “it doesn’t matter how fast you are going or for how long, what matters is that you are making progress.”

Let’s talk adventure

Both ladies have created a brand out of themselves and make a living by going on different adventures. However they say that it is a demanding career that involves a lot of determination to succeed.

The travel show introduced several ways to see and learn about the world we live in. The best buzz seemed to be around the Globetrotters stands, where people exchanged travel experiences.

The club has a meeting every month in Covent Garden, and if you are planning a trip, there is a huge chance that someone in the meeting is able to give you excellent advice. The world is full of amazing places and adventures. 

“My favourite is India,” says Sandra Reekie, a travel advisor from the Globetrotters Club in London, who has visited more countries than she can count.

“On the other hand, being married to this lady for 49 years, I can tell you that if you ask the same question again tomorrow, the answer has changed,” says David Reekie jokingly and continues: “Sometimes it is India, Syria the next day, Iran or Afghanistan, often middle east in general, but it changes a lot,” he laughs.

Sandra laughs along, but reasons her choice of the day: “Nowhere else have I seen a naked man walking casually down the street, or an elephant turn over a tuk-tuk on a busy road, but in India that is just the kind of things you see everyday. And it is normal there. It will widen your understanding of the world.”

She continues: “But the nicest people I have ever met have been in Pakistan. The Pakistani people are just so welcoming and amazing you just don’t believe it when you read the papers back home. It is just a phenomenal culture with such hospitality and the people are the highlight.”

“I told you,”  David laughs adding a little nibble of information they learned while in Pakistan last time. “It is the rule of tea. The first time a Pakistani invites you to have tea with them, you are a stranger and a quest. Second time you are a friend. And if they have tea with you the third time - you are family. And by family, I mean that they would take a bullet for you.”

“What we always want to do, is give something back to the community when we visit,” Sandra says. She explains that it is wrong to think travelling only brings fortune to the places where tourism is the main industry.

“You don’t want to take resources away from the people and add to their burden. You want to leave something good behind instead,” Sandra says, hoping that people would think responsibly when visiting a different culture. 

Volunteering or small donations can make a huge difference, or you can even highlight the problems you face after visiting.