Typically, when we think of going out on some adventure, we imagine ourselves as part of a big group. It seems so much safer to travel as part of a group, especially when going out to the wild. Yet, this unwritten cardinal rule of adventure travelling, is absurd. Many outdoors people go out on adventures all on their own. It’s hard to achieve the remarkable peace that nature offers, when you are part of a crowd. Alone, a person becomes one with nature, almost incapable of telling where the one begins and the other ends. The French philosopher, Blaise Pascal, once remarked that“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” If you love being alone, and the idea of being stuck with yourself as all your company, then you should adventure solo.
Going out in nature all on your own isn’t some competition with other people. It’s okay to be inexperienced. For millennia, people have been going out on their own, breathing in the clean air, walking through valleys, up hills and mountains, and taking in the most beautiful scenery. It cheapens nature to think of this as some exercise in badassery. It’s not about proving you can kick it on your own or that it’s better to be in a group. I advocate for going out on your own as a viable option because there are things you can only get from encountering nature alone. As an inexperienced person, you can successfully make a go of it by keeping in mind things like pathfinding, and seeking shelter.
Camping and hiking are your two great options in terms of activities. There’s an even simpler option: going to a spot of nature somewhere near where you live, taking some supplies with you in a bag, and exploring that area for hours on end. Go through the length and breadth of the place, get a feel of it, learn to navigate through it. Investigate all its interesting features. As you gain experience, you will be able to spend longer there without getting lost, and you learn valuable lessons about navigating through more complex environments.
Perhaps you have an ideal outdoors adventure in mind, one which you feel incapable of doing, but which you would do if you could. For instance, you may want to go white water rafting in the Zambezi. You can enjoy a version of this if you break up your ideal adventure into its basic parts. In this case, we can break down this adventure to travelling on a boat, the feeling of danger, and warm weather. Perhaps you can find something else that combines those elements?
Just as you’d never go out without your prescription sunglasses, you should never go on an adventure without thinking about safety. Going outdoors exposes you to sunburn, dehydration, snakes, the possibility of getting lost, among other risks. These risks increase when you are alone. So, you need to understand your environment, the risks you are taking and act to reduce those risks. If you are not familiar with the risks, then gradually expose yourself to the environment, taking short, then longer and longer trips, until you know what you’re getting yourself into.
