Resources on Adventure and Risk
| There is a vast body of literature on adventure and some of the issues and lessons associated with it. Here are some of our favorite picks for more reading, as well as some additional resources you might find helpful.
Note that this page contains affiliate links to Amazon.com. Books about finding adventure by changing your environment or perspective: The Power of Place: How Our Surroundings Shape Our Thoughts, Emotions, and Actions It’s no accident that adventure usually includes a change in location. The external environments in which we find ourselves can have a profound affect on our internal states. In this insightful book, journalist Winifred Gallagher explores why different physical environments resonate with different people. From this perspective, “running away” may be the smartest thing you ever do. The weird part is that you’ll cross paths with people running in the oppposite direction for the same reason. Read this great book and find out why. - MS A Woman’s World: True Life Stories of World Travel This collection, part of a Travelers’ Tales series, is a wonderful collection of short essays by women who dared to undertake hero journeys, great and small. Some daring trips were only to the local market. Others summited Mount Everest. But all were challenging and enlightening journeys that left an impact on the women who made them. - LW Homelands: Kayaking the Inside Passage This book is a beautiful gem in the genre of contemplative adventure stories. Written by a less curious or introspective person, this story of a young couple kayaking from Alaska to Seattle might be a mundane travelogue. But Ricks has an astounding eye for meaning and significance—in the people he and his wife Maren meet, in the internal and external challenges they confront, and in the beauty they find in life and existence along the way. And his lyrical writing style brings those moments to life in an intimate and memorable way. - LW On Extended Wings: An Adventure in Flight If you’ve ever longed to do something that seemed beyond your abilities, you’ll enjoy poet Diane Ackerman’s beautiful tale of learning to fly a small airplane. Out of print, but worth searching for if you want to be inspired. - MS Caught Inside: A Surfer’s Year on the California Coast Escaping the rat race for a life of outdoor adventure doesn’t have to mean leaving one’s intellect behind. From the first sentence of Caught Inside, Daniel Duane eloquently moves past surfer dude stereotypes. ”Unless you’re a strolling naturalist by nature, or a farmer or a commercial fisherman or ranger, you need a medium, a game, a pleasure principle that turns knowing your home into passionate scholarship.” A year spent surfing in Santa Cruz gave Duane much to reflect on, and it’s all in this book. The pros and cons of embracing a passion versus career and family are among the topics he explores. - MS Water and Light: A Diver’s Journey to a Coral Reef Anyone who’s gone snorkeling or diving has experienced the meditative calm of literally entering another world below the surface of the sea. For writer Stephen Harrigan, the experience became an obsession he couldn’t shake. With three children and “spiraling responsibilties of the sort that forced me to regard diving as an expensive recreational activity rather than as a life’s mission,” he began to view his diving logbook as “the pitiful record of an abandoned spiritual quest.” So, he resolved to travel to the Caribbean and stay for a number of months to get it out of his system once and for all. Water and Light is the moving story of what happens when you carve out some dedicated time to explore a passion. - MS Biplane Some of the best adventures require little more than a change in perspective. Writer Richard Bach had been flying for years when he traded his newly rebuilt modern airplane for a antique open-cockpit biplane … and flew it home to Los Angeles from New Jersey. “It is like opening night on a new way of living…” begins Bach’s tale. His journey provides a great metaphor for any adventure, and plenty of food for thought. - MS Books offering practical, hands-on information and advice about adventure travel: Vagabonding In a 9-5 rut? Need more than a quick vacation to get you back on track (or inspire you to change tracks altogther)? This classic will inspire you to think differently about travel by adopting the vagabond mentality. Adventure travel writer Tim Cahill has called Vagabonding “the most sensible book of travel related advice ever written.” Get it, then get out of town. Check out the Vagabonding Web site too (see below). - MS The World’s Most Dangerous Places If you’re into hardcore adventure travel to dangerous places, the information and advice in Robert Young Pelton’s books can help keep you safe. The latest edition of The World’s Most Dangerous Places provides the latest scoop on all sorts of, well, dangerous places. Come Back Alive is a general guide to survival in all sorts of environments and situations, written by one of the world’s experts. And The Adventurist gives a glimpse into the motivations behind what many less-adventurous people would regard as a deathwish. - MS Books by adventurers that examine the complexities of motivation, cost, and reward: To the Edge: A Man, Death Valley, and the Mystery of Endurance When his brother commited suicide, New York Times writer Kirk Johnson started running. While his new avocation provided solace and escape, it also provided a vehicle through which he could explore the nature of endurance and surrender. Johnson’s explorations eventually lead him to undertake the Badwater Ultramarathon, a grueling 135-mile race through Death Valley from the lowest point in the western hemisphere to Mt. Whitney, the highest point in the continental U.S. In the end, To the Edge is less about running from or to something, and more about running for its own sake. It’s a book about choosing life, one step at a time. - MS A Family Place: A Man Returns to the Center of His Life Most mid-life crises pull folks from a life of security and responsibility into more adventurous (or irresponsible) pursuits. When novelist and adventure sports writer Charles Gaines realized he was growing apart from his wife and three children, he did an about face in a more intriguing way, moving his family to the coast of Nova Scotia to build a summer cottage. So often we view adventure as something that by definition leaves loved ones behind. Gaines, through his decisions and words, makes it clear that there are as many adventures to be found in building a home as in running from one. - MS On the Ridge Between Life and Death: A Climbing Life Reexamined Roberts, the founder of the Outdoor Program at Hampshire College and an editor at Outside magazine and National Geographic Adventure, became famous in the mountain climbing community for a 1979 essay he wrote about why he climbed called “Moments of Doubt.” In this refreshingly honest memoir, he revisits that position as he takes a mature and adult look back on a lifetime of triumphs, tragedies, motivations, and decisions—and the price they may have exacted on both himself and those around him. - LW Books that explore risk and fear: Risk This book is a dense, academic read. But its content and premises are fascinating. Adams looks at competing theories of human reactions and relationships with risk and safety, complete with empirical evidence to back up his discussions. According to “Risk Compensation” theory, humans tend to compensate for more safety devices with riskier behavior (driving faster with seat belts on). “Cultural Theory” posits that what we consider “risky” depends on the cultural (personality) filters through which we view the world. Even measuring or predicting risk is … well, risky, according to Adams, and likely to be wrong. Reading this book will quickly disimbue you of any notion about risk and safety being simple or straightforward subjects—no matter what numerical analysts say. - LW Over the Edge: A Regular Guy’s Odyssey in Extreme Sports Michael Bane’s journey from coach potato to adventurer began simply, when he made a list of 13 of the world’s most dangerous athletic pursuits … and decided to do them. Stuff like kayaking off waterfalls, diving in underwater caves, swimming in shark-infested waters. You can’t do things like this without learning something about living a more adventurous life along the way, and Bane passes along his thoughts on risk, fear, and getting out of your comfort zone. - MS The Gift of Fear “This book can save your life!” proclaims the cover of The Gift of Fear. And it’s true. However, the value of security expert Gavin de Becker’s insights go far beyond just surviving life’s scary encounters. By learning to listen to your intuition you’ll not only be safer in a variety of dangerous situations, you’ll also be able to avoid many of them in the first place. This is a useful skill to have whether you’re an adventurer, an entrepreneur, or just trying to figure it all out. Be warned: it’s not light reading. There are some scary stories that will stick with you. But that’s the point. Read this book! - MS Web sites/blogs/magazines Been Seen Killing Batteries Ralph Potts’ Vagabonding Start Backpacking Transitions Abroad Vagabondish Women’s Adventure Magazine Organizations American Alpine Institute National Outdoor Leadership School Outward Bound |