Adventures

Adventurous experiences create psychological arousal, which can be interpreted as negative (e.g. fear) or positive (e.g. flow). For some people, adventure becomes a major pursuit in and of itself. According to adventurer André Malraux, in his La Condition Humaine (1933), “If a man is not ready to risk his life, where is his dignity?” Similarly, Helen Keller stated that “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”

Outdoor adventurous activities are typically undertaken for the purposes of recreation or excitement: examples are adventure racing and adventure tourism. Adventurous activities can also lead to gains in knowledge, such as those undertaken by explorers and pioneers – the British adventurer Jason Lewis, for example, uses adventures to draw global sustainability lessons from living within finite environmental constraints on expeditions to share with schoolchildren. Adventure education intentionally uses challenging experiences for learning.

Author Jon Levy suggests that an experience should meet several criteria in order to be considered an adventure:

1. Be remarkable—that is, worth talking about
2. Involve adversity and/or perceived risk
3. Bring about personal growth

Adventure is a word that is so often used, but does anyone REALLY know what it means? What is adventure? What does it mean to be adventurous? Does it always have to entail jumping off airplanes or diving through shipwrecks (both of which we’ve actually done)? Sure! But, is that really what adventure is?