Suzy Guese

Traveling with a redheaded temperament

On Being Adventurous

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I was attempting to kill some time in Ireland. The area I had selected to stay in didn’t have a wealth of attractions. I had read about a beach nearby I could drive to, along with an intense mountain thoroughfare. I had thought I would be killing time, but in reality I was being somewhat adventurous. It was the first time I shut off the GPS and decided to just go where the road would take me, not where some squawking box told me to go.

I ultimately arrived to a deserted beach, or so I thought. The beach was set up in such a fashion that you had to walk several minutes to reach the water. I put my car in park and started walking. Suddenly chills came over me. I was far from my destination and there wasn’t a soul around. I had a thought. If something were to happen to me here, no one would know. When you have an overzealous imagination, you quickly hightail it back to the car.

The Beach in Question

Trust in Intuition

That beach had an air of the sinister. Something wasn’t right. After reaching my car, I sat down and locked up, ready to get going. This time I would punch in my path to avoid the adventurous. Just as I was ready to get going, a drifter of some kind walked by my car. We were the only two in the area, unless you count the many less than cute looking dogs following him. He sneered at me as I avoided eye contact behind the glass window. I quickly started my engine and I was off to the races. My intuition was right.

There are certain words of wisdom every parent seems to utter. Park by a light. Don’t tell strangers where you are going. Always be aware. Bring a sweater. Those pieces of advice follow me when I travel. When I get adventurous, my intuition can sometimes shut me down. In the end, intuition is probably a traveler’s best safety tool, a better judge of when something is adventurous or just plain stupid.

Stupidity and the Badge of Adventurous Honor

As travelers we are taught to be adventurous, to throw caution to the wind and find experiences not in a guide. But when does being adventurous turn into that stupidity? You won’t find me hanging out a bus station at night, all by my lonesome. You won’t see me wandering around hardly anywhere at night alone when I travel. You see, I like my life. I enjoy living and I have to wonder when travelers sneak into countries they aren’t supposed to or ride those bus routes marked as the most dangerous in the world, if they aren’t just doing it for some sort of badge of adventurous honor. I survived the sticky border guard situation at gunpoint. I have adventures.

In Portugal, I decided I was going to be adventurous with my eating. I generally don’t do this when I travel. I will try things, but I would never order from places that look like they are about as clean as an Italian sidewalk. Somewhere along my adventurous eating route in Portugal, I got a parasite. Much to my displeasure just a week before I was supposed to head home, I laughed about the improbability of it all. I am a careful person in every regard and when I let the thrill of adventure take ahold of me, I came home with a parasite, from Western Europe of all developed places. While trying to just let travel come to me in its purest form, I didn’t consider what less than pleasant ramifications could follow.

When Adventure Is Just Right

Are we all seeking out adventures just to tell a good story? Do we get ourselves into life threatening situations to brag how we survived? Part of it, on being adventurous, I don’t think you should try too hard at it. You should travel how you will. If the improbable, like the parasite in Portugal develops, it was an adventure. If you decide to do something while traveling just for the story with your life and safety at risk, you might just be plain stupid.

Claire of Travel Funny Travel Light recently wrote of an adventurous situation she found herself in in Nicaragua. Like Claire, I tend to over-think unexpected situations when I travel, assuming the worst, yet hoping for the best. In the end, her story is one of adventure. She survived. I guess sometimes to be adventurous you just have to trust in the situation. I remember having a conversation with a doctor from Kosovo while waiting on a train to Graz. She could have had bad intentions, plans to rob me, but the encounter was just the right adventure. We parted ways and I trusted in the adventure.

The Adventure of Drinking Wine With Travel Friends

Adventure doesn’t have to be dramatic. It doesn’t have to be a badge for bragging rights, an Indiana Jones plot in the making. Adventure is the simple act of going, of leaving home and seeing something different in the world and in yourself. It doesn’t need to be grand or life threatening. It can be as basic as talking with that doctor from Kosovo while waiting on a train, knowing full well she could rob you, but that’s the adventure.

Where do you draw the line on when being adventurous errs on the stupid and careless side?

Comments

  1. So glad you followed your gut instinct and got out of there! I like adventure, but I prefer it in a group setting – either with friends or fellow travellers. There’s safety in numbers, so you certainly won’t find me wandering secluded areas in the daytime or nighttime.

  2. This is a good point. I think it differs too for different people for when that intuition kicks in saying you might not be doing the smartest thing. I know for me, sometimes in the past I have pushed myself to do something I normally wouldn’t do or was perhaps a bit dangerous, so I could have that travel “badge” and something I could brag about doing. I think with the more experience traveling I have gained, I’ve learned to evaluate situations a little sooner than I would have in the past.

  3. I was careening far too hard toward adventure. After getting into a Muay Thai fight at a bar and getting punched in the face several times, having a bloody eye and bruised body for several weeks, I knew I had gone too far.

    These days, I like to look at social adventures more, like learning to go naked at a European spa — my readers find them entertaining, and I don’t get myself killed in the process!

  4. I’m pretty cautious…John and I don’t go out late at night when we’re travelling and stick to places we know to be pretty safe. That said, we’ve had a couple of inadvertent narrow scrapes this year, one of which I don’t think either of us would ever admit to anyone because we were so stupid…Sometimes I think we’re more careful because we’re getting older because I remember taking a lot more risks when I was younger…

  5. You’re right– it’s definitely important to trust your gut instinct. If I’m feeling uncomfortable, I probably won’t be found doing anything adventurous. If I feel safe, and I’m in a group of friends I can trust, then I might be more inclined to throw caution to the wind. Sometimes I think about the bragging rights, but ultimately if I feel like I’m risking my safety, I won’t go through with it.

  6. I have always been very cautious and, I have to say, I feel confined by it sometimes. On the one hand, I think it has steered me out of dangerous situations on more than one occasion and, on the other, I have probably missed out on some fun/profound/exhilarating experiences. I suppose it’s best to be somewhere in the middle.

    I agree wholeheartedly about listening to your instincts. The problem is, sometimes I’d like to wander down a beach alone without being hypervigilent. I’m not going to do anything really foolhardy but I wish that going for a hike alone didn’t fall into that “here there be danger” category.

  7. I started to read this post and was nodding my head the whole time, thinking how I completely get what you are talking about. Then when I came to my name, I said “hey! that’s me she’s talking about!” So I might have gotten just a little excited 😉
    Thanks for the link. Glad we both survived potentially questionable situations and even happier that you trusted your intuition on the desolate beach.

  8. I’m glad you survived, Suzy! And you’re so right. We can be scared shitless when situations like yours / Claire’s arrive, and only in retrospect can they be deemed adventurous. While we’re stuck in them, wondering if we’ll live or die or be mugged or what not, we’re not thinking, ‘this will make for an awesome blog post!’

    So I agree with you. As a traveler, I would rather go to all lengths to be safe. And in situations where I can’t do anything but hope, I’d hope it becomes a right to brag!

    PS: I loved all the food I ate at Italian sidewalks! 😉

  9. It really does sound like you might have had trouble if you hadn’t gotten back in the car before that guy found you. Deserted beaches can be bliss, but only if you’re not going to be attacked. I love being adventurous and have gotten myself into some extremely questionable situations but haven’t run into trouble yet. I think I have a good sense for discerning safe people and situations from the unsafe.

  10. I’m glad you listened to your intuition. You never know what could have happened, especial since you were by yourself. Sometimes it pays to be cautious, you can still have “safe” adventures.

    The only time I can think of when I didn’t really listen to my intuition was in Cancun. We scheduled a tour of the Cenote and Tulum, but for some reason everyone else canceled except my female friend and I. We were a little weirded out, but “stupid” us still went ahead on this excursion. Luckily nothing happened(thank God, because we were by ourselves in the middle of nowhere), except being hit on by our tour guide.

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