“Adventure is a loose word that means different things to different people. It is a state of mind, a spirit of trying something new and leaving your comfort zone. Adventure is about enthusiasm, ambition, open-mindedness and curiosity. If this is true, then ‘adventure’ is not only crossing deserts and climbing mountains; adventure can be found everywhere, every day, and it is up to us to seek it out.”
Alastair Humphreys
Welcome!
Hello! My name is Ben and my “basecamp” is California’s Inland Empire (I.E.), a region of southern California known more for warehouses and suburbia than adventure. But, like anywhere, it’s there if you look hard enough!
This is my blog – born out of a desire to inspire others who find themselves living in less exotic places or feeling conflicted with balancing the demands of everyday life with the urge to do adventurous things.
I fell in love with adventure at a young age, brainwashed by Indiana Jones movies and obsessed with maps. As a young adult, I took every opportunity I could to travel in ways that were different from mainstream tourism…
- I took buses from my hometown of Tucson, Arizona through Mexico and Central America.
- I worked in Brazil, supporting my university as a research assistant in parts of the Amazon.
- I lived in Nepal, teaching English and traveling the country.
- I started my own non-profit that gave other young adults opportunities to travel abroad and support rural communities throughout India.
- I fell in love with kayaking and, among many big expeditions, I solo circumnavigated four of the ten biggest lake islands in the world.
But at some point, I found myself having to prioritize other parts of life – starting a family, holding down a career, finding financial stability. Opportunities for big adventures were fewer and farther between and the need for those experiences wouldn’t go away. I became restless, anxious, probably depressed. Then COVID hit, some big life changes happened, and it felt too hard to even dream of doing big things anymore. But those circumstances led me to think differently about what “adventure” meant to me. It wasn’t about checking boxes; it was about having experiences to help me be more present in this world.
Now, I like to think about the need behind my desires to do big adventures and then find alternatives that can meet those needs a little closer to home. Why did I want to do a safari in Africa or summit peaks in the Andes or visit a new city in Europe? There are plenty of options to see big wildlife or climb tall peaks or walk new streets just outside my front door. Pursuing those smaller adventures, or microadventures, opens up a whole new world of very doable experiences. They don’t cost a lot of money or take a ton of time. They don’t require years of planning. In many cases, they fit into a weekday night or a weekend trip. Embracing an adventurous mindset in everyday life, in many ways, has become more fulfilling than the years when I did bigger things.
If you love adventure but feel it’s out of reach because of life right now, this blog is for you.
While I may be sharing my experiences from beautiful southern California, I am confident the concepts behind my adventures can be applied to anywhere in the world. Try them out, let me know what you think. And if you have your own small, “microadventure” ideas, I’d love to hear them!
Thanks for reading!
The I.E. Wanderer 