Adventure, Walking, And My Midsummer Morning With Alastair Humphreys

How does a book inspire a journey a generation later? How does an adventurer who loves to travel alone reconcile himself to a life more ordinary? In today’s interview, I talk to Alastair Humphreys about his walk across Spain in homage to Laurie Lee. Alastair Humphreys is an adventurer, author, and motivational speaker named as National Geographic adventurer of the year in 2012. He has cycled around the world, walked across India, and The Empty Quarter desert, rowed the Atlantic, and run the Marathon Des Sables, as well as going on many other micro-adventures. His latest book is My Midsummer Morning: Rediscovering a Life of Adventure. Show Notes * The necessary element of vulnerability in an adventure * The uniqueness of travel when walking * The difference between type-1 and type-2 fun * Which adventures are chosen to be shared as books, and which are not * How photographs and film change the dynamic of a trip * What is ‘truth’ when writing a travel memoir? * Micro-adventures and living adventurously close to home * Finding adventure in seemingly mundane places You can find Alastair Humphreys at AlastairHumphreys.com and on Instagram @al_humphreys Transcript of interview with Alastair Humphreys Jo Frances: Welcome to the show, Alastair. Alastair: Thank you for having me. Jo Frances: Oh, it’s great to have you on. This book is about your walk across Spain is inspired by another book, ‘As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning‘ by Laurie Lee. Why this trip and why do you love Lee so much? Alastair: I think those two questions are linked. I loved Laurie Lee’s book, ‘As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning.’ I first read it as a student and I loved it because it was a beautifully written book, first of all, but, secondly and specifically to me, it was also a fantastic adventure, it had all the things you want in a good adventure book. And it was really simple, it’s such a simple idea. I’ve long since felt that the best adventures are simple but not easy. So it got me thinking, ‘This would be a lovely thing to go and do myself one day.’ But it took me 15 years to actually get, between reading it to actually getting around to doing the trip myself. Jo Frances: It’s interesting because you said that, ‘Simple but not easy.’ And, of course, you’ve done so many like incredible things that people would find so difficult, and yet, walking across Spain, it’s not that hard. What made this trip not easy? Alastair: I’ve done quite a lot of big traditional expedition-type trips, and, like any job, if you do something a lot, you get good at it, and then you get familiar with it, and then, even though you’re in the world of adventure, you end up finding yourself stuck in a rut, just like many people do. I realized that I wanted to start trying to look a bit differently about how I considered adventure and travel. And the adventurous part of this trip, for me, was going to be the musical part. I can’t play the violin, I’m completely unmusical. The prospect of having to play in public in front of people terrifies me. And I have no talent at all. So I thought, if I could combine those scary, frightening, risky,