I’m very much interested in increasing my international travel experiences, and looking for more adventure in my life. I got off to a good start with a trip to Spain last fall, and I’m about to leave for Mexico City in a few days. But my 26 year old son is taking the adventure theme to a higher level with his current trip, and there’s a few things I need to wrap my head around with what he’s doing. He just flew to South America where he is taking part in a NOLS adventure course, which is described as: “Embark on an unforgettable adventure in the stunning Andes Mountains, where jagged peaks, crystal-clear rivers, and lush coastal rainforests meet. This mountaineering and leadership course in Patagonia will challenge you both physically and mentally as you learn essential wilderness skills while gaining a deeper understanding of your leadership potential.”
He sent me the picture above – looking out at the mountains he’s about to go climb … he is leaving for his basecamp today, and part of the program includes the concept to be fully immersed in the adventure, meaning: leave your cellphone behind. I love this idea – to unplug and not have the distraction of a small screen in the palm of your hand, but rather to be fully present in your environment and with those joining you on the trip. The NOLS website has a blog post that explains their thinking in having their participants unplug, and I love the idea. In this day and age, it almost seems like a very rare luxury to be disconnected from the world for 30 days – no emails, no texts, how nice would that be?
But as a parent, it’s kind of crazy to think that I’ll have no way to reach my son – or have him give me updates – over the next thirty days while he’s in an environment like the one pictured below (an A.I. generated image to illustrate the setting he’s about to experience). I just have to trust that everything will be fine and when I hear from him a month from now, he’ll be ready to share his stories in fine health at that time. I know, I’m just being an overprotective parent – as he said, “if you don’t hear anything about me, that means everything is fine,” and that’s totally true.
If anything, I have an element of envy – the idea of disconnecting from the world for 30 days actually sounds pretty good. I think back to a trip I took in the early 1990s, before there was general public access to the internet, cell phones didn’t exist, and I spent two weeks traveling from New Mexico to Colorado to Utah to Arizona. I had no contact with anyone, other than maybe using a pay phone to check in with my parents, but the idea of two weeks completely independent and beholden to no one is hard to imagine in our current hyper-connected world. I may have to do something like that again sometime soon!