Keeping Spirits High When Adventure is Low
The outdoorsy need a dose of wilderness on the regular. No amount of armchair adventuring can keep their spirits bolstered; they need to experience the elements of nature themselves. This is why, when excursions into the wild run low, these folks find their mood dipping.
When there’s no foreseeable end to the indoor imprisonment, life can look like a black hole. Stay chipper, lil camper: We’re here to rescue you from the torture of YouTube videos and Facebook photos. Well, perhaps not completely, but to give you a reason to actually enjoy it — and simultaneously drop a few extra ideas into that outdoor-starved brain of yours to keep your repertoire well rounded.
Ready to break free of your confines? Let’s get moving:
1.
Social Media to the rescue: We might as well start here since we’re all together online right now. Watching others’ GoPro videos on YouTube and flipping through friends’ summit selfies on Facebook will just cause envy when you’re strapped to a chair. Be deliberate with your perusal of online media: Figure out what your radius of travel-ability will be once you get back into the open air, then start looking up videos on YouTube within that area to find the optimal places for your post-purgatory adventure.
On Facebook? Scan photos of friends’ excursions with the purpose of getting them to dish the dirt on their adventure — how much did it cost to travel there? Where did they stay? What was the best or worst part? What would they do different next time? This, my friends, is called “research.” It’ll help you feel as though you’re part of an adventure because you are actively involved in planning. Plus, you won’t be wasting countless hours clicking the “thumbs up” symbol when you’re secretly stewing inside.
2.
Enjoy the gift of gab. Humans are social creatures. We enjoy bonding with each other over similar interests and feeling as though we belong to the “group.” Feed that desire — and help quell the longing for the outdoors — by finding local or online groups that meet regularly. Meetup.com and Twitter are great for these types of like-minded gatherings. Though not big excursions, you will be able to either meet together for mini day adventures in the area (with Meetup.com for example) or talk about different outdoor topics with new friends through online chats (
#HikerChat, for example, on Twitter).
3.
Return to your roots — with a friend. There’s a good chance that when you first began your sport o’ choice, you didn’t travel far to make it happen. You likely fine-tuned your craft on a neighborhood trail, on the plastic in the gym, or at the nearest snow-covered hill. After a while you set your sights on new territory, eager to try different routes and runs. And when you did, your old stomping grounds sat forlorn and forgotten. Get back to your faithful foundation and rediscover why you fell in love with your sport. Take it a step further by sharing the love with a friend — show them the ropes of your sport. Not only will the time pass more quickly when you are concentrating on someone else having fun, but you can consider the time well spent: You now have a partner-in-training.
4.
Forget it all. Sometimes, try as you might, you just can’t get over the longing for the outdoors. For those of you who struggle with being even remotely reminded of adventure while you are stuck indoors, it might be best to skip the planning, connecting and rediscovering and keep yourself occupied with something unrelated. Dust off an old talent or pick up a neglected craft. There’s more to you than just the rugged outdoor person after all — right? Have an idea to keep yourself going during a slump? Share it with us!
