I recently met Alistair Humpreys at the Expedition Seminar at the Royal Geographical Society. I’ve been following him on Twitter for a while and have read all of his books.
He has done lots of self financed exciting things and I have to admit being a little envious of his achievements.
In no particular order Al has:
- Cycled round the world (using his student loans!)
- Canoed down the Yukon (to avoid a forest fire)
- Walked the length of the Holy Kaveri River in India (for £500 including flights!)
- Run the Marathon des Sables (that’s 6 marathons in 6 days across the Sahara desert!)
Alistair has a cracking sense of humor and is one the most down to earth and modest guys I have ever met. I really enjoyed the banter during the short time that we spent together.
One of the interesting things about Al's story is that when he got back from cycling around the world he wrote a book about his journey. But he couldn’t get a publisher to take it on. Alistair’s theory was that this was because he wasn’t famous enough.
Alistair was recently speaking at a PechaKucha Night in London. We sometimes use PechaKucha as a format for Teachmeet but if you don’t know what it is. Basically your presentation is limited to 20 slides that automatically advance every 20 seconds. When the slides reach the end of their cycle you presenation is over.
If you have seven spare minutes its worth having a look at Alistair’s recent PechaKucha presentation – its down to earth, funny and inspiring!
My favorite quotes were:
“There is beauty and adventure everywhere you just need to take the time to grab it”
“To have an adventure you just need to go somewhere you have never been, do something you have never done before or do it in a different way and just see things with fresh eyes – adventures are all around us”
I hope to work more with Alistair in the new year.
Photo Credits: www.alistairhumpreys.com (all rights reserved)
See also: Alistair on Flickr.
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