Reread your first paragraph, then reread your second paragraph. To paraphrase them both a bit: "You would like to experience some real adventure, but getting stuck in the mud doesn't really appeal to you". Hmm?
The only way you will experience something that is really fulfilling to you in this way, is if you go do something that you are not really all that comfortable with. Go do it and feel how you are not only a better version of yourself, because you know that you can now "do this too", but it also changed your view on the world just a little bit. It broadened you character and your perspectives a bit and THAT is fulfilling.
It doesn't have to be mud in Africa, but it does have to be one of those things where some part of it doesn't really appeal to you. The only fulfilling adventures are the ones that change you, and an experience can't change you if it is designed to only give you what you already know and like.
You don't have to do that one big thing. You can do a series of smaller things instead. As long as they challenge you it will be fulfilling overcoming that challenge.
Rich westerners save a bunch of money then go see the sights then come back and tell their friends!
These experiences are purchased, the equivalent of visiting China world at Epcot.
It treats travel, people, culture like an amusement park or even worse a status symbol...have YOU been to Africa?
The OP wants something more meaningful I think.
Food in a foreign place is always different than what you can find at home
"First, I'm going to deliver this case to Marcellus, then I'm just going to walk the earth."
The counterpoint to this stance is that there's something about ground travel (and "slow travel" generally) that's very different from the usual airport → city center → airport drill. Having to do with being continually in contact with the earth, and experiencing the slow transition from one geology, climate, and local culture to another. Not to mention some of the stunning, accidental scenery you'll be exposed to (and some of which I can still see, as if before my eyes) that you just won't see from a plane... and certainly not during the (significant) times one spends stuck in, or on the way to and from airports.
There's a significant time investment involved, of course, and a life devoted only to sightseeing would be very boring. Bu it's an experience that puts us in touch with the world more the way it actually is, and -- at least I find -- literally helps me feel more "grounded", even many years past the experience.
Traveling can be fun, but also alienating. I met many people who renounced to their trip around the world after a few months. It can become boring after a while and you start to wonder what is the point of it. And you don't really build anything while traveling. Maybe not everyone has this feeling, but I'd like my life to have an other purpose than just roaming...
Nowadays, the way I like it is to travel from 3 to 6 weeks at a time. It's long enough so that you can go at a relaxed pace, but not so long that you feel you're wasting your time. I also like try to do something constructive a few hours a day (especially if I travel for a longer period of time).
As far as adventure goes, I find it more rewarding to live and work in a different country than to go to the usual backpackers circuits.
"Adventure" is what you get when you don't get what you expected. Such as breakdowns. ;)
–G.K. Chesterton
If you want adventure without things going wrong, you want play. So... go play, if you get bored with that, you'll be ready to try adventure.
It is more of a long-term kind of travel, but you will be doing real good and definitely living an adventure.
They need people with all kinds of backgrounds, not just medical, so it might be worth a look.
There are international builds where you travel somewhere and work on building homes in areas where there isn't adequate low-income housing. You get to meet and work with locals for a couple of weeks. I went to rural Hungry. I had one friend who also went on the build. He talked me into doing it with him, and I'm glad he did.
I highly advise against this. There is no shortage of unqualified labor in underdeveloped countries. Most of these projects are just 'feel good charity tourism'.
If you want to make a difference you are much better of donating 20% of a US salary which will employ many more underqualified locals who actually need the job.
https://www.effectivealtruism.org/ has some detailed analysis of how to best make an impact, depending on your interests and skill set.
That might be the nathan_f77's apparently stated goal, but nathan_f77 also states they do not really know what they want. Charity tourism is just disgusting racist white savior paternalism that exploits POC-in-former-colonies poverty for white-people-from-former-colonizer-countries ego inflation. You use the word 'safe' in quotes so I assume you know this: the phrase "safe adventure" is literally an oxymoron (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/adventure). Charity tourism might just turn out to be one of those unfulfilling consumer experiences the poster is looking to avoid, wrapped in a feel-good veneer.
Obviously, professional construction workers would build homes faster and better than us amateurs. On the surface, it appears that I could simply have done what I am good at (software) for two weeks and pay professionals to do the building in Hungry instead.
While working in Hungry I had time to reflect upon this for two weeks. Most of the volunteers there did it because they wanted to help people, and most didn't think about the economic efficiency of they way they were doing it. A few of us (some Stanford MBA's and I) talked about it.
In retrospect, the issue is more nuanced. Habitat for Humanity is the world's largest non-profit homebuilder [0]. They require the future owners to contribute a significant portion of the effort in construction of what will become their home. This, they claim, results in better care for the home after they move in. If so, it seems like a useful model (but see the criticisms of Habitat for Humanity on the cited Wikipedia page).
Couldn't this be done using professional builders and not volunteers? Perhaps. However, let me relate something that was said to me in the small town where I was working. We were building a home for a family of Romani Hungarians in eastern Hungary. These people, sometimes called Gypsies, are not always treated well in rural areas of Hungary[1].
At one point, I met a townsperson that spent some time speaking to me. He said that at first the townspeople couldn't understand why people from the USA had to go to Hungry to find work. They were surprised that we were not being paid but instead had to pay for the privilege of working in Hungry (there are local trade's people involved with the construction that must be paid, construction supervisors, electricians, plumbers, cement companies and materials have to be paid for by our donations).
He told me that the concept of charitably taking care of someone not a family member was unusual there, and the whole town noticed us being there and doing it. We were well treated and the people were very friendly to us. One benefit of the trip is that we gained an appreciation of a different culture and so did they.
The remarkable thing was that he (the townsperson) described to me how seeing us volunteering to help people we didn't know in his own town inspired him to do the same; he had actually taken time in the past to work on the build too after seeing the volunteers from the US doing it. I realized that it isn't just about economic efficiency.
I still have mixed feelings about Habitat for Humanity, but overall I continue to believe that it is a form of "volunteer tourism" that has pluses and minuses but ends up being a net positive.
I don't see what is wrong with a tourist feeling good and doing something charitable.
Admittedly, this assumes both a labor shortage in the technologists field and a labor surplus for unskilled workers in the foreign country, but I think both of those assumptions are supportable.
Silicon Valley could also use some help here (tongue-in-cheek).
I've lived in a few places in Asia and really liked that. Spending a few months to a year in a place, making friends, getting to know the locals. It felt good, though it limited the kind of work projects I could do. (I was an English teacher rather than a programmer or other independent worker at the time)
In some ways the digital nomad lifestyle, which is related to what I was doing, is very appealing. I know a programmer who has been bouncing around Southeast Asia working on programming projects, some contracted some independent, for the last year or two and learning languages.
Is that or something like it what you're looking for?
One possibility is to take up a job at such a firm, and then do your traveling while you work. I think it beats stressing out about finding a new gig every few months, at least. It's also easier if you happen to travel in the same/similar timezone.
Of course, the beauty of nature is a huge part of the trip, but being taken out of your comfort zone is what makes it extra special.
If you're not prepared to step out of your comfort zone, then everything will seem run-of-the-mill and ordinary. Because it is.
Just be prepared (we could survive for 2 weeks on our own at any point) and take the right safety precautions (don't drive into war torn areas).
You get a different experience from "outside looking in activities (travel, overseas volunteer work, habitat for humanity) than you get from activities where you see yourself as being a member of the group you're trying to help or create something with. Both kinds of experiences can be useful, though it's important to understand the limits of each.
That's so true. Once you are a part of something bigger, the experiences, adventure and thrill land up on their own. This applies not only to travel, but every part of life.
Do it.
You're missing the point. It's the adventure, not the trail, not the road you'll chose or the destinations... It's the adversities on the trip, the people you meet, the broken cars, that bus/airplain/boat you didn't catch that will make the difference, a point vey well made by my favorite Cavafy poem[1].
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n3n2Ox4Yfk&list=RD1n3n2Ox4Y...
No, I think the GP is fairly and explicitly disagreeing with what you describe as the point, which is very different than missing it.
Clearly you think what is desirable and worthwhile is...
> the adventure [...] the adversities on the trip, the people you meet, the broken cars
Clearly, GP disagrees that this is desirable and worthwhile, when writing:
> I do want to visit Africa, but all of this driving and getting stuck doesn't really appeal to me.
Not everyone has insufficient adversity in their daily life such that they need to take on additional and avoidable adversity for recreation.
It transforms the way you enjoy traveling. Every landscape you go through, you start having a real connection to the biology and ecology because you are actively thinking about the organisms that live there, and you are somewhat knowledgable about it. It makes you a biologist, and scientist as you're traveling. The choice of birds is for two good reasons: (1) other than plants and humans they are the easiest macroscopic organisms to see, anywhere in the world; (2) they are beautiful. It brings you into contact with areas of science -- evolutionary biology, genetics, conservation biology. It makes traveling through wild parts of the world so much more interesting than it would be otherwise.
I've traveled quite a bit, but I feel like up until this point I've just been consuming experiences and meeting people. It's nice, but ultimately not very fulfilling. I would like to experience some real adventure and end up with some interesting stories, but I'm starting to realize that you can't just be a spectator, you have to be a part of something bigger. Maybe by trying to solve a problem, investigating an issue and creating a documentary, or fighting for something important.
The reason I'm writing all of this is because I also want to quit my job and go off on some kind of new adventure, but I'm not really sure what I should do. As Rep. John Lewis says, maybe I need to get into some "good trouble".