Alastair Humphreys Adventurer | Author | Motivational Speaker

Alastair Humphreys:

ADVENTURER: “…the first great adventure of the new millennium” – Sir Ranulph Fiennes

AUTHOR: “…a call to arms” – The Guardian

MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKER: “…fantastic!” – T-Mobile

Discover more about Alastair, buy author-signed books, look at his photography or get in touch. Sign up for a monthly newsletter on the right, subscribe to the RSS feed or dip into the acclaimed blog below.

“Challenging Expeditions, Challenging Convention, Challenging Ourselves”

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Photo Friday: English summer swimming

Filed under Photo Friday on July 3rd, 2009 | 5 Comments

I’ve high-jacked this week’s Photo Friday as I enjoyed yesterday’s dip in a Hampshire trout stream so much.

I was cycling back to a station after a hot talk in a school. My smart clothes were tight and uncomfortable and it was swelteringly hot. Then I cycled over the River Test.
Brakes on! Uncomfy clothes off! Into river! WooHOOOoooo!

This is why, despite having seen many lands, I am still happy to call England ‘home’: the light filtering green through lazy willow trees, the languid streaming of emerald river weed, the patches of smooth pebbles to sit on, shining and smooth as gold. The drifting water tugging me gently, persistently, cool and cleansing. The trim trout, noses upstream, holding their position with the merest of muscular twitchings. The sun’s clean white heat on my face until I inhale a lungful of sweet river air and dip down into the strange gurgling, muted, translucent world that knows no sponsorship frustrations or celebrity-obsessed culture. A lungful of nirvana.

After my swim I sat beneath some trees to dry off. I listened to the Into the Wild album on my iPod and began scrawling structures for my India book in my journal with more vitality than I’ve managed in the last few torpid, claustrophobic weeks in London. Where espresso has failed, a stream in Hampshire succeeded.
I am one day nearer to my next expedition and my recent writer’s block has been burst. It’s a good beginning to the second half of 2009.

Today we are half way through the year…

Filed under Ramblings on July 2nd, 2009 | 1 Comment

Today we are half way through 2009. That’s an amazing -and alarming- fact if, like me, you feel the year has only just begun.

So, how has 2009 been for you so far? How has it treated you? And how have you treated it? Have you made the most of the days you have been given?
Have you achieved all that you wanted to do? Have you left the world a better place than the one you found in January?
And what’s next? What are your plans for the rest of the year? What are your mid-year’s resolutions?

I was ruminating on these questions as I ate my muesli this morning.
I feel as though I’ve had a mixed year. I’ve published a book, nailed an expedition to India and am underway writing my next book. But we’re still struggling with sponsorship for the South Pole and that has loomed heavy over my whole year.
I’ve taken a photograph every day this year and it’s fun to look back on. But it’s up to me to make the next 6 months’ of photographs and experiences better than the last lot.

It’s time for my mid-year revolution.

Move on. Don’t look back

Filed under Ramblings on June 30th, 2009 | 6 Comments

I was at a book reading one evening recently when the author was asked whether he remained in contact with people he had met on his travels.
His answer was that yes, he did remain in contact with some people. But he felt that this was not necessarily always a good thing. Email exchanges, for example, tend to become more brief, less interesting and less frequent until they fizzle out to occasional bounced platitudes that make you realise that there is nothing left to say. At times then it can be preferable to have a good experience, enjoy someone’s company, but then to move on and for both of you to leave it only as a happy memory.

This struck home with me as being really true, but as something that I had not realised before.
And then, later that evening, purely by chance, I bumped into one of the multitude of kind strangers who had hosted me when I was cycling round the world. A stranger who had become a good friend while I was with his family. I had no idea he was in England now, let alone that he would be in London. It was a shock, but a nice one for I had fond memories of fun times together.
Yet after the pleasure of saying hello we had nothing left to say, and both made our excuses to move on, our memories of a happy shared experience sullied slightly.

Sometimes it is best to live in the moment, appreciate for what it is, and not to try to prolong it when it is over.

Book give away: Ten Lessons from the Road – chapter 3

Filed under 10 Lessons, Writing on June 28th, 2009 | 1 Comment

My third book, Ten Lessons from the Road, came out earlier this year. I’m really pleased with it, and I would love people to read it. But I’m realistic about how few people will actually read the book. So I decided to give it away -for free- here on my blog. Hopefully it will reach more people that way.
Ten Lessons from the Road has ten chapters, each one short, sweet and ideal for a blog post. I’m reproducing them here, one each month, and I hope you enjoy them.

The only downside of this is that I can’t reproduce on the blog the beautiful photos and cool layout of the book which make the book what it is. But, hey, it’s free here! You can see how the actual book looks in the 30-second preview video above.

3- QUITTING IS NOT AN OPTION (BUT FAILURE IS)

Does a fear of failing prevent you from beginning things?
If you quit, what will you do instead that is more rewarding?

Congratulations! You’ve overcome the pessimism and inertia. You’re in motion. The hardest part is over. But getting out on the road and beginning the journey does not mean that the difficulties are over. Nothing worth doing is achieved lightly and there will be plenty of rough patches. You need to begin to be able to balance a hunger for success with a sanguine, uninhibited approach to the possibility of failure. [Read more →]

Photo Friday

Filed under Photo Friday on June 26th, 2009 | 3 Comments

Each Friday on this blog I feature someone’s inspiring travel, adventure or expedition photo: Photo Friday.
Hopefully it will get you in the mood for making the most of your weekend.
If you have a Flickr photo that you would like to share please let me know, including the photo’s URL, plus a couple of lines to accompany it if you wish.