You have itchy feet and crave adventure travel. How long has it been since you were on your last adventure? Ah, yes, that trip you took nearly two years ago with one of those tour companies. They keep mailing you their catalogues. They profess intimate experience with the locals, unspoiled trails, few or no other tourists. Indeed, the only way this can be had, the say, is in “small group” travel, the kind they proclaim they have perfected – with “no more than 16 members,” their literature emphasizes! Their glossy catalogue is so inviting – should you book another trip with them again? You do need to get away after all the struggle that has hit your business the last many months.
So where should you go?
How about Western Australia at its summer best. Blue seas and non polluted skies, swimming and diving the western and northwestern coast of Australia. Camping on warm wilderness beaches of Kalbarri, Shark Bay, Coral Bay, and many other, lesser know or hidden ones, only few know about. You could go hiking Kalbarri National Park and rock hole swimming in Karijini National Park, the Hamersley Range in the mountainous region of Pilbara in Western Australia, with nights under the desert stars.
Or should you go to India in the early spring to sample the Kumba Mela, where only once every twelve years some 50 million people gather and bath in the Ganges at Hardiwar where this mighty river gushes out of Shiva’s Himalaya, broad, clean and cool, a photographer’s dream of flower garlanded faces extolling their gods.
Should you wait until the summer and go trekking in the Indian Himalayas, from Kulu-Manali over the Parvati Pass to Spiti, and press on from there to Ladakh and Zankar, the high altitude desert beyond the High Himalaya?
Or in the fall, you could go to Everest, the best time for Khumbu and the villages of the Sherpas.
The catalogue your are consulting speaks of the comforts of organized travel in small groups of no more than 16! Is it once again what you want? There is only one way to penetrate the shield of seeing things from afar, from being on the outside – it’s through having your own guide that can guide you to true adventure.
For once in your life put down the supermarket of travel catalogue you are reading and set out on a real adventure, one on one, you and your guide. Forget the economic meltdown of past year, drop your worldly headaches, and get away from alcohol! As a bonus, you might even shed a few pounds if weight has been one of your problems.