7/28/2019 Adventure Travel for the Free-Spirited Individual
1/2
Adventure Travel for the Free-Spirited Individual
Adventure tourism is now one of the fastest growing trends in
travel business. It started with Leo Le Bon who co-founded the
worlds first adventure travel companyMountain Tours with other
eight travel mates. Le Bon and others made the first commercial
journey to the Annapurna region of Nepal. Since then, the travel
business grew rapidly resulting to a plethora of travel companies
that offer adventure vacations.
Classifying an adventure travel however pose a little difficulty
in defining what exactly it means. Adventure travel depends on the
level of strenuousness of activities involved. Adventure may
involve leisure biking and hiking for some travelers or it may
entail base jumping into an underground cave in Mexico.
Nevertheless, a travel involves some fundamental aspects to be
classified as adventure. Adventure travel typically includes going
to far-flung areas, intermingling with various cultures, and doing
a physical activity.
Two categories of adventure travel are hard and soft adventures.
Hard adventuresfall under extreme and mostly dangerous sporting
activity. Examples of hard adventures are rock climbing, surfing,
paragliding, and scuba diving in remote locations. Soft adventures,
on the other hand, are leisure activities that are
ofteneducational. It does not involve strenuous activity unlike
hard adventures. Bird watching, religious pilgrimages and
architectural tours fall under soft advent
ures.
But you might wonder who usually embark on an adventure travel?
Travel IndustryAssociation of Americas (TIA) study indicated an
estimated 20 percent of adult travelers are adventure tourists. It
is also parallel to The Wall Street Journal reporting in 2003 that
revenues from adventure tourism has skyrocketed topping the
adventure market with $245 million dollars.
While many studies say college-educated males in their 20s
typically embark on hard adventures, it is harder to categorize
people who go for soft adventures. They say baby boomers and
seniors significantly affect the rise of number of softtravelers.
However, adventure-seeking women have also substantially caused the
continuous growing of the industry. For example, divorcees ages 40
and 60 usually
turn to adventure travel as a shift into new lives.
In addition, adventure travels are physically and
psychologically beneficial both men and women. Physical challenges
like mountain climbing require both physical fitness and focus. It
develops muscles as well as serves as an excellent mental workout.
Achieving difficult tasks also help build self-esteem especially
forpeople in midlife crisis.
There are several options to what kind of adventure travel fits
a specific typeof person. But you should determine first how
adventurous you would like to be.A travel agency may actually help
steer you through the multitude choices that you will face.
Sports-themed vacations are well-liked for athletes. Examples of
these are baseball fantasy camps and NASCAR driving schools. Safari
is one example of soft adventures popular to many of varying ages.
This may involve driving and walking through the African plains and
come into close contact with lion, leopard, elephant, rhino and
buffalo.
Longtime popular destinations are the Seven Wonders of World
that include bikingand hiking to these locales. Some of the world
wonders include pyramids of Egypt, expedition to Antarctica,
cultural tour in Japan and Ethiopia, the Great Wallof China, and
Taj Mahal in India.
