Adventure costs, and if you believe the travel sites, it costs a lot; however, here at Man MakesFire we don’t agree that the costs have to be high. In response to the idea that rock star adventure has to empty your savings and retirement accounts, we are starting the “Rock Star Adventure Series” where we will give you tried and true methods for expanding your adventure horizon while keeping the costs to a minimum. Some tips will be generic that will work across many adventure ideas and when we find great specific costs savings techniques we will include those as well.
Tip 1: Make meeting new people and maintaining real friendships a priority. Rock Stars are constantly meeting new people, shaking hands, and creating connections. Some connections last, most don’t. Like all rock stars don’t dwell on the connections that fail and grow the ones that succeed. When I started trying to get to know more people two things really surprised me. First, guys you would never pick out as cool turned out to be go to adventure guys and damn good people. Second, some guys just are not interested (this still blows me away every time).
After years of terrible conversations, I have come up with two good questions when I get introduced to someone. “Do you have anything interesting or fun coming up?” and “What do you like to do for fun?”. The good adventurers will have some kind of answer to those questions while the home bodies will not and may even answer with some kind of TV event. Once you’re chatting, when you find a connection, say fishing, give an invite. ‘Hey, I was thinking about bank Salmon fishing on the Siletz this Sunday with the incoming tide. Are you interested?’ Even if it doesn’t work out, leave the door open with a ‘Hey, anytime, I’m in.’
Groups can split costs for travel, lodging, equipment, and so on. I can tell you without a doubt that I could not adventure near as much as I do without the lowered cost of shared expenses. More friendships equates to more opportunities for alternative adventures. You may not have the equipment you need to climb El Capitan, but someone does and they are looking for a partner to summit with. There is no down side to having a large group of interesting friends.
If you are really struggling to get a tribe built, here are a couple of digital spots to get started. Remember these are tools for activity. The goal is to be an adventurer not to follow others around living vicariously through them. Now, go out and meet some interesting people and make some new friends.
https://www.triptrotting.com/home & http://www.meetup.com/
Grow Your Tribe has some good tips.
