People who learn that I'm walking 5,000 kilometres from Mongolia to Hong Kong always have plenty to ask me. Here are the five most common questions.
1. Why go on these madcap adventures?
This is a huge question. In summary, I go on adventures for the same reasons as everyone else - because adventures are fun, they are a place of learning, and also a way of testing ourselves to the limit. In addition, I go on adventures to pay the bills.
2. Aren't you afraid?
Indeed, yes, I am regularly afraid when on adventures, but that's half the point of an adventure, isn't it? There are a couple of things I think about to deal with this fear.
First, I take only calculated risks. I work out what the main dangers are, sense-check that they are reasonable, and think hard about how to minimise them. I am also prepared to compromise if necessary. For example, while walking south through China this winter, I recently made the decision not to kayak down the semi-frozen Yellow River as originally planned, but instead to walk along it, as the risks of our kayaks being sunk or shredded by a sharp block of ice were just too great.
Second, I remind myself that often the fears may be in my head, and actually statistically very unlikely to happen. An example would be camping in the wild, which, to people unfamiliar with it, might seem scary or dangerous. When I first started wild camping in Europe, I was worried that I was accidentally pitching my tent in the field of an axe-murderer. Gradually, the more I camped, the less afraid I became of such dangers, as I realised that they are, in fact, completely negligible.