When Extreme Treks’ host Ryan Pyle left Canada for China, he had no idea it would kick-start a lifetime of travel
- The television host turned an impulsive post-university trip into a career that has taken him from Tibet to Tanzania
- ‘Leaving your phone and laptop behind and feeling the natural environment is really powerful,’ says Pyle, who estimates he is on the road for 300 days a year
Shooting hoops
I was born in Toronto, Canada, in 1978. My mom was a travel agent and my dad was a banker. I grew up involved in sports and athletics. In Canada, the first thing you play is ice hockey, but I couldn’t skate and neither could my younger brother, Colin. From the age of eight to 22, my whole life was basketball. I was the captain of my high-school team. I was player of the year for the city of Toronto. I wanted to become professional.
The path to the NBA (the United States’ National Basketball Association) is to go to a US university and excel and get a chance to play pro, but less than 1 per cent get that opportunity. I didn’t get the chance to go to a US university – I wasn’t good enough – but, thankfully, I was able to play for the University of Toronto for four years. I studied international politics. When you play any sport for four hours a day you don’t grow up a very rounded person because you don’t have other interests – I never learned how to play a musical instrument, I read way less than I wanted to and all my friends were jocks. When you play basketball, you want Fridays off because that’s when you travel to games.
In my second year, the only class I could take on a Thursday afternoon was an introduction to modern China, so I took it. I’d never had any interest in China, but that class was so interesting. In my third year, I took another course on China and one on Asian politics. By the time I graduated, I wasn’t good enough to play professional basketball, so I decided to go to China because it was the only other thing I knew.
Wild east
I worked all summer to save money for the trip and went by myself. I didn’t have any friends in China. I flew to Hong Kong – loved the city – then went to Shenzhen, Guangzhou, saw the Three Gorges Dam, then to Wuhan, Nanjing and Shanghai, which I loved. From Beijing, I went to Xian and then west, and that’s when things got wild.