In family adventure travel, improvisation makes up much of
what you do. There's no set itinerary,
booked hotels or guided tours. Other
than when you leave home, where you initially go, and when you come back, the
trip is an open opportunity. Beyond
choosing an area and activities that interest you, the rest of the trip should
be left to develop as you go along.
You're like a pioneer family, conscious of where you are going, but not
sure what will happen along the way.
If something sounds or looks promising, then pursue it with
no thought for previously set plans. You
won't find the kids complaining if you end up on the coast of Turkey when you
said you'd be exploring the islands of Greece, or walking the footpaths of
England instead of hiking in the Alps.
Almost any situation can be turned to advantage when
adventuring, through the use of a little improvisation: bad weather, confused
directions, people met along the way, a sudden inspiration, a bad
destination. Each can send you off in a
new direction you hadn't even thought of.
An extreme example of this was the year we planned to travel by ferry up
the coast of Yugoslavia, hike in Austria and fly home from England. This was also the year of the nuclear
disaster at Chernobyl, thus putting an end to any exploration in the vicinity
of the Alps. As we were already booked
home from England, we took a cut-rate charter flight from Turkey and spent
three weeks camping and hiking in the British Isles, something we hadn't
planned on doing that turned out to be a real highlight of the trip.
Who cares if your trip takes a completely different turn
from what you had intended? Eventually
you will find yourself starting to sound vague when people ask you on your next
adventure. This is all part of
adventuring, particularly with children when any number of unpredictable things
can happen. With a little spontaneous
improvisation, all can result in an added element of excitement.
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