MicroAdventures with Al Humphreys

Al Humphreys:
I thought about this German guy called Heinz Stuecke who spent 40 years cycling around the world, four zero.

If you imagine 40 years, just how much the fashion length of his shorts evolved over those 40 years is quite intriguing.

I walked a lap of the M25 motorway, which was the most boring thing I could think of.

Rob Bell:
Al, how would you define a microadventure?

Al Humphreys:
Think of what feels like an adventure to you, what gets you really excited.

And then you think, oh, hang on, I don't have enough spare time to go and do that sort of thing.

I don't have enough money.

I've got a job.

I've got a family.

What's a smaller version of that that I can do?

And keep going smaller and smaller and smaller until you find, oh, I can actually make that thing happen.

Then go do that thing.

And that's a microadventure.

Rob Bell:
Hello, and welcome to Sketchplanations, the Podcast.

Now they say a bad workman always blames their tools.

And as an, albeit amateur workman, I distinctly remember shouting at the hammer when building stuff in my dad's workshop as a young kid, when the nails just wouldn't stay straight as I attempted to bang them into a piece of wood.

Now, perhaps I wasn't the sharpest tool in the box, and boy, did I yell whenever my thumb took a hammering.

But now, years older, I know that they, whoever they are, were right about the bad workman.

You simply can't blame the tools.

And speaking of tools, let me introduce you to my co-hosts for this podcast.

The man whose sketches always hit the nail on the head, Jono Hey, and he for whom one might occasionally wonder whether there's a screw loose, it's Tom Pellereau.

Hello.

Tom Pellereau:
Hello.

Hello.

Jono Hey:
Hello.

I do very well out of these things.

Thank you, Rob.

I appreciate it.

Rob Bell:
It just works as a form.

Tom Pellereau:
Deservedly.

Rob Bell:
Tom, I love you really.

You know that.

Tom Pellereau:
Thank you very much.

Rob Bell:
Anyone, anyone else have that difficulty, as particularly as a kid trying to hit a nail with a hammer, it just always bent.

And then I always used to get really frustrated.

Anyone else do that?

Remember doing that?

Tom Pellereau:
No, I'm all right.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

And I hurt my thumb a lot as well.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

It has to be done just right, doesn't it?

Holding the end of the hammer, one clean hit sort of, but the further away down the hammer you hold it, the more likely is you're going to whack your thumb.

Or bend the nail.

Yeah, or bend the nail.

Tom, I think you should solve this.

Tom Pellereau:
Well, you can get these little plasticky bits, which will hold the nail for you and help you hammer it.

Rob Bell:
You can, can't you?

Tom Pellereau:
You know, I was very fortunate.

My grandfather was an orthopedic surgeon, hips, knees, and that sort of stuff.

And he was incredibly talented because he could use the right hand or the left hand on hammering.

So he taught me kind of from an early age to kind of get the knack of doing it.

You almost put a kind of top spin, which I never really got.

But, you know, yeah, like that to hammer it in.

Rob Bell:
Come over the top of it.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

And you can't put spin on a nail, but it sort of works.

Almost.

Rob Bell:
Have you ever played or seen the, it doesn't have to be, a drinking game.

It could just be a game called Stump, I think it's called, where you're hammering.

You've got a big tree, like a big log, big stump of wood, right?

And the idea is that everyone has a nail, quite a long nail.

If you get like a big, long, like four inch nail, and you just start them all off, you know, just a, just so they can stand up right.

And then the idea is that you want your nail to be the last nail standing up above the wood.

And you're trying to hammer everybody else's nails down into the wood till they're done, they're in.

And what you do is you flip the hammer and if you catch it clean on the handle, then you get a go.

You get one go to bang someone else's nail.

If you do trick shots with the flip, between the legs, you get two goes.

If you miss, if you don't catch the hammer properly after a flip or two flips or three flips on the handle, then you forfeit your go and it goes around.

That's kind of how it works.

And so you want to try and nail everyone else's nails down.

It's good.

Jono Hey:
That's quite fun.

Rob Bell:
It is quite fun.

Yeah, it's very, you know, involved.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
I love how you can make a game out of anything.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
It's just hammering out.

Let's make a game out of it.

You can pick any little thing that we do and go, but there's a game to be had there if it's fun.

Tom Pellereau:
And if it's hard, and a little bit dangerous, a little bit dangerous, even a bit more fun, even more, a little bit of extra jeopardy.

The fun scale, really episode one, series one, episode one.

Rob Bell:
I was thinking hammers are quite a rudimentary tool, right?

There's not that much complicated about them.

And I was looking up, it is one of the earliest known tools.

So some form of, well, basically, Tommy, yes.

Tom Pellereau:
A rock and an arm.

Rob Bell:
But apparently that it was, I think as in Kenya, archeologists have found signs of things that they've called them tools, hammer and anvil type set up from 3.3 million years ago.

That's before humans were around.

Yeah.

Jono Hey:
There's a little twist at the end there.

Rob Bell:
Quite an old tool, the hammer.

One of the great things about a hammer is it's got the hitting side, right?

But it's also got the leverage side to pull out nails.

What a brilliant tool it is, you know, for such a simple thing, a hard bit on the end of a stick with a hook, actually.

I've used the hammer quite a bit.

I've used the claw.

That's what it's called.

I've used it.

I knew it.

I knew how to do it.

I've used the claw a few times for taking apart pallets, right?

Because I find pallet wood quite useful for...

It's not fine woodwork, but it's great for that.

Jono Hey:
Interesting.

As a principle, it's good.

It's like having the eraser on the end of the pencil.

Yes.

You can do this and you can undo whatever you're going to do.

It's like having a saw with like glue on the top.

You have a glue edge and a cutting edge.

Tom Pellereau:
Stapler with the remover.

Computer with the undo button.

It's a TRIZ trend, in fact, I think, Jono, isn't it?

Opposite effect.

If you're getting benefit from one, it might have the opposite effect.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, about that.

There you go.

Rob Bell:
And you can listen to our episode on TRIZ from the end of series one, I think.

Tom Pellereau:
Used it quite a lot.

There's quite a few new beauty devices coming out, which is hot and cold, hot therapy, cold therapy.

Quite common.

All that kind of stuff.

Jono Hey:
Nail polish, nail remover.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

Rob Bell:
So Paula Abdel all those years ago was right.

Opposites of tribes, you know what I mean?

Jono Hey:
Yes, I didn't.

I forgot it was Paula Abdel.

I'm not sure she was the one with the initial bit of wisdom around the opposites of tribes, was she?

Rob Bell:
So Hammers out in the workshop, obviously.

Hammers used, they definitely used to be used in archaeology a little bit.

Maybe it's a bit more...

Or fossils, right?

You used to be able to, you'd use a little fossil hammer, right, to break open fossils.

Jono Hey:
I mean, fossil hunting is just a brilliant thing to do.

You can stop along the coast, the Jurassic Coast on the south coast of the UK, and they literally just wash up on the beach, and then it's just such a fantastic feeling to be like any of these stones.

This might have the most incredible fossil in it, and you get your goggles, and you get a hammer, and you have at it, and kids are just brilliant.

What an incredible, exciting activity.

Let's see what's inside this thing, and not special things.

Tom Pellereau:
And I love the fact that Jono said, put the goggles on first.

Rob Bell:
Put the goggles on first.

Tom Pellereau:
He's just so well prepped, isn't he, at all times?

Jono Hey:
I ran it by my lawyer beforehand.

Tom Pellereau:
There's Rob and I just throwing rocks at the floor, trying to miss our feet.

And Jono's got a little hammer and goggles.

They're incredible.

My favorite hammer story is a big shout out to my mum, who is Mrs.

Fix-It.

So my mum is the maker, is the builder of the house.

And I'll never forget the story where she actually fixed a hammer.

Not many women I know would actually go to the effort of fixing a hammer, but she has to fix and make everything last forever.

So she literally, she was one of the sort of funny things, because she lived out as a really big hammer and the end just plopped off.

Rob Bell:
I was like, Oh, that's brilliant.

Tom Pellereau:
Thank, thank God it came off at the top of the swing rather than on the bit when you were whamming down, it just flew across the room.

Rob Bell:
That's a great bit of slapstick there.

Jono Hey:
Gaze through your forehead.

Yeah.

Rob Bell:
I mean, there you go, hammers, eh?

Yes, simple but versatile talks.

Tom Pellereau:
Who knew?

Rob Bell:
Who knew as listeners that you'd end up listening to a conversation about hammers today?

Tom Pellereau:
Is that tonight's link?

I was trying to work out how you're going to link hammers beautifully back to the story of the day.

Rob Bell:
I mean, sometimes there is no link to me, you know?

Jono Hey:
It's a bit like when we talked about sharpening the saw metaphorically, but actually ended up talking about sharpening saws.

Rob Bell:
What I will say, Sketchplanations, the podcast, never knowingly predictable.

Not in the intro anyway, I should say.

Jono Hey:
Oh, the beauty.

It's like a fossil rock.

You never know what's going to be inside.

Tom Pellereau:
It's not always my fault.

Rob Bell:
But thankfully, we do have a bit of structure in the podcast.

And so you should know if you are a regular listener what's coming up next.

So let's line it up and hammer it home.

Jono Hey:
Let's podcast.

Tom Pellereau:
Ah, he's done it.

He's linked it.

Rob Bell:
In this episode, we're packing on knapsacks and heading off into the countryside as we speak with MicroAdventure maestro, Al Humphreys.

Now, Al is an adventurer, blogger, author, brackets of 14 books to date, public speaker and filmmaker, and has many a tale to tell from his numerous escapades.

Most notably, in my mind at least, spending four years cycling all the way around the globe.

Now, more recently, Al has become a resolute crusader for MicroAdventures, encouraging people to get out and fit more adventure into their busy everyday lives.

Al, welcome to the podcast.

Al Humphreys:
Thank you for having me.

I have never heard anyone whose voice transforms so much upon pressing record and starting speaking.

That was quite remarkable.

Rob Bell:
I'm quite squeaky in normal life.

Al Humphreys:
Wow.

Then you became, yeah, you became very Radio 4.

I'm impressed.

Jono Hey:
Smooth Rob Bell.

Al Humphreys:
Thank you for having me.

Rob Bell:
Oh no, it's absolutely brilliant to have you on.

It's absolutely brilliant.

Jono has done a sketch on the MicroAdventure and that is our main topic for this episode.

But before we get into that, I mean, in my introduction there, I went very light on listing the huge or non-MicroAdventures that you've undertaken in your life.

I mean, the one I mentioned was that you cycled all the way around the world, you know, just throw that out there.

So I was wondering if, if first of all, you could tell us a little bit about that and some of the other epic trips and journeys you've been on.

I think it's only fair really for the listener to understand that whilst we're talking about MicroAdventures, there is no doubt that when it comes to adventure of any size, you are the guy we want to be talking to.

Al Humphreys:
Yeah, I actually, I think that is a good place to start, because I think to talk effectively about MicroAdventures, it is quite good to talk about some big ones.

So yeah, I, when I was 24, I decided to go on a big adventure before sort of settling down to normal post-university life.

So, and I went really big, much bigger than I had expected, actually.

I spent four years cycling 46,000 miles around the world.

And then when I came home, what struck me from having visited and crossed 60 countries was not how much of the world I had seen, but how little I had seen.

And really, rather than it having scratched the adventure part, it just got me itching for more.

So then I started trying to do other sorts of adventures and I really like being a beginner.

I like being rubbish at stuff and having to scrabble and learn and be energetic and enthusiastic to become halfway competent.

And then I sort of, my interest goes down a bit and I move on to something else.

So having done a big bike trip, I then walked across Southern India because one of the great things about adventures is that they're slow, painful and simple.

And if you want to go really slow, painful and simple, then ditch the bike and go for a long walk.

So I walked coast to coast across Southern India, which was wonderful and mad.

But there's a lot of people and a lot of conversations about cricket and cups of tea.

So then I went for a bit of peace and quiet and walked across Iceland.

And I started...

Rob Bell:
Can I ask, how long did that take to walk across India?

Al Humphreys:
Well, the good thing about India is it's shaped like a triangle.

So you sort of work out how much time you have available.

And then head as far south as needs be to that point.

And you can still claim it as a crossing.

So I went really down near the bottom.

I walked only about 500 miles.

I think it's about six weeks.

I followed one of the...

India has, I think, eight holy rivers.

One of them is called the Caberi River in southern India.

And I followed that from the mouth all the way up to the source and then continued down to the other coast.

So it was a short trip through India, but pretty intense as well.

Rob Bell:
Amazing.

Sorry to interrupt.

And you went on to Iceland, you said?

Al Humphreys:
Yeah, so I crossed to Iceland and then I roughly was trying to just gradually build a life out of save up, go off and do a big adventure, come home, talk about it, write about it till I've got enough money to go off and do another big adventure and then roughly repeat that.

So I rode across the Atlantic Ocean.

I busked through Spain for a month with no money, no credit card, only a violin, which I really could not play at all.

I would say, unbelievably thrilling and terrifying adventure.

Rob Bell:
I've seen your video on that.

I've seen, or a video of that, Al, and it is brilliant.

Al Humphreys:
So you will be able to vouch that I really cannot play the violin.

I'm not being mock humble about it.

I really suck.

So that was terrifying.

Rob Bell:
Just for listeners, that is all true.

That is all true, yeah.

Al Humphreys:
Maybe you can add a little of my violin background to some of this chat.

Rob Bell:
Okay.

I could do that.

Al Humphreys:
Yeah, lovely.

Rob Bell:
Lovely.

Al Humphreys:
So, I'm now going to structure your conversation for you.

But if you think about adventure, the sort of traditional kind of big things I've just been talking about, like cycling around the world, then I think a lot of people might wonder whether those sorts of adventures are for them.

And what I found really fascinating about walking through Spain for a month, sleeping wild, hiking through the mountains, all that stuff that sounds like adventure, that wasn't really the adventure for me, because by then I'd been doing that sort of stuff for so long.

That was kind of me in my comfort zone.

And the adventure here was daring myself to stand up in a village square with no money in my pocket and play the violin.

And I really could not play the violin.

And I find performing like that terrifying.

So I found that one of the most adventurous things I'd ever done, even though it's just going for a stroll through quite sunny little, nice country like Spain.

Jono Hey:
Non-classic definition of adventure, I guess.

Al Humphreys:
Yeah, no, I think you're exactly right.

And I found that a really interesting evolution of my thinking.

Because when I started doing adventures, I was very, very much motivated by a very classic sense of adventures, expeditions, and a lot of it was very much built around me trying to sort of prove some sort of macho, masculine toughness to myself.

So reading books by people like Ranald Fiennes and loving those sorts of epic things.

And I love those adventures, but moving towards Laurie Lee, he was the original guy who walked through Spain in a lovely book called As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning.

He's a very un-Ranald Fiennes type character.

He's a bit incompetent.

He likes to sort of drink wine and snooze under olive trees.

And he's much more sort of gentle type of adventuring, much more.

And then I think if you start to count being scared of playing the violin in public as an adventure, then suddenly you're getting a much more inclusive and perhaps actually much more interesting take on what adventure might be.

Rob Bell:
What do you think are the common personality traits between, was it Laurie Lee you said, playing the violin across Spain?

So Laurie Lee, Ranald Fiennes and yourself.

What do you think are the common personality traits that make you want to go and do these things as opposed to living in your home and having a bit of routine?

Al Humphreys:
Well, I suspect the Venn diagrams that overlap Ranald Fiennes' life and Laurie Lee's life is a very slender overlap.

Rob Bell:
I'm imagining so.

Al Humphreys:
Yes.

Although, gosh, I mean, both of them involved absent father figures, which I think is pretty not relevant in my case, but it's certainly true in a lot of adventurers who are going out to prove themselves.

So Ranald Fiennes is very much motivated by the, I want to prove myself to my father who I ever met.

I want to be a man and do this epically tough stuff.

And I didn't have any sort of upbringing like that, but I certainly felt quite a mediocre, weedy, average, non-event, mediocre sort of loser person growing up.

And I think then, so that, so wanting to prove myself to myself and perhaps to the world was very much part of my Ranald Fiennes side of things.

But actually, in reality, I'm not really a Ranald Fiennes, much as it pains me to admit that I'm much more of a, a Laurie Lee, a sort of gentle person who's playing the village cricket team and drink a bit of cider and have a snooze somewhere.

And, and Laurie Lee was, he was motivated much more just by the curiosity of wanting to get out of his garden gate, get out of his claustrophobic little village, because the world beyond his village, sound is more exciting than what he had at home, which I think is a helmet to so many people who we grow up often thinking, oh, where I live is boring.

Adventure is out there.

The further I go, the more adventurous it will be.

And certainly that was my case for the first 15, 20 years of my adventuring was that the further I go away, the better the adventure will be.

And it's been a big change around in recent years.

I think then to answer your question, the overlap between Ronald Fiennes and the Laurie Lee would be just the slight frustration of normal life and the thinking that must be something better out there somewhere.

Rob Bell:
Perhaps that combination of the curiosity of that something else along with a drive from somewhere to do something about that curiosity.

Al Humphreys:
Yes, which might be a push or a pull.

But yeah, I think you're right.

It's curiosity plus a little bit of oomph to kick you out the front door and begin.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, lovely.

They feel like nice traits, right, to be.

Al Humphreys:
Well, I suppose most traits have positive aspects that it's not done to excess.

Is that true?

Rob Bell:
Oh yes, okay, yeah, fair enough.

It's four years, it's taking four years out of low and going on the epic where you got almost probably as far away as you possibly could from home to cycle around the world.

Is that an excess?

Al Humphreys:
Four years sounds like a long time, but what was an interesting thought process I remember going through quite clearly was coming towards the end of that trip.

So when I was cycling back through Asia towards England, for the first time I was actually starting to sell a couple of articles to a couple of newspapers.

I remember getting paid 300 pounds to write an article.

And for me, that was vast amounts of money.

And that's way more than a month of life on the road.

I was starting to earn more money than I was spending.

So suddenly then, this then became a viable option to just, hey, I've been to 60 countries, what about the other 140?

Maybe I could just keep going and this could be my life.

And I thought about this German guy called Heinstucker, who spent 40 years cycling around the world, 4-0.

And he is well worth a Google, and a fascinating guy.

Also, he set off for unpleasant father reasons, so he was from that school of the Venn diagram.

But 40 years going all the way around the world, one of my big biking adventuring heroes.

And I remember I was up on the top of the Simplon Pass, which divides, where does it divide?

Italy from Switzerland, essentially the top of the Alps.

And I got to the top of there and roughly speaking, if I carried on the way I was going, then it was downhill towards England and home.

Or if I turn around and go back down the other way, then I'm off.

And it really felt like a decision point of, do I carry on going all the way around the world for 40 years like Heinz Stuckert?

What a fascinating life that would be.

Or is it a braver option to come home and stop and do something different?

So that was the option that I chose in the end.

I felt then that actually going on and on and on wasn't more adventurous.

It was actually in some ways the least bold choice.

Rob Bell:
Gotcha.

I will put a link to, what's his name?

Al Humphreys:
Heinz Stuckert.

He's got a beautiful photo book, which I think is called The Man Who Saw It All or something like that.

If you imagine 40 years, just how much the fashion length of his shorts evolved over those 40 years is quite interesting.

Jono Hey:
I was thinking, it's funny when you said about coming to the end of it and thinking how little you'd seen.

The thing we've done a few trips, like traveling trips, not adventures like yours, but getting the map and drawing a line about, oh, we went from here to here to here and we went to these countries, these countries and you look at it and I was looking at it and go, well, I can probably see on a really expansive view, 20 miles either side of that line and so even though we said, oh, we went through Central America, I actually saw like 20 miles either side of this line and that was all a scratch on the planet.

Al Humphreys:
Yeah, incredible, isn't it?

And how everything would have been different if you'd gone one road parallel to the other side.

Yeah, it's incredible, isn't it?

How little you see somewhere.

Jono Hey:
It's funny.

Rob Bell:
Tommy, can you relate to that a little bit in terms of how little of somewhere you see with say some of the travels you do with work where you're going around the other side of the world?

You were in China not too long ago, is that right?

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah, so I went.

Rob Bell:
But you wouldn't say, yeah, I did China.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah, so I've been going to China every few years for almost 20 years now.

There was a period during COVID where obviously I couldn't go, it was about four years.

And my most recent trip, I was there for a week.

I was in, I didn't leave the hotel for four days, I don't think.

And the previous days, I'd come in from Hong Kong and I went out through Hong Kong.

In that time, you do see a certain amount because the culture, the city is so incredibly different.

But no, I haven't, you know, I've not gone anywhere in that time.

Rob Bell:
That relates to a lot of my travels as well.

I think probably a lot of people could relate to that, how little really you see.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah, I'm quite good at Hong Kong Airport.

Al Humphreys:
Well, talking of Hong Kong Airport, I used to, quite a few years, I used to make my living essentially by flying around, giving talks, that was my job.

And I remember really clearly once, getting picked up from a taxi just outside my house, I got in the taxi and it drove me to Heathrow Underground Car Park and I went through that little tunnel thing onto the plane, flew to Hong Kong, went down some subway thing onto a taxi, into an underground car park, into my hotel room, down into a conference center, did a tour.

I hadn't been outdoors from my front door until I was on stage on the other side of the world, which completely blows out of the water what I said a few minutes ago, that the further away you go from home, the more adventure you get.

So it really isn't, it's not really about the geography of adventure, it's much more about the mindset of adventure I think.

Rob Bell:
Is that a good way to come on to the more MicroAdventure side of things?

Al Humphreys:
I think that would be a good way to lead on to that, yes.

Rob Bell:
So this is the main topic for this episode, the MicroAdventure.

And Jono's, I'd say quite idyllic sketch for this.

It should be up on your screens now as the artwork for the episodes.

And if you'd like a closer look or to see it in higher resolution, I'll include a link to it at sketchplanations.com, also in the podcast description below.

And as ever, if you have any comments or questions or stories of your own, adventures or microadventures that you'd like to send us, you can email us at hello at sketchplanations.com or you can leave us a message or even better, a voice note on the podcast website.

And we'll be going through the post bag from the last time at the very end of the podcast.

But that's the admin.

Let's get into the sketch.

So Jono, I mean, I absolutely love this sketch.

And is your sketch that first alerted me to the notion of the microadventure?

Al Humphreys:
And your sketch that first alerted me to Sketchplanations.

Rob Bell:
Oh, well, here we go.

The circle has been completed.

This is great.

Jono, do you want to tell us a bit about the sketch and how you first came across MicroAdventures as a thing?

Jono Hey:
Yeah, you know what?

I was trying to think back and it just feels like I've known about it forever.

But it's not obviously true.

But it was one of those things that as soon as I heard it just stuck with me.

I'm like, that's a brilliant word.

It's a brilliant name.

And it just captures so much fun experiences that I can think about.

And so you might not know.

But in many ways, people sometimes ask me, how do you choose what goes on Sketchplanations?

Because it's a lot of different stuff.

But one of the things that makes me choose them is things that I think other people should know, because I want more people to hear about this cool thing and go, you know what, maybe I'll go try this.

And MicroAdventures was one of those.

And I remember, so the sketch is very much, honestly, it's a combination of experiences.

We've done a couple of like bivouacs, for example, which are just, you know, they're, they've only been like one night sleeping out under the stars, but they really stick in my mind compared to like, you know, what I did five days ago.

And, and this just, I love, I think you had a lovely phrase, which was about like doing stuff on a school night that you can sort of, you can actually, you can actually head out at 6 p.m., go catch a sunset, sleep under the stars, and you probably wake up at 6 a.m., you could be back for breakfast and school.

And so, and that's why it's like near, it's a sort of family out in the hills, but overlooking the city and where, you know, you haven't necessarily gone around the world to do this, and so that's why I wanted to capture, but mostly I wanted everybody to be aware of this cool thing, because I didn't know about it until I came across it.

So more people need to know, so that's it.

Rob Bell:
Al, how would you define a microadventure?

Al Humphreys:
Well, I think really I would throw it back to ask you or whoever's listening to think how they would define an adventure.

We've talked already about there's different aspects of adventure, so different people will have different ideas in the head of what an adventure is.

So I would say think of what feels like an adventure to you, what gets you really excited.

Well, that's an adventure.

And then comes the screech of reality when you think, oh, hang on, I don't have enough spare time to go and do that sort of thing.

I don't have enough money to go do that sort of thing.

I've got a job.

I've got a family.

I live in Basingstoke, not out of Mongolia.

I don't have thousands of pounds worth of ice axes.

And then all of your adventure dreams come crumbling down.

And then you either have a choice of just giving up on it or just vicariously reading other people's adventure-y type stuff, or you think, right, what's a smaller version of that that I can do?

What's a small little thing that is compatible with the barriers, the obstacles, the realities of my life?

And keep going smaller and smaller and smaller until you find, oh, I can actually make that thing happen.

Then go do that thing.

And that's a microadventure.

And your definition of a microadventure might be someone else's massive adventure.

It's very, very different.

Yes, that's my politician's answer on what a microadventure is.

Rob Bell:
That's good.

And what came into my mind then is you were talking about Outer Mongolia and Basingstoke.

For somebody in Outer Mongolia, an adventure to Basingstoke might be epic, right?

So if you're in Basingstoke, there is something out there that someone in the world might feel like this is amazing.

So, have a think what that could might be.

And go and do it.

Al Humphreys:
To answer that question, I'm now going to leap all the way through our MicroAdventures chat onto what I've been doing post MicroAdventures.

So what I've been doing most recently is I've been going even smaller than MicroAdventures, which is to buy the single local ordnance survey map that I live on.

You know, the orange map that you use for a hiking trip, or you might have used in geography lessons at school.

They roughly measure 20 kilometers by 20 kilometers.

Wherever you live in the country, you're on one of those.

And I just spent a year only exploring the single ordnance survey map that I live on.

And I was on some podcast, some American podcast about it, and they loved it.

They thought, that's so interesting, so interesting.

And they said to me, but how would this work?

I mean, what if you were in Kansas or somewhere?

It'd be so boring to do it there.

And I said to them exactly what you just said, which is, wow, I would love to go to Kansas.

I've never been there.

Don't be in Kansas, be fantastic.

Which again, is just a real reminder that it's so much about the attitude that you decide to put onto your adventures, not the geography of where you're going.

You don't need to go to Hong Kong Airport to have an adventure.

You just need to walk out the front door and just think, ah, I'm going to look with curiosity and enthusiasm and an open mind for new things.

And then to go back to MicroAdventures, I'm going to look for whatever opportunities exist within the realities of my busy life and fit it in around the margins of my busy daily life.

Rob Bell:
Maybe it's a good idea if you can you give us a few examples of MicroAdventures that you've either done or that you've heard about other people have told you that they've gone and done.

Al Humphreys:
One of the early realizations was whether I was freezing and shivering in a tent in the frozen arctic ocean or sweating in the desert in the empty quarter or feeling really seasick in the Atlantic, totally different places.

And yet, what I was trying to get out of that experience was essentially the same.

The good parts of it are all the same.

They're all in your head and your heart, really, not the geography of these sort of places.

So I started to think, in that case, maybe then I don't need to go somewhere exotic like the Arctic Ocean.

Maybe I can have an adventure somewhere really boring.

So to test that idea, I walked a lap of the M25 motorway, which was the most boring thing I could think of in my life.

Rob Bell:
That's brilliant.

Al Humphreys:
But it turned out to be a fascinating, fantastic adventure.

I mean, with hindsight, I'd say, actually, that's on the hardcore end of MicroAdventures, because it took a week and it was quite tiring.

Tom Pellereau:
You weren't on the hard shoulder.

When you said you walked down the middle.

Al Humphreys:
Down the central reservation.

I was just doing the nearest bit of fields to the motorway at all times.

So fields, cross-country, golf courses, quite a bit of gentle trespassing, just following my nose along the edge of it.

And so I loved, that's one I personally really enjoyed.

I personally really loved going to a shop that sells tractor wheels and buying four tractor inner tubes, pumping them up, four tractor inner tubes, 50 quid, and drifting down a river for a day and then with friends and then camping on the river bank at night.

When your tractor inner tubes turn into luxury armchairs, you sit around the campfire, lovely.

But I think the MicroAdventure that really started to break through as a bigger idea, which is probably where Jono first started to hear about it, is, as he will know way better than me, is that if you can simplify and condense an idea, then you start to get some traction.

The thing that really helped me with that was to try and suggest to people that we all get so bogged down by our nine to five life.

And the nine to five is the necessary part of life, but we don't often think about our five to nine, those hypothetical 16 hours of freedom.

And if you say to someone, oh, who are you and what do you do?

They go, oh, my name's Bob and I'm a plumber.

But Bob's only a plumber for eight hours a day.

What is he for the other 16 hours of the day?

We don't really identify much with that.

So I sort of tried to flip it around, to have a bit of five to nine thinking of, hypothetically, I know we've all got commitments and stuff, but in theory, 5 p.m., instead of just going home to lay on the sofa and watch Netflix, in theory, you could come home, sort your kids out, put your kids to bed, whatever, and still, on a summer evening, head out of town, jump on the train, as Jono has done, go sleep on a local hill, and you're under the stars, turn off your phone for the night, wake up in the morning.

You probably had a terrible night's sleep and you're exhausted, but we gloss over that part, and it sucks if it rains, but we'll gloss over that part.

Lovely, sunny morning, run back down the hill, jump in a river, good for the soul, back on the train, back to your desk, back to work for nine o'clock.

And as Jono exactly said, that is something you'll remember five years from now, when all of our other normal nights have blurred into one.

So I think the five to nine overnight microadventure was the single one that really helped the idea start to spread.

Tom Pellereau:
Amazing, and when is the microadventure day?

Is there a microadventure day?

Al Humphreys:
So when I first started launching it, one of the things I was really keen to try and do was to grow it as a community group, so that I could get it beyond just being middle class, white, able-bodied, failure, athletic sort of blokes doing this sort of stuff.

If I could get women and families and older people and different sorts of groups doing it and sharing their stories, then other people like them could see other people like them doing it and realize, oh, maybe this is something I could do.

So in the early days of it, I worked really, really hard on growing Facebook groups, regional Facebook groups, and for quite a few years, the big event was the Midsummer Solstice MicroAdventure, trying to get loads of people across the country to go sleep on a hill on the summer solstice, which is just fantastic.

I did realize over the years that it does seem to be quite a rainy night, but yes, so that was a really good thing.

Then for one year, I did a year of MicroAdventure, which was setting one day a month to go do and I'd lay out the challenge.

Here's the challenge for this month, bum, bum, bum, or just trying to grow some sort of momentum behind it.

Tom Pellereau:
I really like that.

I really like the one day a month as well.

Al Humphreys:
I always quite like some finding patterns of things.

Then I thought, well, if you've done the summer solstices, go do the winter solstices.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah, you'll sleep much better.

Al Humphreys:
Exactly, you get to go to sleep at 4 p.m.

Yeah.

And then if you've done the solstices, and it's great to go to exactly the same spot at those points, do it in the equinox as well, the spring or in the autumn.

And then suddenly you've got four ways to really see the year in a very different way.

So, yeah, I quite like trying to put patterns of things like that on my MicroAdventures.

Rob Bell:
And I should probably say, I say, that your book, MicroAdventures, is full of ideas, right?

Full of ideas and some lovely photography and kind of accounts of them.

So if anyone is interested, it's absolutely brilliant.

And you come out, they go, Oh my gosh, I want to go and do that one.

Al Humphreys:
It's 10 years old this month, that book, which is alarming.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

Rob Bell:
I bet all of those examples in here, as relevant now as they were, and as exciting and alluring, perhaps as they were then.

Al Humphreys:
I hope so.

Jono Hey:
I was thinking of one, me and my sister still talk about it.

We used to drive down to Devon, and my parents were terrible at packing, sorry, mum and dad.

We'd always leave at like, it's meant to be at 7, but you end up leaving at 10 or 11.

It takes hours to get there, so you're driving through the middle of the night.

One day, it was so late to get there, that instead of going where we were going, we just pulled up at the seafront, at 4 a.m.

or something, and we slept the rest of the night in the car, and then went and got a hotel breakfast.

And, you know, like, that, it sticks with me, that was a brilliant thing to do.

And normally we drive down and we pack properly, and we turn up on time and we go to bed, and I don't remember those.

That's silly, isn't it?

But that was a brilliant one.

I was thinking that really sticks with me as a little MicroAdventure, waking up as a kid on the seafront with the sunrise coming up and then going and getting a hotel breakfast.

Tom Pellereau:
Car parks are some of the best places to stay.

Well, Robbie, because of our trip in the Venger bus, as we called it, that ridiculous camper van down the side of America, fast forward 10 years, I managed to persuade Sarah to buy a VW camper in 2019 as a bit of a distraction.

And the first night we did with that is Sarah's like, well, we should try, see if this works.

So we literally stayed in the car park of my office thinking, well, if it all goes wrong, and it also just so happened tragically to be her birthday that night.

So it's like rock and roll, Sarah, you're staying with your husband in the car park.

Fast forward now, there's this fantastic car park at Exmouth Beach, which is right on the beach and you are legally allowed to stay there, which is why I also am admitting it.

And you are absolutely on the seafront and it's like eight pounds a night.

And we've stayed there at half terms regularly on a Friday, because it's just, you open in the morning, it's just like the sea is there and we have breakfast just on the seashore.

I love this.

I love that you've put this into a real concept that is just so approachable and get everyone else to consider doing these crazy things.

Rob Bell:
One thing that I really want to ask you about is, Tommy, you talked about, and you've got the luxury, you're sleeping, you've got the camper van, right?

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

Rob Bell:
A lot of the MicroAdventures, and this is something that really, really appeals to me, is it comes up quite a lot in the book, is about the bivvy bag and just bedding down, opening up.

You don't even need a massive rucksack, right, for a MicroAdventure.

That's possibly part of the joy of it.

You don't need much at all.

But in the book, you talk about the basic kit list for bedding down somewhere and the bivvy bag setup.

Can you talk to us about that a little bit?

Because I've done it a couple of times, bivvy bag, and I absolutely loved it each time.

Al Humphreys:
OK, so first of all, I have to put in my official legal disclaimer, which is that if it's raining or there are midges, then this sucks.

But assuming it doesn't rain and there aren't midges, then what I would now tell you might change your life.

So camping is great.

People like camping.

But actually, camping is just kind of a rubbish version of your house.

It's like you're sleeping in somewhere that's just a bit rubbish and uncomfortable and small.

It's a bit rubbish, really.

And a bivvy bag will change everything because it is really, really cheap.

I mean, you can get a really sweaty one for five quid.

You probably want to spend more than that, really.

But it means that this is available to anyone.

It doesn't take up much space.

I should explain what it is.

It's essentially like a waterproof jacket material for your sleeping bag.

So your sleeping bag goes in it.

It's a waterproof overlay for your sleeping bag.

And what that then means is that all you need is your roll mat.

That sort of comfy roll mat thing you sleep on to make the ground a bit softer.

Your sleeping bag to keep you warm.

And then over the top, your bivvy bag, which just keeps off the any light mist or condensation or dew.

And what that then means is you can just sleep outdoors under the stars.

And suddenly you're not in a rubbish version of your home.

You're actually outdoors.

You can see the stars.

You can see the trees blowing in the breeze over your head.

If you hear a funny noise, you can just sit up and you're just looking around there.

And it's very weird because it feels very vulnerable.

I mean, it gives, for some reason, a tent gives you some illusion of safety from poltergeists and monsters.

Tom Pellereau:
And it's complete illusion because it's so complete.

Rob Bell:
There's an inside and outside, right, of the tent?

Al Humphreys:
But with a bivvy bag, you're outside.

And still, I get worried about ghosts and monsters, which is ridiculous, because you're on the top of a hill.

Nobody on the planet knows you are there.

You're entirely safe.

But still, you're alert and it's exciting.

And you will wake up early.

But it means you can pack up very quickly.

And you literally just stand up, shovel this stuff into a rucksack, put your rucksack in its shoulders and walk off, leaving nothing but a small imprint in the grass.

And it's just wonderful, again, because it's so small.

You can camp on tiny little bits of beach or just by footpaths.

And suddenly, if it's dark and no one's seen you go into that little bit, then literally the entire planet becomes your hotel.

And it's just wonderfully empowering once you get into baby bags.

Rob Bell:
And this is something that I wanted to ask you about, Al, because I love the way you talk about it in the book.

And I hope you're going to talk about it now in terms of the legality of it.

Al Humphreys:
Okay.

Rob Bell:
Because I'm a bit of a stickler for rules.

I wish I wasn't as much.

Probably to the disappointment of my dad that I'm not more of a rule breaker.

But I enjoy the bending of the rules sometimes.

But for some reason, I'm quite scared about the rules in England of wild camping.

And correct me if I'm wrong.

The generality of it is that you can't really just camp where you like.

Al Humphreys:
Yeah.

Rob Bell:
Talk to us about that, because I'm already convinced in what I hope you're going to say.

But I think it's important that this is broadcast out wider.

Al Humphreys:
Okay.

Cut me off if I start going off on too much of a rant, because this is now a topic that I could talk about passionately for a long time, but I will try to be brief.

First of all, in Scotland, you are allowed to wild camp wherever you want within sensible reasons.

Obviously not in someone's garden, obviously not in the middle of a field of wheat or a primary school playground.

Just use your brain, nuggets.

But roughly speaking, you have a right to roam, a right to wild camp.

That doesn't apply in England and Wales.

Until recently, the only place in England and Wales where was a generally accepted legal place to camp was Dartmoor.

But recently, some lovely billionaire guy just bought all of Dartmoor and said he doesn't want any peasants sleeping on his land.

Keep calm now, keep calm.

So in technicalities, you can't.

But in terms of criminality, it's not a criminal thing.

It's not criminal, it's civil.

It's like getting a parking ticket.

I've been wild camping across the globe my entire life and have never received a parking ticket for doing that.

So I think there's a couple of issues to think about here.

Seriously, one is the legal position of it, which is technically you're allowed to walk along a footpath for a nice long walk.

You're allowed to sit down and have a picnic.

You may be allowed to lie down and look at the sun, but you're not allowed to sleep there.

So at some point this falls down into nonsense.

But there are a couple of issues that I think are a bit more relevant.

One, no one likes getting told off in court.

I wouldn't want to be told off and get caught.

I would feel really uncomfortable with that.

And it's much easier for me.

I'm like a tall, white posh bloke.

It's much easier for me to deal with the most other sectors of society to get told off.

So I think this is a big issue.

But the reality is, and especially when you're bivvy bagging, is that you arrive somewhere late, you leave somewhere early, no one will find you.

You're in a tiny little red sleeping bag thing tucked in the corner of the wood.

No one knows you're there, so you're leaving such a light footprint.

And then, of course, it should go without saying that because you love camping, you're going to leave no trace behind.

You're not going to leave any mess behind.

So I think if you arrive late, leave early, no problem.

If, very, very unlikely, anyone does happen to find you lying on the top of a hill in a sleeping bag, their most likely reaction is not going to be rage and fury, but one of curiosity and amusement and what a funny, eccentric person this is.

And you're much more likely to end up just having a cheerful, friendly conversation with them, and you reassure them that you're not going to leave me littering and leave at dawn, and there's no problem at all.

So, I was slightly interested that Harper-Collins, when I published that book with Harper-Collins, that no lawyers have ever been in touch with me about writing a whole book encouraging criminal activity.

So, I would really try to leave that out of your mind.

I accept the reluctance to get told off.

I think that's a different issue, that not wanting to get caught, not wanting to get told off, I feel that the same.

But I think with a few little tips and tricks of try and go somewhere subtle, arrive late, leave early, then that really means that's a bit of an irrelevance, too, once you get the hang of it.

Rob Bell:
You've just nailed it there.

It's not a fear of doing something illegal, civilly illegal.

It is exactly the fear of being caught, in inverted commas, and told off.

That's what I want to avoid at all costs, exactly as you've just said.

Al Humphreys:
And I am too, but I mean, the four of us speaking today, we're four middle-aged white men.

It's much, much more of a problem for women doing this, or different ethnic groups camping around the countryside.

So, in recent times, I used to just find this a slight trivial irritation, but I've actually come to see it as a much bigger issue, that we are so disconnected from our landscape now, of the way we own our land and allow access to our land, I think is actually a much deeper and graver issue than just, oh, I want to go camping.

I think it's much bigger than that, with this disconnection from the land has really big impacts for our approach to nature, wildlife, the climate, politics, on and on.

So I actually think it's quite a big issue and the Right To Roam campaign, I think, are doing a really good job at highlighting some of those things.

Rob Bell:
Agreed.

I am behind you 100% with that.

Al Humphreys:
One of the difficulties with wild camping is, around about this time of year, you always see the people, either festival people or people who have been for some sort of rave, who just go somewhere in their tent, leave their tent and all their litter.

And that's the fly camping.

You turn up in a car, you camp, you're leaving with rubbish, you clear off.

Fly camping, very, very different culture and ethos to the wild camping of MicroAdventures and Bibibig.

Rob Bell:
Because I think if you flip it, it would be an annoyance if, I don't know, you were the land owner of this beautiful spot on top of a hill and every weekend or something, there were people with tents or whatever, sleeping out there till nine in the morning, whatever, it's like, come on.

Al Humphreys:
Yeah, exactly.

Rob Bell:
I get that, I 100% get that.

Al Humphreys:
Yeah, and I think you're right to say that because it's really important that both land owners and campers ultimately care about nature and the countryside.

And I think if we can find areas of common ground to agree on rather than it being a battle, that's I think very helpful.

And as you start to do these MicroAdventures, you start to get a feel for it.

Sometimes you think, right, I've got to be back at my desk for 8 a.m.

tomorrow morning, so I need to get up at dawn, or you just think, this is quite a fun place at night.

But in the morning, I reckon there might be farmers and people wandering around stuff.

So I'll just get up early and I'll move on.

But other times, like some of the beach ones you've mentioned now, you kind of have a feel that I can just sleep in and wake up and it'll be fine.

And you start to just get a feel for the vibe of a place.

As you do, I suppose, walking through a town late at night.

Sometimes you'll hurry through, sometimes you feel a bit more chilled, and you just experience of wild camping starts to minimize.

Like a lot of things, the preconceived worries are much greater than the realities of them.

Tom Pellereau:
Kids absolutely love wild camping.

Al Humphreys:
Yes.

Tom Pellereau:
My kids adore it.

Back to your latest project with the kind of local OS map.

I can never forget when the kids were really young, like three and four, when they're just sort of walking, but just trying to get them to walk from the car up towards the house, because in the side of the road, they'd find something and then they find a little insect, or they'd find a bug.

You're so inquisitive, it seems.

Or maybe you're just closer to the ground, until you see these things.

I love your concept of keeping it really, really local, because there's so many interesting things just around the corner from you, often.

Al Humphreys:
I think it's interesting to say that, because one of the traits that I talk about a lot with MicroAdventures is the notion of being more childlike.

Not childish, but childlike.

That freedom, that curiosity, that enthusiasm.

If you say to a kid, hey kids, do you want to go on an adventure tonight?

They're not going to go, I'm not sure I've got a Zoom call tomorrow.

They're going to go, yes, we're worried about tomorrow, tomorrow.

Load up with Harrowbone, let's hit the hills.

They're up for it.

Rob Bell:
They're really curious.

Al Humphreys:
Who wants to go drift down the river and attract your energy?

Rob Bell:
Me.

Al Humphreys:
But at some point, we've become so boring.

So I think trying to get more childlike is a really big part of that.

One really small thing that I've been doing regularly is an extra small MicroAdventure is to climb a tree once a month.

Schedule it into my calendar once a month, first Wednesday of the month, every Wednesday for three years, go climb a tree.

Boom.

It only takes 20 minutes.

You climb the tree.

It's a bit of fun, bit of play.

You have a cup of tea up in the tree.

You notice nature down below.

Oh, the blue bells have come.

And then a month later, wow, the blue bells have gone.

How am I not noticing the wild universe turning and changing?

And you just clear your mind for a little bit.

Come down from the tree, come back to your desk, get on with your day of email.

So you're trying to incorporate that sort of childlike play into scheduling it.

I think that's an important aspect, scheduling it into your serious, busy work calendar helps us all be more childlike.

Rob Bell:
Are you going up the same tree with that?

Or are you finding different trees?

I'm intrigued about this tree idea.

I absolutely love it.

Al Humphreys:
Well, I think, so I did one year in one tree.

And I think it was really important to go to the same place in each tree, to really notice what's changed, both in the nature around you, which is wonderful, but also within yourself.

Think, oh, a month ago, I was sad about X, but now I'm fine with that.

And, oh, I hope in the next month, I can get this article written and then you can reflect.

It's like a little break for reflection.

And then, so I did a different tree for each of the three years.

Rob Bell:
Oh, that's brilliant.

Al Humphreys:
But I really think scheduling is really important.

So for example, another year, I did a year of full moon forays.

So rather than it being the first Wednesday, the full moon, put that into your calendar.

And it didn't matter what I did.

I could go for a run, a walk, a cycle, a swim, just something out under the full moon.

And that's great because I wouldn't probably have bothered to do those little things.

But I remember the January one was freezing, freezing cold, but really crisp.

And all I did was walk a lap of a golf course, but it was dark and it was freezing.

It was great.

And then in the summer, I went swimming down a river in a full moon.

This is fantastic.

These are tiny things, like half-hour activities, but because they're scheduled in, they actually get done.

Rob Bell:
And I think that's it for me, because I have been meaning to do a conscientious microadventure for about three years now since I've had the book.

I've done lots of different little childlike things, but I don't think I've ever gone out with the intention of this, right, this is the microadventure.

And I know what's stopping me, what's stopping me is scheduling it in.

Because the way I am, I know that I would like to do that with one or a couple of others as well.

So I'm really pleased that that is something you've brought up there Al, because that's what's going to change my, I haven't done it for three years too.

I did it, it was brilliant, and I've scheduled another one in for two months time.

Jono Hey:
If you want, you can get your calendar up now.

Al Humphreys:
Yes, get it in now before the end of this.

Jono Hey:
We can wait, we can wait.

Tom Pellereau:
I'm emailing myself now to do it tomorrow.

Climb a tree, I love that one.

Al Humphreys:
Nice, I like this.

So, Robbie, I think a nice thing to do if you're struggling to organize to meet with a few friends because everyone's conflicting diaries and stuff is there's a website called something like whatshalfway.com and you can type in where each of you live and it calculates what's halfway between you.

And then the rules have been set for you.

That's where you're going for the MicroAdventure.

I mean, obviously, put in a tiny bit of flex to find yourself a decent hill nearby, but that's done all the work for you.

It's not gonna be the most exciting place in the world, but that doesn't matter, because it's just, you're gonna meet your three mates, though, and say, we'll meet at sunset at this grid reference.

How fun is that?

And it literally, I mean, Tom would love it if it was a car park, but the rest of us would say, the rest of us would say, even if it's a car park, it's gonna be a fun and memorable little adventure, isn't it?

Rob Bell:
That's an awesome tip.

That's an awesome tip, Al.

Yes, great, great, very, very good.

So I was gonna ask you a little bit about your views on digital versus analog tools.

And if you have a preference, I feel like it's anything that's gonna get people out and about doing stuff, right?

Because analog, I don't have, well, I could do the what's halfway.

You know, I'm all right with maps and rulers and stuff.

That's fine.

But doing it on a website is quite fun as well.

You know, it's instant.

Here it is.

Jono Hey:
I really liked the phrase in your book, Local, which was, I think unfolding a map is the ritual that launches all good journeys.

Rob Bell:
Oh, that's good.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

Al Humphreys:
All good adventures begin with a map, don't they?

It's really, and that, I suppose that is where I do like to go analog to actually buy.

So this is my local Ordnance Survey map that I explored for a year.

And in terms of, you can buy an Ordnance Survey map customized.

You can either just buy the random one that you live on, or you can get one specially made with your house right in the middle of the map.

And you can put a photo on it of you climbing a tree once a month.

But yeah, so in this case, I love this paper map because I've been planning my year of local things, and gradually it gets covered in highlighter pen and scribbles and stuff.

So I do like analog for a map.

Rob Bell:
A used map is a good map.

Do people send you stories out of MicroAdventures that they've been out on and kind of, you need to hear about this one?

Al Humphreys:
People have over the years sent me quite a lot of things, and it's been really gratifying.

It's been one of my favourite parts of the whole experience, actually, of realising that my early desire to be the next Ronald Fiennes tough guy is actually much more rewarding to be the guy that's got a load of dads and lads and mums and kids to go sleep on their local hill and swim in the local river.

So the stories people send are not very remarkable, but that's kind of the point.

It's like when you tell someone your dream, it's kind of boring, but it's meaningful for you, wasn't it?

Because you are the person doing it.

So I think, yeah, just this sense of, I think we've heard a couple of examples of it just on this chat this evening, just doing things with your family, just become, they're not that special, but they are special too.

Jono Hey:
Love that.

You mentioned at the very beginning of that book as well, I think something called The Paradise Paradox.

Can you explain really quickly what that is?

Because I thought that was just brilliant.

Al Humphreys:
Paradise Complex is something that I very much suffer from, which is the thinking that if I could only move to somewhere that was just a bit more paradise than when I lived, then all my problems would be solved and life would be wonderful.

So the grass is always green, essentially.

Tom Pellereau:
So the three of us have yesterday returned from Italy, from the lakes in Italy.

We took a weekend away with some other friends and pretty much all of us were there all weekend going, oh my God, why do we live here?

It's just amazing on the lake, in the sun.

It's just absolutely gorgeous.

Paradise Paradox is a very good point.

Al Humphreys:
Yeah, and it's certainly one that's been a very, very strong force in my entire adult life and not in a good way at all.

Not in a good way at all, but a constant thinking of, man, if I could just go over there, then everything would, all my problems would be solved.

And it's taken me quite a long time to realize I'm not going over there, so why don't I just have a look around me here and see what cool stuff there is right here on my doorstep.

Terry Pratchett did a speech called The Importance of Being Absolutely Amazed by Everything, which is just the principle which I decided to go out and explore my fairly boring local map with, and it certainly is an effective thing.

The more you're interested in stuff, the more interesting everything becomes.

Rob Bell:
Which then becomes the antidote to the Paradise Paradox, right?

Al Humphreys:
Exactly, yes.

Yeah, the acceptance of things.

Oh, actually, this is all fine here, and if it's not fine, then the problem's probably me not being curious and enthusiastic enough to find something good.

Rob Bell:
Would anyone like to add anything else on the subject of MicroAdventures before we round off?

Jono Hey:
Can I ask you just one quick question?

One of my favorite sketches I did was called The Overview Effect, which was when astronauts would be on the moon.

But essentially that feeling of, wow, you see it all, but then you also have this reverse, which is this, you come back to Earth, maybe life's quite hard because you've done this incredible thing.

I was wondering if that's something that you've struggled with a bit.

I mean, part of what makes maybe the day to day a bit harder is because you've done these incredible journeys as well.

I don't know.

Al Humphreys:
Is that true?

Jono Hey:
Is that the case?

Al Humphreys:
Yeah, that's interesting.

That's not the question I thought you're going to ask when you started talking about the overview of the fence.

But it's very, very true.

I often say to people who are asking me about considering going off on huge adventures, I say that I think going to cycle around the world was the best decision of my life in many ways, but it has not led me to be particularly happy in life.

It's made me have an interesting life, but I think I found it quite hard to be just happy and content after doing that for sure, which I think is what you're suggesting in that.

So, which has been, again, going on while the MicroAdventures have been really helpful for me.

I can't be constantly crossing deserts and continents, so let's get some joy from slinging my hammock in the woods and brewing a cup of coffee and a little fire in the morning.

And let's go climb a tree, let's go for a swim this full moon.

So, trying to seek that adventure close to home every day.

So, there's that Chinese curse, isn't there, may you live in interesting times.

And I think that's in some ways what going off on huge adventures does for you, perhaps.

Hopefully, that's not a case for everyone, but I think it has been for me.

Rob Bell:
No, I think that's a really important thing too and a really interesting thing to address.

The few times I've been off and done a thing that I've planned and really built up and prepared for and then gone and done it, whether that's a day or a week or a couple of weeks away doing something, I've always been incredibly conscious of what it's going to be like coming back and trying to make sure that I'm acknowledging that early on before I come back and find myself in this slump, I'm like, oh, well, that's done, and trying to make sure that I'm busy and there's stuff planned in to maybe dissolve slightly the intensity of that effect of coming back.

The notion of having microadventures scheduled, microadventures dotted in that period that I'd come back to, I would find very comforting, I think.

Al Humphreys:
I think you're wise to consider it whilst you're actually off on those big things, even perhaps doing it before you go on big things.

I think that's a rare to do.

I've anecdotally spoken to so many people who've done huge adventures, who've come back to giant post-adventure blues afterwards.

And I think trying to, athletes are the same.

I remember Sir Bradley Wiggins talking about waking up the day after he'd won Olympic gold or something, just thinking, yeah, what's the point?

And now what?

And it's a cautionary tale for anyone who's going off on an adventure because you're running away from whatever in life, you're going to come home to it.

So, yeah, and people often glibly, it's slightly tongue in cheek, but I think also true is people say, the way I deal with that is by planning the next adventure, which is what I did for a bunch of years.

But actually, I think that's just constantly just running, running, running.

And what I'm trying to do these days is not to run, run, run, but just to say, stop, I don't need to run, because there is wonder and majesty and beautiful beauty and interesting thought provoking stuff all around me everywhere.

So in maybe this is enough.

I've got everything I need and that's enough.

Maybe, hopefully.

Rob Bell:
It sounds like we're putting a real downer on this.

Al Humphreys:
Yeah, I'm trying to be.

Rob Bell:
But it's not, no, but it's not at all.

I think it's incredibly important now to make sure that there isn't this.

It is tips, again, and advice and anecdotal advice from others who've done it to learn to not come back to this and to stay positive with it.

So that is very much how I want that to feel for anybody who's listening.

Jono Hey:
It could all be like, Heinz Stöcker and just keep running.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, well there's that.

Jono Hey:
Just keep on going.

Rob Bell:
There are two ends of that scale.

Listen Al, thank you so much for giving up your time to come and inspire us all really and give us loads of tips and advice and share some of your stories.

If any of our listeners do want to check out any of your latest news, your latest adventures, Micro or Macro, whatever they might be, where can they go to find out what you're up to, Al?

Al Humphreys:
Well I've spent far too much of my life making myself very findable all over the internet.

So wherever you get your internet, you will find me.

I do a newsletter, which you can sign up to on my website and I've written a bunch of books.

But I suppose the things that are relevant with what we've talked about today would be to buy your own ordnance survey map of where you live and really look at where you live with these sort of adventurous eyes.

You would look at a map of China or Mongolia or Alaska or something.

And then the two books that are relevant to that would be MicroAdventures and then my new book called Local.

Rob Bell:
Brilliant.

And that's out.

People can find that.

Al Humphreys:
Out now in all good bookshops.

Actually, it's in almost no book shops, but it should be.

Rob Bell:
There it is.

I know what I'm off to do.

I'm scheduling stuff in.

I'm looking at trees.

And I am going to get the Molecule OS.

I'm well up for that.

That's great.

Al Humphreys:
Nice.

You can get them nicer.

When a friend of mine moves to a new house, I usually buy that as a house moving present.

You can get them not folded, but flat to be framed.

It's quite nice thing for your downstairs loo.

Suddenly, wow, there are hundreds of miles of footpaths I've not run down or cycled down yet where I live.

Rob Bell:
Even more amazing advice about the gift-giving section.

This is brilliant.

It's really uplifting, inspiring, hearing all your stories and experiences.

And some new perspectives, I think, as well, for me, at least, on how I live my life.

And there's a lot to take away from this conversation.

Alisa, thank you and all the best of luck with your future work and adventures of any size.

It is brilliant to have you on.

Thank you so much.

Al Humphreys:
Thank you.

I've enjoyed the chat.

Thanks for having me.

It helps being asked interesting questions.

So thank you for doing that as well.

Rob Bell:
My pleasure.

Jono Hey:
With a smooth voice.

Rob Bell:
As for this episode, we should probably switch off our torches and get some kip so we can be up and away before the farmer comes in in the morning.

We'll be back in just a tick with some of your correspondents since last time.

But for now, adventure well, go well and stay well.

Goodbye.

Hello, we're back again, it's just Jono and I this week to go through your post bag.

And we're gonna keep it short, because I mean, that was such a great chat with Al.

There's so much about that guy that I just admire, and I could have chatted to him for much, much longer.

But here we are, we're with the post bag, and we're looking back.

So a couple of very quick notes or messages that we've been sent both on Instagram about the Color Wheel episode that we had with Lucia, last time, wonderful Lucia.

Alison simply says, My favorite colors are blue and green.

Brilliant.

Thank you for that, Alison.

I'm sure you're not the only one.

And just Keith on Instagram left us a message saying, on the Color Wheel, it's opposites.

We were always told, exactly, I think Larry's talking about the complementary colors, opposites.

And that is, as we talked about in the podcast, you're kind of, even probably pre-GCSE art teachers tell you that, right?

When they show you the Color Wheel.

Jono Hey:
It could be.

I think it's probably A level though.

I learned it, but maybe not.

I don't know.

Oh, really?

Yeah, yeah.

Rob Bell:
But anyway, just Keith goes on to say, I'm severely colorblind, so I'm more about what shapes work together.

Sadly, Keith doesn't go on to say which shapes he finds complement each other.

And I find it quite difficult to imagine that.

Jono, have you kind of put two shapes together?

What's come to me there is a circle inside a square, that the conference of the circle touches the four sides of the square.

That feels quite nice to me.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, I don't know.

But I guess if the colors look the same, what you're going on is position and shape and that.

But yeah, it'd be really interesting to know a bit more about that, wouldn't it?

Rob Bell:
Let us know.

Let us know, just Keith.

And thank you for your message.

And then finally, going back a couple of episodes, actually, we had a message from Cat who says, I want to tell you that I listened to Sketchplanations episode about sharpening your saw the other week.

And it's amazing how often I don't stop to do that, Cat says.

The most common situation for me is not stopping to get a drink.

I'll just do one more job, put one more thing away, help one more child.

And then I get a headache and can't do anything.

And I write this to you as I'm finally taking a moment to make that cup of tea.

Keep on podding.

Thank you very much, Cat.

Jono Hey:
I can relate to that.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, I can relate to that.

And especially at the moment, because I have a newborn baby kicking about the house, which is just a massive distraction from stuff.

And A, because there's always kind of something that needs doing.

And it's like, I'll get that drink in a minute.

But I do need to put this away and clear that up and prep that for whatever.

But then the other scenario I've found myself in is where you've got your bottle of water that's there, but maybe I'm doing a feed and everything's going quite well in the feed and I don't really want to disrupt that scenario and the water is just out of reach.

So it's like, do you know what?

I'll have it afterwards, but then you just forget.

Jono Hey:
Don't move.

Yeah.

Don't mess it up.

Rob Bell:
I really get what Kat says there.

Yeah.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

I think with parenting like that, it's a tricky one because it really is important to look after yourself as well.

You can't look after the baby properly unless you look after yourself.

But on the other hand, you also don't want to tempt fate by messing something up when it's going really nicely.

Rob Bell:
But not just with babies, you know, if you've got a family with older kids or just life generally.

I also find that again, I'm talking about being out in my workshop and when I'm out there, I'm so focused and I'm just loving what I'm getting up to.

And I know I'm a bit thirsty, but I just don't stop to take a drink because I'm halfway through measuring this and I've got my eye in on what that needs to be and I just need to get something from next door in order to mark this properly.

And before, it comes back to yak shaving a little bit as well.

Yak shaving preventing me from sharpening my sword.

Ironically, in my workshop where I'm surrounded by swords.

Let's not go down that rabbit hole again.

Yeah, brilliant.

Anyway, thank you very much, guys.

And keep your messages coming in to us.

You can email us.

Hello@sketchplanations.com.

You can leave us messages on our social media or you could be adventurous and leave us, or MicroAdventurous if you like, and leave us a voice note through the website.

Anyway, thanks very much for your messages and we'll see you next time.

Bye for now.

All music on this podcast is sourced from the very talented Franc Cinelli and you can find loads more tracks at franccinelli.com.