Do solo adventures break up relationships?

by Kraig Becker on

Outside Magazine has an interesting story on their website entitled Never, Ever Let Her Go (On a trip overseas. Alone. Especially to Africa.) The article begins with author Eric Hansen recounting a tale of a married couple who were friends of his, and seemingly had an idyllic marriage. But when the wife went off to Botswana on a volunteer trip for a month, she returned home and announced that the marriage was over, and she now longer was attracted to her husband.

When telling this story to others, Hansen discovered this wasn’t an isolated tale. He uncovered similar stories from a number of people who had their significant others go off on a big, adventurous trip, only to have their relationship end once they came home. Even more confounding was the fact that many of the travelers were women and many of them had been traveling in Africa. The article goes on to get quotes from several guide services and travel companies, who say that this is indeed a common tale that they encounter on a regular basis themselves. A marriage counselor also weighs in on the topic, saying he sees at least one marriage per month break up after an adventurous solo trip.This of course begs the question as to why this occurs. The story speculates that it is due to the person traveling expanding their horizons and having a life altering experience on their journey, something we can all relate to from our own travels I’m sure. The same counselor mentioned above says that generally the issues were there before the solo adventure, but the travels bring them more the forefront.

Outside‘s article concludes with the advice that you don’t let your significant other travel alone. Go with him or her. Experience the life changing moments together, and share the journey. If you break up when you get home, at least you got a great trip out of it, right?

So, has anyone experienced this phenomenon first hand? Have you been the dumper or the dumpee?

100 urban adventures for the city dweller

by Kraig Becker on

Looking for something to do today as the weekend quickly comes to a close? Then look no further than Outside Magazine’s list of 100 Urban Adventures. As you can no doubt tell, it contains some of the best activities to do in the great outdoors while remaining well within some of the largest cities in the U.S.

Outside turns its attention on such urban centers as New York, Boston, and Chicago, amongst others. Some of their suggestions for outdoor fun might come as a surprise, even to those that live there. For instance, plenty of people have probably considered paddling around Liberty Island to get a spectacular view of the Statue of Liberty from inside a Kayak, but did you also know that you could go bouldering in Central Park?

There are equally interesting adventures from the other cities as well. Go sailing on Lake Michigan while in Chicago, horseback riding through the Hollywood Hills in L.A., or trout fishing a short distance from downtown Seattle. These are just a sample of some of the adventures on the list and chances are you’ll find something on it that will appeal to what ever level of activity you’re up for.

But what if you don’t live in any of these cities? My guess that no matter where you live, you’ll find similar hidden outdoor adventures right under your nose. Take a look around, and you’re likely to find all kinds of interesting things to do. But hurry, the weekend is slipping away fast.

Outside Magazine’s Best Towns 2007

by Neil Woodburn on

It’s almost August which means it’s time for Outside Magazine to once again rank the best towns in America.

Determining which towns are the “best” is naturally a very subjective task; what is best for you, might not be best for me. And, if you are not a fan of Outside Magazine and the active, outdoor lifestyle it promotes, you probably won’t be a fan of their “best” towns either.

The magazine seeks out towns that are “fit, fun & packed with adventure,” and then gives the reader a rundown of the local job situation, housing market, and, of course, “the greatest places to play.”

This year the magazine has narrowed down their list by focusing on different regions of the country. The final “best towns” and all the details aren’t currently online yet, but you can probably pick up the August edition at your local newsstand today. In the meantime, here they are:

West Coast: Santa Cruz
Rocky Mountains: Jackson
Midwest: Iowa City
Northwest: Bend
Southwest: Santa Fe
Great Lakes: Duluth
Southeast: Ashville
East Coast: Portland
New England: Burlington

(Photo of Portland, Maine by Decor8, via Flickr)

The “Buddy System” in Outside

by Erik Olsen on

If you didn’t catch this month’s issue of Outside and the whole “buddy spread” inside, it’s worth a read. The stories are short, but sweet, and feature a few of our favorite dudes from adventure, sports and music.

I mean, who could NOT want to hang out on the beach with Eddie Vedder and Kelly Slater. Or suck back a beer with Sebastian Junger and Scott Anderson. Of course, they’d have to do all the talking because folks like us, well, we’ve got stories, but they ain’t nothing compared to the tales that guys like this can tell.

Along these lines…Anderson, the author of a wonderful book entitled The Man Who Tried to Save the World, was more recently involved in trying to catch Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadzic for a $5 million reward. The effort failed, but they’re making a movie about it with Richard Gere. Or so said today’s paper.

Outside Names New Editor

by Erik Olsen on

Most folks out there in the world don’t care
much about a changing of the guard at one of our premier outdoors magazines, but I live in New York, where any kind of
leadership shift in the world of publishing becomes gossip. Not much for me to report here on the gossip front, but
I’ll give you the straight news as I know it.

Fans of Outside
Magazine (and I suspect there are many among Gadling readers) might be interested to learn that Hal Espen, who has
been at the helm of Outside for seven years…

(a quick note: why do we always use helm when
discussing top editorial changes in publishing? And why is the page listing their names the "masthead" is
there some old maritime connection between publishing and sailing that I am unaware of?)…

uh, where
was I? Oh yeah, Hal Espen is leaving and being
replaced with Christopher Keyes, whose coming in from Texas Monthly
(another fine magazine, by the way, even if you’re not a Texan). Now, again, no major gossip here. It just seems
like Espen wants to bail and get into freelance, probably write a book or something, perhaps about the challenges of
running a major magazine from New Mexico. Who knows?