Miss Adventuring

Co-create Your Next Vacation: Trufflepig Travel Consultants

Trufflepig digs out the 411 about your dream trip, and helps you plan the vacation of a lifetime. Don't forget to leave room for misadventuring! They say they are "connector, consultant, editor, and arranger." They have trip planning services and custom guided trips. With the former, they give you the info, and you do it yourself. No two trips are alike. A true co-creation! Based in Toronto, Canada.

How to Pack Lightly

Remember the movie Romancing the Stone, with Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas? After the bus breaks down on a mountain road in the middle of nowhere, Jack looks through Joan's luggage for something useful, then throws it down the cliff. He takes her shoes and hacks off the heels with a machete:
Joan: These were Italian!
Jack: Now they're practical.

Here's a short, practical article on packing lightly for your next misadventure:

Pack Brat, courtesy of the Daily Candy.

Dreams and Passions

I'm seeing a trend. Today I recorded an interview with Mark McMahon of Live Your Adventure and Portable Professional. He talked about "living your passion," and pointed out that your passion might change, but as long as you're living in your passion it will lead you on to the next passion and the next and the next, so that you are always living passionately. My previous interview was with Laureen Hudson, LiveAboard Mom and author of The Excellent Adventure, who pointed out that we often in our lives hold on to "one dream," and how very limiting that notion is. There's no reason, she said, that one can't live more than one dream. You can live your dream and then your spouse's dream, or transfer to a dream that comes up unexpectedly while you're in the middle of one or another. All this sounds good and right to me, but hadn't bubbled up into my consciousness without their articulation of the process. So I'm putting that up on my bulletin board: More than one dream - more than one passion - live immersed in them at all times. Do you know what your dreams and passions are?

Movies Featuring Travel as an Agent of Change

I nabbed Last Holiday on impulse because it looked like a fun travel flick. It did turn out to be a very uplifting piece of fantasy, even inspiring, and undoubtedly it's a lot of fun. If you're finding yourself in the quagmire of winter doldrums, this film could help you climb out of the muck.

When her doctor gives her the worst possible news -- that she has a terminal illness -- a timid woman decides to throw caution to the wind, break out of her shell and take a no-holds-barred European vacation. But while she's celebrating her last hurrah, she touches the lives of everyone around her. A life-affirming comedy starring Queen Latifah, with LL Cool J, Gerard Depardieu, Tomothy Hutton, Alicia Witt, and Giancarlo Esposito.

I was thinking of some of the other movies I like that feature travel as a pivotal character, and also a woman taking charge of her life. Enchanted April is a favorite. I can't remember more at the moment. If you've got favorites, put it in the comments below. I'll collect them for a roundup.

Guests in January and February

I have such a great lineup of guests for January and February on the Miss Adventuring Podcast.  Here they are, and stay tuned to be notified of the air date. Subscribe to the mailing list or to the RSS feed on this weblog. And, as always, I'd love your feedback. Thanks! --Carla

Monday, January 21, 2008
Episode 01: Lisa Alpine: Danceweaver, Wordweaver, Wild Woman
The day Lisa Alpine turned 18 she flew to Paris and spent many years traveling around the world -- waitressing in Switzerland, picking olives in Greece, importing merchandise from South America, and leading white water rafting trips, to name a few. For the past two decades Lisa has been a freelance travel writer, editor and book midwife, and a dance workshop leader. More about Lisa

Monday, January 28, 2008
Episode 2: Rita Golden Gelman: The Female Nomad
Golden Gelman moves through the world without a plan, guided by instinct, connecting through trust, and is constantly watching for serendipitous opportunities. She writes children's books and lives on ten thousand dollars a year in the USA and abroad. More about Rita

Monday, February 4, 2008
Laureen Hudson: Liveaboard Mom
Laureen, her husband, and her two small children live on a catamaran in the Emeryville Marina in the San Francisco Bay Area. Find out why, and how, and much much more. More about Laureen

Monday, February 11, 2008
Mark McMahon: Live Your Adventure
We'll talk with the author of Driving to the End of the World about his solo journey from Tuscon, Arizona through Latin America to Tierra del Fuego; his company, Portable Professional, and his transition from mild-mannered dentist to uber-traveling businessman. More about Mark

Monday, February 18, 2008
Ted Simon: Making a Living Riding Around the World on a Motorcycle
The motorcycle travel world knows Ted as the man who took off on a Triumph to travel all around the world -- I mean ALL around the world. Hi popular book is a classic. But he's done it again. Find out how a man makes a living as a motorcycle travel writer. More about Ted

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Welcome to the Miss Adventuring Show

When I started Motorcycle Misadventures I had no idea how the word "misadventures" was going to resonate with so many people. I get a lot of emails humorously addressed to "Miss Adventuring," so I've decided to go with it, adopt the name and share the experience by profiling and interviewing people who are living a misadventurous lifestyle. I'm doing this on internet radio, and you can find it here: The Miss Adventuring Show.

Nobody--I mean nobody--has to ask what "misadventurous" means, how it differers from just plain adventuring. In this world of packaged adventures, what better than to strike out on your own with just you and your psyche and perhaps a friend or two who is willing to make some mistakes, risk some mishaps, encourage perhaps a little misbehavior?

Still, I know when I'm qualified to misadventure and when I'm not. I can strike out on a motorcycle or bicycle trip anywhere, anytime, but as for boating and scuba diving, I'll need an adventure package--that is, unless I can wheedle an invite from a qualified friend. (Hint hint, you know who you are.)

But these are misadventures that may merely punctuate life. That's a big "merely," but if you take your misadventure and go back to the ho-hum life you've been living before, waiting, yearning for that next misadventure, maybe you want to think about creating a misadventurous lifestyle. Living every day without that illusion of security, tempting fate, taking risks, opening opportunities.

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. --Helen Keller

My dad always said luck is where preparation meets opportunity. In this show I'm going to explore some of those intersections with people who have been aware enough to recognize those opportunities and misadventurous enough to say yes to them. And most of all, who have worked hard to prepare to meet them. I don't know anybody whose highly misadventurous and satisfying lifestyle has just appeared out of the vapor.

Stay tuned and learn about a young family who lives on a catamaran, a man who single-handedly created an off-road trail through the United States, a woman who makes a living as a travel writer, another who teaches dance in exotic locations all around the world, a man who makes his living reviewing fast bikes and fast cars, and more.

You'll see how some of these people have integrated corporate careers with their dream lives, how others have found a way to escape the corporate world entirely. You'll find out what they gave up and what they gained. What they did right and what they did wrong. Maybe you'll even find a model for your own misadventurous tendencies.

And please e-mail me (carla at carlaking dot com) with your questions about misadventuring, and be sure to use the subject line: Dear Miss Adventuring, so it doesn't go in the spam filter.

Until then, may all your misadventures have happy endings!

Carla King
aka Miss Adventuring