A few months ago we changed our tagline. Maybe you noticed. Or maybe you didn’t, because it’s really just a few words on our header. Either way, now you’ll find:

A Cruising Couple – adventure travel with a dash of class

 

We decided to change our tagline when we realized that our last one –stories from two lovebirds traveling the world—didn’t really say anything about our blog. Yes, we’re in love. And yes, we travel. But what kind of stories are we telling, and who is our blog for? It wasn’t until our friends at Green Global Travel posed these questions to us that we realized it was time for a bit of rebranding.

 

What Adventure Travel Means to Us - Adventure is out there

 

So we chose adventure travel with a dash of class. The ‘class’ part was easy. We don’t claim to be budget backpackers and we don’t really want to be. The last time we stayed in a hostel in Costa Rica, we actually left after the first night, opting to pay a bit more for a cozy inn a block away. We didn’t regret the extra dollars spent one bit. We’ll always prefer a boutique bed and breakfast that has been painstakingly adorned with unique, one-of-a-kind décor. We appreciate the details and we relish a bit of comfort.

But the core of our tagline isn’t ‘class’—it’s adventure. And that’s where things get a little bit blurry.

 

What Adventure Travel Means to Us - Whitewater Rafting La Fortuna, Costa Rica

 

We Googled ‘What is adventure travel?’ and this was the first answer that popped up in the search results:
Adventure travel is a type of tourism, involving exploration or travel with perceived (and possibly actual) risk, and potentially requiring specialized skills and physical exertion.

 

What Adventure Travel Means to Us - Nevis Bungy Jump

 

Interesting. While we definitely consider ourselves ‘adventure travelers’, that’s certainly not how we describe most of our journeys.

 

So what does adventure travel mean to us?

 

Adventure travel is about embracing life. It’s making the most of each and everyday, whether that’s in our own backyard or halfway across the world.

 

Adventure travel is more than an adrenaline rush. It’s more than collecting a stock of ‘extreme’ stories to brag about. It’s more than proving ourselves to be braver or stronger than someone else. Adventure travel is about challenging ourselves, pushing ourselves out of our comfort zones and conquering our fears. Often this is physical, but even more so it is emotional and mental.

What Adventure Travel Means to Us - A Cruising Couple Stinky Tofu

 

Adventure travel means learning new things about ourselves—discovering that we are capable of so much more than we could have ever imagined. But it’s also means learning about the world, interacting with and embracing new cultures and ideas.

 

What Adventure Travel Means to Us - Vietnamese BBQ Picnic

 

Adventure travel is relative. Each person has his or her own comforts, fears, hopes and challenges. While jumping out of a plane is extreme for some, for others the adventure might be in getting on the plane in the first place. Adventure is what we make of it.

 

Adventure travel is dynamic. It’s a constant flux, continually evolving with our comfort levels. And that’s okay. I used to have no problem with canyoning or rappelling or jumping out of planes, but when we recently went zip lining in Costa Rica I almost had a panic attack. Perhaps I’m not as intrepid as I used to be. That doesn’t necessarily make me less adventuress.

 

What Adventure Travel Means to Us - A Cruising Couple Rappelling into a Cenote

 

Currently I’m reading ‘Lonely Planet’s Guide to Travel Writing‘. With all the time we spend blogging and sharing our travel tales, I figured it was time to start learning how to do it well. One day while I was skimming through it, I came to a halt. In a larger quote about writing with clear, compelling prose, Don George states, “…discover the world with a fearless curiosity…” It was just a few simple worlds, but they resonated deeply. I re-read it. I underlined it. I shared it with Dan and then we put the quote on a pretty picture of a sailboat. The words really got us thinking—what would our lives look like if we lived with such a fearless curiosity? And it was then that we realized if we have to define adventure travel in just a few words, it’s this. Having a fearless curiosity about ourselves and the world.

 What Adventure Travel Means to Us - Fearless Curiosity

 

We try to live adventurously everyday, breathing in all the life we can before we find it’s too late. Sometimes that might mean cycling 1,000 miles through Vietnam, climbing active volcanoes in Indonesia, or flipping our boat while white water rafting. Other times it might equate to sampling unusual food or learning something new. And that’s why we love adventure travel so much—because it’s for anyone willing to push themselves out of their comfort zones.

 

That’s what adventure travel means to us, but we want to know—what does it mean to you? Please be sure to share your own opinions in the comments below!