Everyone has their boundaries or personal limits of just how far we’ll push ourselves both mentally and physically. From time to time, breaking out of your comfort zone is necessary to ensure that you continue to grow and learn as a person, and so life doesn’t get stagnant and stale.
This is why we love adventure travel! Every trip, even if it’s to a destination you’ve been before, has its own opportunities to push your boundaries and break you out of your comfort zone. For example, this past July I, along with my wonderful fellow guides, Kris and Terry, led a group of fun and energetic travelers on our Tahoe Inline Skating & Multisport Adventure.
On the third day of the trip, we hiked Shirly Lake Canyon trail up 3.5 miles to High Camp where the 1960 Winter Olympics were held.
It’s an incredible hike with a little bit of everything – breathtaking views of the mountains, a crisp, cool creek bubbling down the mountainside, a majestic forest, magnificent rock formations and boulders to scramble over, and a serene alpine lake – all leading to the High Camp where you can relax and dine at the resort’s restaurant, take a dip in their pool or hot tub, explore the Olympic museum, or even continue your hike on a guided wildflower educational tour.
Because of the trail’s diverse landscape, it proved to be challenging in some areas where you needed to use both your hands and feet to scramble over big rocks, in addition to dealing with the elevation that can always be a factor when gaining nearly 2,000 feet of elevation (especially for us flat-landers!)
Every single person had to work hard on this hike, and there were more than a few who were questioning whether they could make it or not. The boulders and incline of the trail were quite intimidating, but thankfully they pushed their mental and physical comfort zones to make it to the top where the views alone were worth every step.
Though this hike was one of the more demanding activities for this trip, it received a high rating on our post-trip survey – 4.6 out of 5! And when we asked what our traveler’s favorite moment of the overall trip was, a good number said that though the hike to High Camp was challenging, they cherished that tremendous sense of accomplishment they felt once they reached the top.
Now every person that made it to the top has the knowledge that though they may have had suspicions about completing the hike, if they push themselves to break out of their comfort zone they can achieve great things.
After 18 years of running our tours, I naturally have many examples of people putting themselves out of their comfort zones and profiting from it. As just one example, many years ago I led a group hiking on the Great Wall of China. The hiking was more difficult than people expected and there was grumbling at the end of the hike.
I waited and did not say anything until after dinner, which was catered from a village below and brought up to the watch tower where we slept the night, looking out as the Chinese guards must have done in fear of Mongolian invaders. It was a magical evening and as we ate and drank, we talked about the day.
Everyone agreed that while we travelers could all easily remain at home and lead a nice, comfortable life, it was much more rewarding to travel and put ourselves out of our comfort zones, experiencing lows we might not experience at home but living highs we also would not get staying at home.
I’ll take the lows and highs, the difficulties and exuberations, of travel any day!
I agree Allan. The lows help us appreciate the highs by giving us something to compare them to. Looking forward to experiencing it all (though hopefully mostly highs 🙂 on a future Zephyr adventure.