As I write this, I am living the less glamorous side of adventure. This isn’t even Type II fun; the kind that’s miserable in the moment but rewarding in retrospect. No, this is just vaguely sweaty, greasy, and tired in an airport. A shower and my bed are still a full 24 hours away, somewhere in the Czech Republic.

I’m 26, which feels worth noting. My body can still handle a 14-hour flight in a cramped economy seat and teeter on the edge of a full day without sleep. But 26 is important for another reason. I am now one year older than my father was when he fled his home on foot, crossing the mountainous border between France and Spain, hunted by agents of a fascist state.

Who’s to say whose mid-20s were rougher, but I know his led to mine. For him, the mountains meant freedom—a truth that shaped a lifetime of climbing and mountaineering. For me, they were simply a constant. My childhood weekends, vacations, and afternoons were spent chasing him uphill or up rock faces.

Sometimes at home in Montana, but often farther afield, in countries where I didn’t speak the language or know the history.

I was shaped by being thrown into adventure: into curiosity, discovery, and the task of making sense of different realities.

At the time, I wasn’t always grateful for it. My mother used to say travel was important for “expanding my horizons.” I never really understood what that meant until recently.

China is an enormous country, and I saw only a sliver of it. The highlight was Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, a stunning region where sharp mountains like towers emerge from a sea of mist.

My friend and I met two young Finns on the trail and spent the day hiking with them. We talked about many things, but what stuck with me was their surprise that Americans could be knowledgeable about world events and open-minded about, and traveling in, foreign countries. We also bonded over a shared reason for our travel (besides a recent ability for EU citizens to go visa-free).

For them, for my friend living in China, and for me, the answer was simple: it felt important to see a place our news and politicians had spent so many years demonizing. Yes, the nature was stunning, the monkeys adorable, the food delicious. But the core of travel, of adventure, is expanding your empathy, your understanding of the breadth of humanity. It’s learning that the world is not nearly as small or as simple as we’ve been told.

You don’t have to cross continents to do this. It can happen on a walk through a new city, in a conversation with a stranger, in the quiet decision to be curious instead of certain.

Adventure doesn’t always require a passport.

What it does require is killing the voice that tells you to take the comfortable way out. That voice is loud right now, in the U.S. and beyond. It feeds on fear of difference, of change, of being unmoored from a familiar reality. We like to dress that fear in rationality about economic or geopolitical security, but at its core, it’s something older and rawer. It’s the fear of encountering the unknown within your comfortable known.

You have to let that go. Not just for the sake of travel, but for the sake of living in a world with other people. Adventure, whether in the mountains, in a foreign city, or in the pages of a book, reminds us that we are not the center of everything. It humbles us. It connects us. And right now, that might matter more than ever.

Originally published in the Spring 2026 issue of Basecamp. Read the article on Issuu below. Illustration above by Carmen Segovia