The Live Adventurously Manifesto Final · A Manifesto The Adventure Couple | Coral Reef, Bligh...

A M a n i f e s t o

T h e A d v e n t u r e C o u p l e | w w w . L i v e - A d v e n t u r o u s l y . c o m

LIVEM a n i f e s t o

A Gift of Adventure to the World

by sharkman & Mantagirl, the adventure couple

A d v e n t u r o u s l y

The

A M a n i f e s t o


Coral Reef, Bligh Waters, Fiji. Photo: Sharkman

This manifesto is free. Share it with the world under the terms of the creative commons attribution 3.0 license.

For additional resources and cool stuff, click on the hyperlinks throughout the manifesto that look like this.

The Live Adventurously Manifesto, © 2011 Ridlon & Carin Kiphart, The Adventure Couple.

http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0




A M a n i f e s t o


LIVE A d v e n t u r o u s l y

Shadow of Mt. Everest cast into the high atmosphere at sunrise. Captured from the summit of Cho Oyu, the 6th highest peak in the world. Photo: Sharkman

The Adventure Couple | www.TheAdventureCouple.com

3

The


M a n i f e s t o

“Life is either a grand adventure or nothing at all”- Helen Keller

“I never met anyone that wanted a duller life.”- Sharkman, The Adventure Couple

Playing with Really Big Sharks. Cool but Not Required.

It came out of the blue with no sound and no warning and even though I was kicking as hard as I could, I was barely getting closer to it. The water around me was clear blue but I couldn’t see the other scuba divers - they had all fallen back out of sight:

It was just me and a forty-five foot long shark. (click on the hyperlink for video)

http://www.TheAdventureCouple.com


http://youtu.be/8j4JfDpc0jY

http://youtu.be/8j4JfDpc0jY

A M a n i f e s t o


And that’s when I swam to literally inches over the top of its massive head. I had developed a theory from observing these leviathans and wanted to see if I got close enough to a shark this big if I could get pulled along in its slipstream. I was sixty feet underwater and in the middle of nowhere and about to find out. Kicking furiously, I swam right up against the shark, so close that I could feel it moving beneath me and suddenly, I was in the slipstream - I was surfing a giant shark. It’s as if a magical transformation took place and all of a sudden, we were swimming as one; the shark seemingly oblivious of me as I was pulled along for the ride. And for 23 minutes, I got to look through the eyes of a giant shark. We cruised a lazy circuit and I watched the reef pass as we swam through waves of multicolored fish. I watched as a huge school of hammerhead sharks swim right past us like traffic passing on the morning commute and then still more sharks joined us as wingmen.

I was 100’ underwater and my air supply was starting to run low so I began my ascent back to the world of air, making sure to dodge the enormous tail as it whooshed past. The giant shark was instantly gone back into the blue. Hasta la vista baby.

Damn, what a cool Monday morning.

So what does diving with a shark the size of a school bus have to do with working 8-6 in a city, raising a family, being married, loving what you do or just having more excitement and fun everyday?

Everything.

What Is the Gift of Adventure?

The Live Adventurously Manifesto can transform your entire world - your personal life, family life, community life and work life. It’s a game changer that can show you the path


45’ whale shark (Rhincodon typus), Darwin Island, Galapagos. Photo: Sharkman

4




to ditch the daily grind for daily fun, fulfillment and happiness. But before we go on, an important distinction:

Adventure isn’t a singular event or activity, it’s not only BASE jumping off a bridge or mountain biking on the weekend - Adventure is the way you live your entire life and is defined by a set of principles. These principles apply to your personal life, family life, work life and community life. They apply to individuals, organizations and companies.

The Gift of Adventure is a life that is exciting, fulfilling and purpose driven. It is a life well lived doing what you love. We teach and live that lifestyle with a community of thousands of fellow adventurers who are living it too. Why?

“Because we never met anyone that wanted a duller life.”

Why It’s Never Too Late to Join a Great Party & A Brief Hello

Our Location Today:710 Nautical Miles From LandN24 15.48: W52 26.68

In case we haven’t met yet, we’re Ridlon & Carin Kiphart, often called Sharkman & Mantagirl or simply, The Adventure Couple. We’re explorers, world travelers, authors, film makers, serial adventurers and natives of Texas and Michigan respectively - although now we call the world home. While we both grew up in suburbia, we knew that a routine life wasn’t for us so we formed a plan to live an exciting, fulfilling and purpose driven life outside of cubicle nation and white picket fences. Our plan revolved around


The Blue Lagoon, Rangiroa Atoll, French Polynesia. Photo: Tahiti Tourisme

5





Greenland in all its whiteness. Photo: Stig Nygaard.

6

adventure travel jobs and entrepreneurial pursuits, creative financial strategies, emphasizing doing over having and traveling around the world.

It’s a normal week for us which means we could be in Indonesia, Italy, Montana, Micronesia or any place on the planet. Today as we write this, we are sailing across the Atlantic Ocean. Like most days, we’re stoked because we are doing something fun and exciting. We’ve figured out a way to fund a lifestyle we love and constructed our finances so we don’t stress about money.

For us, it’s about having a life well lived and making it count. And our goal in this manifesto and at TheAdventureCouple.com is to share with you how we’ve created the life we have. You can learn the principles and strategies we have used to:

• Travel to over 100 countries and all seven continents.• Live in Tahiti for two years, SCUBA diving with dozens of sharks almost every day.• Climb in the Himalayas and summit the 6th highest mountain in the world.• Photograph icebergs and penguins in Antarctica.• Enjoy dinner on our private balcony at the Monte Carlo Grand looking over the

Mediterranean Sea.• Swim eye to eye with a humpback whale and her calf.• Play a pick up basketball game with villagers on a remote island off Borneo.• Watch Andrea Bocelli perform at an historic renaissance palazzo in Italy.• Explore remote Raja Ampat, Indonesia by private yacht.• Stay in a seven room, high-rise penthouse suite that the Rolling Stones use.• Cross the Atlantic Ocean, five times.• Ride on the shoulders of tribesmen at a village sing-sing in Papua New Guinea.• Live all over Europe.• Watch Jimmy Buffet play in a one room beach shack in the French West Indies.• Dive to over 1000’ in a scientific submarine off Costa Rica.• Spend a month hanging out in Australia meeting really cool people at beaches all over

the country.


http://www.theadventurecouple.com




And we’ve managed to do all of these things even though neither of us came from wealthy homes or had a trust fund.

Why Do We Need Adventure?

Adventure in its many forms seems to universally attract us. It’s in our DNA. Adventure is an insatiable thirst for experiencing the world and it can be used to create an exciting, fulfilling and purpose driven life.

Adventure is a way of thinking, a way of being, a way of doing that ultimately manifests itself as a way of living.

Adventure thrills us, enlightens us, strengthens and stretches us, inspires us and answers our curiosity. It freaks us out sometimes but it’s always fun and never boring. It’s the most awake and aware life that we can lead. It’s where we can expand the limit of our abilities and live life to its fullest. It’s where we make our biggest breakthroughs. It’s where we can find what matters most and make a difference. Adventure makes us feel alive.

If you choose to Live Adventurously, it flows into your personal life, your family life, your married life, your community life and into your job or business. It will transform your whole world.

The Delayed Life Plan Has Been Lying to You

From a young age, we learn that the way to “do life” is to work our asses off at a semi-passionless job doing the 40/40 (40 hours a week for 40 years) and then retire to the Golden Years and do what we really wanted to do for the past half century. In the

LIVE A d v e n t u r o u s l y 7


Unnamed island, New Britain, Papua New Guinea. Photo: Sharkman



meantime, we actually work 50 or more hours a week and get 2 to 4 weeks of vacation a year where we futilely attempt to revive ourselves. We’re supposed to max out our 401k and pray that social security and the fairy god mother are still going to be there when we need them. We have little time to spend with the people we care about and even less time for ourselves. Our relationships suffer and, judging by most of society, our health does too. We spend Saturday running errands and playing catch up from the week and if we are lucky, get to sleep in on Sunday and catch a football game. Then, it’s time to rinse and repeat,

For the next four to five decades.

Sound familiar? We call it the Delayed Life Plan and it’s soulless lie of epic proportions because:

1. People find that once they get to the Golden Years, they no longer have the health or physical ability to do the things they’ve been waiting 40+ years to do.

2. People find that the average savings from the average job isn’t giving them the financial base they need to live the life they want if they actually live long enough to enjoy it.

3. Job stability is an illusion. The days of working for one company for 40 years and expecting them to take care of you in your retirement are gone. Companies have realized that the economics of lifetime pensions don’t work and are finding ways to reduce or eliminate them.

4. And last but not least, why would you spend over half of your life living a gray, semi-passionless existence grinding out someone else’s dream?

In 1988, we met on a white sandy beach on the picturesque Caribbean island of Providenciales while working at Club Med. Soon after, we spent a year on a cruise ship


Coral reef, Peleliu Wall, Palau, Republic of Belau: Photo: Sharkman

8




traveling around the islands as scuba diving and windsurfing instructors. It was an awesome time as you can imagine.

But, instead of staying in paradise, we went back to the “real” world and back to college and then launched ourselves into cubicle nation. We moved to Santa Barbara, CA, rented a nice house and proceeded to have a nice suburban life – or so we thought. But after a year, we began to struggle with the idea of “should” versus “want”. We wanted to go back to the islands; in our souls we knew the Delayed Life Plan was deeply flawed and not our style. We were kicking butt in our careers but we both felt a huge void in our lives. We were missing excitement, true fulfillment and ultimately purpose. We were missing adventure.

Is Your Life Stuck On the Couch? Take the Quiz and Find Out.

Life isn’t a practice game.- - Jim Stovall, author of The Ultimate Gift

Most people don’t even know their life is stuck on the couch because they don’t recognize the Delayed Life Plan and have never tasted how to Live Adventurously. How can you find out if your life is on the couch? You can start by taking the Is My Life On the Couch Quiz. Answer each question as you go along.

• Do you live for the weekends? Is TGIF your mantra? Y / N

• Is it rough coming back from vacations? Y / N

• Do your days all feel different or do they just blur together? Y / N


Glaciers in the Himalayas. Photo: Keelan Jones

9




• Would you do your job without pay? Y / N

• Do you wake up before your alarm every morning? Y / N

• Do the things you love take a back seat to the everyday gravel of life? Y / N

• Do you travel as much as you want to? Y / N

• If you won the lottery, would you dramatically change the way you live? Y / N

• Do you feel like what you do on a daily basis makes a difference? Y / N

So .... Is it time to ditch the Delayed Life Plan? YES.

Is Your Life a Reversion to the Mediocre?

Most people would rather be certain they're miserable, than risk being happy. - - Dr. Robert Anthony, best selling author

So why aren’t all of us already living a more adventurous life if it is so awesome? Why hasn’t everybody already ditched the Delayed Life Plan? Because the Delayed Life Plan is a powerful lodestone that constantly pulls us in its direction and it is where most people live either consciously or unconsciously. People live there because it is comfortable. It is what we see our friends and family doing so we are convinced that it must be the best thing because so many people live that way. We don’t question it. We let other people or society as a whole define what a successful life means. The problem is that society doesn’t know what success looks like to you. It wants you to be mediocre and live a standard life just like everybody else.


Las Vegas, Nevada. Photo: Ethan Hein

10




A few years ago, we were driving around a major U.S. city with friends and marveling at what looked like successful affluence - large McMansions everywhere and streets packed with luxury automobiles. My friends laughed aloud, explaining that what we were witnessing was borrowed credit leveraged to the hilt. From the outside, the Delayed Life Plan puts on a good show. What we realized was that embellishing an average life via going into debt didn’t make it any more extraordinary.

It’s Time to Unshackle Your Life and get it off the couch

Man is born free and everywhere he is in shackles.- - Jean Jacques Rousseau, 18th century French political philosopher

If an adventurous life is so awesome, what holds everybody back back from having one?The answer is in this one phrase: “Well, I would but ...”

We all tend to live within self imposed confines because we think that many things in our life are unchangeable when in fact everything is. We create and maintain our own shackles and especially when we’ve put a lot of time and effort into making them, think they can not be changed or broken. Whenever you say, “I would but ... ,” you are running smack into one of your shackles.

Once you learn how to unshackle your life, you can define it to be whatever you want. That manifest truth alone makes this manifesto priceless and is probably scary as hell, wildly exciting or a little of both.What are the things that can shackle you and keep you firmly planted on the couch of life? Fear, Finances and Responsibilities.


Fakarava Atoll, French Polynesia. Photo: Sharkman

11




Fear is the mind killer.~ Frank Herbert, from Dune

Fear: The thing that holds us back in life more than anything else is the discomfort of change. Plain and simple. Uncertainty masquerades as fear and as it turns out, we are hard wired at a primal level to dislike uncertainty. That is why people settle for a lesser life - because even though it isn’t the life they truly want, it is more comfortable to keep that lesser life than to experience the fear and discomfort of change to get something bigger and better. So what can you do to break the shackle of fear? Find people that have done what you want to do and mentor with them. Create a mastermind and surround yourself with people that want what you want and will support you in getting there. A roadmap goes a long way to reducing uncertainty. It’s why we wrote this Manifesto.

Money: Money gives us more choices and more choices give us more freedom. Money isn’t good or evil, it’s just an instrument. Be responsible for your own finances and the choices and freedom they support. Debt is a shackle to your freedom. Pay off debt or better yet, choose not to have it in the first place. Want to know if you are really putting your financial resources where you say you want them? Create a free account at Mint and track every dime you spend for the next 90 days. Find out how much money you spend on having versus doing. Understand that embellishing an average life by buying stuff won’t get you an extraordinary life.

Responsibilities: You may think that you are shackled by your responsibilities but you aren’t. We don’t advocate ditching your responsibilities - just the opposite in fact. Living up to our responsibilities is what integrity is all about. What you may have never considered is that responsibilities are portable. It’s not necessary to dump or change responsibilities, just the way you do them. Have a job you can’t or don’t want to walk away from? How about doing it remotely? Have a mortgage? How about


Akimiski Island, Canada. Photo: Ethan Hein

12




subletting your house for more than what it would cost you to live overseas? Have children? How about home schooling them as you sail around the world for the next year. It would be the best year you ever spent together. You can define you life to be whatever you want.

And now, Two Dishonorable Mentions

Stuff: You have an obligation to everything you own. Buy a new boat and you have to use the boat, store the boat, clean the boat and repair the boat. All of this uses your valuable resources of focus, time and finances. It fills your life with gravel. If boating truly is your main passion, that’s awesome. Go for it. But what we tend to do is stuff our life full of things that are really just diversions are burdens and consume our valuable resources. Hello Ebay and Craigslist! If you don’t already have an account, it takes less than five minutes to one set up. Sell your stuff, free up your resources and use the proceeds to Live Adventurously. Instead of paying for winter storage, how about taking a trip to some place amazing and renting a boat?

Schedule: You’ve agreed to the maxed out, multi-tasking, over committed schedule you probably already have. You didn’t just let it happen, you made it happen. It also means, with a little effort, you can make it unhappen. If you want to change your life, you are going to have to change your schedule. Ditch what isn’t important to make room for that adventurous life you want. Start by scheduling the big important things first - what we call the big rocks. What we used to do was let gravel fill up our life and then there was no room left for the big rocks to fit any more. Put the big rocks in your life first and let the gravel fill in the leftover space around them. If you don’t place your big rocks first, there will never be room for them and you will spend your days with nothing but gravel.

Once you unshackle your life, its time to take a look at ....


Multiple composite nighttime images of North & Central America. Photo: NASA/GSFC

13




Options to Get A Life Full of Adventure Including Winning the Lottery

Most people have dreamed at one time or another about winning the lottery - especially when those Powerball lottos get up to some astronomically huge number. Most people who play the lottery want to win so they don’t have to do what they are currently doing anymore. They want to win the lottery so that they can have a different life.

It’s a fun fantasy but ultimately nothing to strive for. Not because the odds of winning the lottery are one in a gazillion but because even if you win the lottery, it’s not going to change your life. At least, not the way you think it will.

Money is not inherently good or evil and has no will of its own. It’s just a tool. More money doesn’t change you - it just makes you more of what you already are. So if you were lame managing your finances when you were earning $1000 a month, you won’t be any better with $10 million. There are numerous cases of multimillion dollar lottery winners that are broke. Or crazier yet, how about winning the lottery twice and still going broke.

If you are generous and giving, you do it regardless of your tax bracket. If not, once you have millions, you will find uses other than charity. If you are focused on having things then you will buy more things. If you are building an empire, your empire will be grander. If are living adventurously, you will even more. And if you love to live in shorts and flip flops, you still will.

So what’s the point? Stop worrying about winning the lottery and get on with building the life that you want. The great industrialist Henry Ford was once told by a skeptical reporter that Ford wouldn’t be anything without his millions. Ford replied by saying if he lost everything tomorrow, he’d have it all back within three years. It wasn’t the money that made Henry Ford great. It was his greatness that created his wealth.


Mt. Ruapehu in New Zealand. Photo: NASA/Goddard

14





New Caledonia. Photo: NASA/Goddard

15

And if you won the lottery, would you dramatically change the way you live? We’ve always thought this was a real litmus test. Of course it would be awesome to win the lottery! But if we won, we would use it to magnify what we are already doing and the difference we are already making; not to do a full scale facelift on our life.

So instead of relying on winning the lottery, how about unshackling your life and learning to live adventurously. Become the person you want to be and live the life you want today. Then, when the money comes, you’ll be more of what you wanted to be all along.

Live Adventurously’s Many Faces

Want to know what life can look like when you Live Adventurously? There are more flavors than Baskin Robbins. Here are some of its many faces.

Dan Mazur is one of the world’s preeminent high altitude mountaineers and runs non profit work projects in remote villages in Nepal that are in desperate need of basic infrastructure. You’d probably never recognize Dan in passing because he’s also one of the most laid back, humblest guys you’ll ever meet. Also amazing is his unrelenting passion for showing other people the wonders of the mountains which he does through his companies Summit Climb and Summit Trek. He’s made it his life’s work. The guy that dramatically and selflessly saved another climber’s life a few years ago high up on Mt. Everest? That was Dan.

Larry Poland, aka Hollywood was an amazing friend who is now gone. He was an executive officer for two Fortune 500 companies and made a change to become a SCUBA diving instructor in the Caribbean, sip margaritas, listen to Buffet (that’s Jimmy not Warren) and wear flip flops. He ditched a big salary, twice, but still figured out a way to have it all and live the life he really wanted. Complications after a


http://www.summitclimb.com

http://www.summitclimb.com

http://www.summittrek.com

http://www.summittrek.com




Multiple composite nighttime images of Europe and North Africa. Photo: NASA/GSFC

16

routine surgery ended his life very early. I know he Lived Adventurously and left the building with no regrets. Here’s to you Hollywood.

Jane Goodall and I became pen pals after she scolded me for having a side conversation during a lecture she was giving at the Explorers Club. She’s a world famous scientist and explorer and one of the most courageous people I know. She has always marched to the beat of her own drummer: Imagine a single, young woman from England in 1960 going to a remote jungle in Africa to study chimpanzees by herself. Oh, and she didn’t have a college degree. How incredible is that? First, she changed the scientific community by doing science in a way that everyone told her she shouldn’t. And now she’s on the road over 250 days a year working to save the world through her non-profit Jane Goodall Foundation and Roots and Shoots. She’s made a life doing something she passionately loves and giving back so much.

Chris Guillebeau is a full time writer, entrepreneurial guru and world traveler on a personal crusade to promote non-conformity and travel to every country on the planet by the time he is 35. He is a master of travel hacking and the embodiment of defining your personal version of success and living it out. You can find him at The Art of Non Conformity.

Steve Walter is my brother in law and I’m sure he will be very surprised to find he’s in the manifesto. Steve may seem like an unusual entry here because he is an executive officer for a Fortune 250 company and corporate to the bone. He’s a corporate officer and as pinstriped and buttoned down as they come but a shining example that often it’s not what, but how. Steve moved his family to Beijing where he lives on the 38th floor in the heart of the city and both loves his job and is damn good at it. What’s more, he loves his adventurous life. He loves not being able to read all the street signs, eating things when he doesn’t know what food group they belong to and navigating the intricacies of business in a culture that is very different from his. He gets stoked every day - in his pinstriped suit.


http://www.janegoodall.org/

http://www.janegoodall.org/

http://www.rootsandshoots.org

http://www.rootsandshoots.org

http://chrisguillebeau.com/3x5/







Cable Beach, Broome, Australia. Photo: Yaruman5

17

Alice Gugelev and Jay Shapiro and their two daughters and three cats live in their truck but they aren’t homeless - they travel for a living. They run their non-profit foundation from the road and overland all over the world - which means they literally take their house with them where ever they go. In their Eco Roamer, they drove off into the sunset and circumnavigated South America on their way up to Alaska. Since taking up their nomadic lifestyle, they have traveled hundreds of thousands of miles. Prior to being overlanders, their Live Adventurously flavor was living in Singapore where Alice worked in international finance for commercial banks, consulting companies and the World Bank and Jay was an international man of mystery who pioneered an internet marketing startup. They are shining examples that you can Live Adventurously with your family and do it anywhere in the world. You can find them at the Muskoka Foundation.

Tim Ferriss is a great mentor of mine whom I’ve yet to meet. He is the best selling author of the Four Hour Work Week and the Four Hour Body. Through innovative business practices and amazingly masterful marketing, Tim has figured out how to become one of the most successful authors in the world and now teaches others how to do the same. He came into all of that by showing people how he has escaped the nine-to-five, lives all over the world and in the process, joined the new rich. That’s his flavor of Live Adventurously and he calls the world home. Plus, he likes red wine too. Cool guy.

What If I Am a 20, 30, 40 or 50 something? Single or Married with Children?

You can Live Adventurously regardless of age, marital status or family situation - everyone is eligible because Live Adventurously does not discriminate. It may look different for a single 20 year old with no children than a 50 something with a family of four and corporate career but there is a flavor of Live Adventurously that works for you.


http://www.themuskokafoundation.org/

http://www.themuskokafoundation.org/

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog




Nazca Lines, Peru. Photo: NASA/Goddard

18

Do All Jobs Suck and How to Get Millions of People to Crash a Website

There are a lot of jobs that just plain suck but not all of them: Recently the Queensland, Australia Department of Tourism ran a contest to fill what they called the world’s dream job. It involved living on amazing islands off the Great Barrier Reef with white sand beaches and eighty degree, turquoise water and being an ambassador for Queensland tourism working as a kind of professional beach bum. It was a wildly successful PR campaign for the Queensland Department of Tourism and the website advertising the job crashed under an avalanche of millions of hits.

That made us realize that it’s not having a job per se that sucks, just the job that a lot of people have chosen. So why then are so many people unhappy or just plain uninspired with what they are doing? Often, it’s because they have the wrong job. It’s when they have chosen to do something that they’re not passionate about or they’re not using their talents, or they feel under utilized, underpaid or they do a job they hate for the money … you know the story. You may be living it. If you want to change TGIF for TGIT (Thank God It’s Today) then ditch the Delayed Life Plan, cast off your shackles and go travel the world. An Adventure Travel Job may be just what you need. Look at the examples above! All these people are doing creative, fun and very different things yet they have all chosen in their unique way to Live Adventurously.

How the Adventure Couple Did It: A Blueprint For the Adventure Life, Sharkman & Mantagirl Style

We are always asked how we’ve created the life we have so here is the Reader’s Digest version. As mentioned earlier, both of us had the travel bug from a young age but had to


http://www.live-adventurously.com/top-reasons-why-you-need-an-adventure-travel-job





Khartoum, Sudan. Photo: Ethan Hein

19

find a creative way to finance it. We both found that a great option for extended and immersive travel was to get a job that would pay us to travel and adventure around the world. Our initial choices were to work in the sports end of the travel industry and we used existing skill sets - sailing experience and SCUBA diving experience - to land adventure travel jobs at a resort. It was at that first resort where we met and we haven’t been apart since. We guess you could call it adventure at first sight and The Adventure Couple was born. And we were totally hooked.

Other than one short deviation back to the Delayed Life Plan, we’ve spent two decades scoring some of the coolest jobs in the travel industry as SCUBA instructors, sailing instructors, cruise directors, tour directors, itinerary developers and expedition leaders. There are years where we traveled over 300 days - Sharkman was named an American Airlines Ultimate Road Warrior and we were both inducted into the prestigious Explorers Club. We’ve been to over 100 countries and lived and worked in many of them. In the past couple of years, our entrepreneurial flame has fired up and we lead SCUBA diving adventures to exotic destinations all over the world, run a 501(3)c non-profit for ocean conservation and created The Adventure Couple to show others how to live an exciting, fulfilling and purpose driven life through adventure.

Since we began to travel two decades ago, we’ve consciously kept our overhead low and the vast majority of our disposable income goes into investments. This is easy because our job essentially covers most of your lifestyle including most of our travel. For years, we didn’t have a house or car and now that we have a log home in the mountains, we rent it out to cover the mortgage when we are traveling. Our one 4x4 truck is paid off. A lot of our travel is “free” because we’ve made it our job and as expert travel hackers, we pay less for the travel we do buy. We find that we miss very little of the stuff we “left behind” and place a strong emphasis on doing rather than having. By no means are we saying to slum it. We manage to do all this and live well. We call it living above your means - which is markedly different from living beyond your means.


http://www.americanwaymag.com/mark-satinsky-american-airlines-admirals-club-junk-food-vice




http://www.explorers.org






http://www.vrbo.com/303927

http://www.vrbo.com/303927

http://www.live-adventurously.com/live-above-your-means-real-life-strategies-for-living-the-good-life-and-traveling-the-world-without-a-dollar-of-debt/






Why Travel is Like Breathing Air and the Monday Morning Question

Travel is about getting unstranded, about going to the ends of the earth and edges of experience in order to see oneself for the first time.

- Michael Crichton, best selling author, producer and director

Here’s what we call the Monday Morning Question:

Monday morning comes and you have a year off work with pay so time and money aren’t issues. Starting Monday morning, how do you spend your year?

Take a minute and answer the question before moving on. Really, write down whatever comes to mind. This will be fun.

GO TO THE NEXT PAGE ONLY AFTER YOU’VE MADE YOUR LIST ...


A front off the Eastern United States. Photo: NASA/Goddard

20





Rock Islands, Palau, Republic of Belau. Photo: Mark Kenworthy

21

The vast majority of the people who answer the Monday Morning Question list travel as one of the most important things they would spend their time doing. That’s why traveling is a cornerstone of the Live Adventurously movement and why one of our main goals is to help you travel more. Travel is something that almost everyone says they would like to do more of but ironically, not how most people allocate resources. Buying stuff - new car, new boat, new clothes - is rarely the answer to the Monday Morning Question but how many people use their resources.

So what is it about sitting on the Grand Canal in Venice with a glass of wine at sunset, scuba diving in crystal blue water off the Great Barrier Reef, seeing lions stalking antelope on the African plains, wandering through the chaotic market stalls in Kathmandu or trekking through the pristine Andes? It’s because we want to experience new and exciting things, people and places. It’s the explorer in all of us. We want to know what it feels like to sleep in the ice hotel and see the Sistine Chapel with our own eyes; Experience the warmth of an African sunrise on our face and taste a home cooked meal in Italy. We want to sing with village children, feel the bustle of a busy street in Hong Kong, experience the serenity of a Buddhist shrine and feel the beat as we party all night at Carnival in Rio. We want to make our life count.

What are the experiences that you want to have? Where are the places you want to go? What are the things that you want to see? Who are the people that you want to meet?

Fortunately, there are a lot of ways you can go on extended or immersive travels because taking only two weeks of vacation a year is absolutely crazy. Two weeks isn’t even enough to de-stress and catch a tan much less anything else. Extended or immersive travel means you really have some time to breathe deeply and take it all in. The problem is that the Delayed Life Plan is a miserly taskmaster when it comes to vacation and therefore travel. So you’ll have to learn ways to deal with this. Fortunately, it isn’t hard.





Greenland fjord. Photo: NASA

22

One of the core tenets of Live Adventurously is that you don’t have to be wealthy to travel extensively. Having an Adventure Travel Job is an ideal way to Live Adventurously and for years that’s how we lived overseas and traveled extensively. Living and/or working someplace offers full immersion which is so much more interesting, fun and satisfying than doing the package tour, buying the t-shirt and then hopping the next jet out of town. In addition to an adventure travel job, here are some other strategies you can use to experience immersive and extended travel. Not all these modes of travel are for everyone but it demonstrates how many options are available to you.

• Volunteer projects: volunteerism is a great way to see and meet people all over the world while giving back. Volunteer projects may last a couple of months or a couple of years. Many (especially shorter ones) are unpaid but cover room and board. Some cover your airfare, some don’t. The mack daddy is still the Peace Corps but there are a ton of other opportunities. Beware of travel agencies and travel companies that package regular vacations under the guise of genuine volunteerism.

• Home swapping has exploded ever since the hit move The Holiday. This is a great way to experience extended, immersive travel with little or no additional expense. And you don’t have to live in a resort area or own a mansion for this to work for you. People are looking for house swaps for all kinds of reasons. Check out www.homeexchange.com.

• Home renting: if you are going to stay somewhere for a while, it is far cheaper to rent a residence than stay in a hotel or resort. Or better yet, produce income for yourself by renting your house and take off! The top home rental site worldwide is www.vrbo.com.

• Couch surfing: a fun way to meet local people on the cheap. www.couchsurfing.com • Backpacking: a classic, but still a great way to extend your travel by simply doing it less

expensively.




http://www.peacecorps.gov/

http://www.peacecorps.gov/

http://www.homeexchange.com

http://www.homeexchange.com

http://www.vrbo.com

http://www.vrbo.com

http://www.couchsurfing.com

http://www.couchsurfing.com



• Travel hacking: is using credit cards and other promotional offers to accrue frequent flier miles or hotel points which can be redeemed for air travel or hotel stays. Make sure and follow us on twitter where we post deals we find.

• Geofreedom: What if you could live on the beach AND get a 25% pay raise tomorrow - would that get your attention? You can almost certainly achieve this by choosing to live in a different place or country where the cost of living is less. Extended travel can be accomplished in this way by earning in dollars or euros and living in pesos or ringgits. We call this Geofreedom and this is how we use it: We can rent a place on the beach in Bali, Indonesia for less than what we earn renting our house in Montana. So we get to live on the beach and make money on the deal. Food, drinks, everything is significantly less expensive in many places overseas. This principle holds true across states in the U.S. as well. Want to know how much? Check out this cool calculator that shows the difference in cost of living in major U.S. cities. That’s why we bought a log home with 23 acres south of Missoula, Montana instead of Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

One Year Around the World on No Money Down - Showing You How to Break Your Money Shackles

We’ve wanted to do a non-stop, around the world trip for a long time. It’s part of our greatness puzzle. But we also wanted to use the trip as a case study so you can see how to shatter your money shackle once and for all. So we’ve come up with a brilliant plan: We will use all kinds of creative strategies to travel the world for an entire year and come home at the end with as much money as when we left.


Sea fan, E6 Reef, Bligh Waters, Fiji. Photo: Sharkman

23




So where are we going? The short list includes Nepal, India, Cuba, Micronesia, Indonesia, The Cook Islands, South Africa, Tasmania, Patagonia, Kamchatka Peninsula, Australia and Madagascar. There’s bound to be mishap and mayhem, perfect days and epic happenings. In other words, it’s going to be a heck of an adventure! Make sure and subscribe for our free updates to follow the fun and learn how to break your money shackle.

Are We Insane, Brilliant or Just a Little Crazy?

For the better part of a decade, not a year went by when we didn’t seriously sit down at some point and wonder what the hell we were doing and if we were crazy to live the way we do. All this despite the fact that people were consistently telling us how cool our life was! We were in our early thirties and didn’t own a house or car and all our things were in a storage unit whose organization made us Container Store poster children. But we had traveled to over 100 countries, had logged thousands of scuba dives all over the world and spent summers guiding and climbing in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. Nevertheless, at times, we didn’t think we were doing the “right” thing. Can you believe it?

Turns out that the Delayed Life Plan is strongly attractive because of the illusion it gives of being safe, comfortable and “normal” - whatever that means.

Before we ventured online, we didn’t know there was a worldwide community of people who - like us - were living adventurously. When we started looking around, we were totally stunned at what we found. One of the internet’s greatest gifts is that via the sharing of ideas it can bring geographically scattered people together around a common cause or movement. People have started real guns and bullets rebellions on Facebook. So if you want to Live Adventurously it isn’t hard to find others to connect with who share the same values and outlook on life as you. We’re out there; you just need to start


Wadi Rum. Photo: NASA Earth Observatory

24





Tassili n’Ajjer National Park, Algeria, Norht Africa. Photo: NASA/Michael Taylor, Landsat Science Project Office.

25

looking. At www.TheAdventureCouple.com, we have have created that community of people. So no, we’re not crazy - at least not totally. In fact, there are thousands who share the same values as you and we do. You just haven’t met them yet.

Robbers Are on the Road Ahead But so Are Fun New Friends

Once you decide not to be mediocre, you will be hearing from dream stealers, naysayers and critics. We share this so you know it’s going to happen and will be prepared. You’ll easily recognize dream stealers, naysayers and critics because this is what you will hear them say:

• Don’t expect too much and you won’t be disappointed.• You’ll eventually have to pay the piper.• Don’t aim so high.• What will people think?• What makes you think you could do something like that?

and the biggie ...• Be more realistic.

When we hear “be more realistic” we just want to smack somebody. Don’t let the dreamstealers dumb you down - NEVER, EVER SETTLE.

Many of the dreamstealers and naysayers don’t intentionally mean you ill and some of them will be your closest family and friends. Some genuinely think they are protecting you from making a “big mistake.” It can be hard for people stuck in the Delayed Life Plan to imagine life outside of it.


http://www.Live-Adventurously.com

http://www.Live-Adventurously.com




Sunset on an unknown beach. Photo: Matthew Sullivan

26

Critics are a different story. They tend to be people who have nothing going in their own life and they build themselves up by knocking everything else down. You can easily spot a critic because they don’t actually create anything.

For the last decade, critics have been asking us when we are going to get a real job. Or they ask us when we are going to come back to the real world - meaning rejoin the Delayed Life Plan and be as miserable as they are. Our simple answer is: “We love our life and this is our real world. Thanks but we wouldn’t have it any other way.”

You may find that over time some of your friends and the people you spend time with begin to shift, and that’s OK. Meeting cool new people is one of the greatest gifts when you Live Adventurously. It is natural over time that people pursue different paths and are attracted to others who share common interests. When you choose to Live Adventurously, you will want to meet others who are doing the same. As we already outlined, with today’s worldwide online communities and through social media, this is easier than ever. Want to find a local group of people that love to get together and do whatever it is you love to do? Checkout www.meetup.com and search for local groups under your personal interests. In the unlikely event you can’t find one, start your own! The internet also makes it easy to stay in touch with someone you met in India or Indonesia once you return home to Idaho or Indiana. With Skype, you can talk to the world for free with just a headset and your computer. If you don’t have an account, you can sign up for free here. Sound cool and exciting? It is.

How Can You Join the movement and Get Started Living Adventurously?

We are building a world wide tribe of people who want to Live Adventurously. Sound fun and interesting? Want to be part of the movement? Want to meet others who are living adventurously? Here’s how to get started:


http://www.meetup.com

http://www.meetup.com

http://www.skype.com

http://www.skype.com



•Ditch the Delayed Life Plan•Cast off your shackles.•Travel and experience the world.•Connect with your purpose and let your passion shine.

You will want to sign up for our free updates here.

And read the 8 Principles to Live Adventurously: A Very Unusual How to Guide

When you are living an exciting, fulfilling and purpose driven life, your energy spills off onto others. It’s infectious. You’re beaming, energetic, unstoppable, contagious, focused, passionate & brilliant. Isn’t that how you want to live everyday?

There are a lot of different faces to Live Adventurously and you can Live Adventurously whether you wear a wetsuit, wingsuit, business suit or shorts and flip flops.

You don’t have to have a lot of money to begin to Live Adventurously and you don’t have to have ANY experience.

Remember, everybody else started out where you are right now. Just follow “How to Get Started” above and reference the different sections of this manifesto and get moving. Action is the key so start now.



Earth. Taken from Apollo 17. Photo: NASA




Shishapangma, the 14th highest mountain in the world taken from the summit of Cho Oyu, the 6th highest in the world. The Himalayas, Tibet. Photo: Sharkman

28

Want to Meet Other People Who Are Living Adventurously and Stay Connected? Awesome. Here are the three things you need to do:

1. If you found this manifesto helpful, PLEASE SHARE IT NOW via email, Facebook, twitter, Stumbleupon, morse code, smoke signals or whatever way works for you. Sharing = Good Karma. Plus, it’s fun to do.

2. Sign up to receive our free updates via email. You can learn how to Live Adventurously and connect with thousands of people that are doing the same. DON’T MISS OUT!

3. Be adventurous and share your constructive comments on this manifesto. You can share them at: www.live-adventurously.com/manifesto. We and the rest of the Live Adventurously community would love to hear from you.

Want more? Yeah, we thought you might. Don’t miss,

The 8 Principles to Live Adventurously, A Very Unusual How To Guide

Plan on rereading this manifesto. Click on the hyperlinks for additional reading, media and resources. As your life evolves and you find yourself in a new place - literally or figuratively, this manifesto will be able to provide you with new insights. Enjoy!


http://www.facebook.com/liveadventurously

http://www.facebook.com/liveadventurously

http://www.twitter.com/liveadventurous

http://www.twitter.com/liveadventurous

http://www.stumbleupon.com

http://www.stumbleupon.com

http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=TheAdventureCouple&loc=en_US


http://www.live-adventurously.com/live-adventurously-manifesto/

http://www.live-adventurously.com/live-adventurously-manifesto/

http://www.live-adventurously.com/8-principles-to-live-adventurously/







The Adventure Couple, taken by an unsuspecting victim.

29

Land Ho and Thanks for Sailing with Us!

Our Location Today:285 Nautical Miles to Lisbon, PortugalN37 32.78: W17 13.30

Our Atlantic crossing is almost done so it’s time to wrap things up. We hope that you found something in The Live Adventurously Manifesto that speaks to you and hope you are already taking action. Remember, reading the manifesto without action doesn’t make it any better than a good book. Reading combined with action will create magic.

We hope to see you out there living adventurously whatever your flavor is and rocking the world in your own unique way. Make sure and join our tribe and thanks for sailing with us!

If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.- - Bruce Lee, martial arts legend

Stay in Touch,Sharkman & MantagirlThe Adventure Couplewww.TheAdventureCouple.com








Layout and TextSharkman & Mantagirl, The Adventure Couple, using Mac Pages

Photo CreditsThanks to everyone on Flickr who under the Creative Commons License generously contributed their amazingly inspirational photos for this manifesto. This manifesto wouldn’t be nearly as cool without them. All images are protected under the Creative Commons License which among other things means you can’t steal them, claim them as your own or change them in any way.

A special thanks to NASA for sharing the world with the world.



Raja Ampat, Indonesia. Photo: Max Ammer.



The Live Adventurously Manifesto Final · A Manifesto The Adventure Couple | Coral Reef, Bligh...

Documents

Transcript of The Live Adventurously Manifesto Final · A Manifesto The Adventure Couple | Coral Reef, Bligh...