So After making some savings here and there, I decided to start putting away £20 a week as inspired by Adventure 1000
http://www.alastairhumphreys.com/adventure1000/
So I know I will have about a grand, will only be able to get a week off work. The other details I am working on at the moment. Would be interesting to hear if anyone else is doing the same and welcome suggestions.
Not doing it quite the same, but I have been following Alastair's microadventure's for the last year or so. He's really pushing simple adventures to people who would never have considered it before.
As for the 1000, I'm not saving it up the same way, but with similar aspirations.
Sorry but i've not heard or read about anything as daft in a long long time.
If i read it right you set up a new account with the bank that probably sponsors this person and then create a standing order to pay 20 per week into it?
Seems like a lot of headache just to save some money, why not just save 20 quid per month and leave it in your current acount
Oh how I delight in all manifestations of the grumpy scepticism. Reminds me of how people reacted to Nick Weston's Tree House diaries.
You will find that most people who try to keep their bank balance 20 quid higher at the end of the month than it was at the start fail. It also gets very little interest. Having a monthly standing order to an account that you don't usually do your monthly shopping out of greatly increases your chances of saving the money. If you really want to make sure you don't blow it by accident, you can even put the first 6 months worth into a 6 month bond, and it will be ready when you need it.
I personally think that Alastair's suggestions that by going without your morning starbucks is a very simple way of solving the age old excuse for not going on and adventure: "I've got no money". Bravo to him.
In the mean time I would also request that you actually read up a bit more on what the guy's been doing. Get his book out the library (see, that doesn't even get him any money). Then ask yourself, when was the last time you took someone on their first ever adventure? When did you last introduce someone to the hills for the first time? It's very easy for us to sit at our keyboards and knock those who are trying to do something.
Nah, no money is going to anyone but me, I have an old account which I stopped using and am putting the money in there. No sponsoring or money going to anyone else.
I find for budgeting it is better to have different accounts, rather than just one savings account.
Me too, I find it a lot easier to budget if the money isn't in my account. If you want an extra boost to your adventure fund, at the end of the week when you empty your pockets to put the clothes in the washing machine, put the coins you find in a mug/pot/tin on the shelf. You will find that despite never remembering putting anything bigger than a 20p piece in there, it magically contains 80 quid (about the usual capacity for a pint glass full of random change).
But, I digress. You want ideas of an adventure, that takes 7 days, and costs just 1000 pounds.
Assuming you decide to allocate the funds as ⅓rd transport ⅓rd equipment ⅓rd food and other costs. You could get to most of the UK in that region, get a pretty good light weight pack, and if you're fit, walk a good 150 miles in your week. Maybe Ullapool to Cape Wrath? Maybe walk the channel island way? Walk the West highland way? You could hire a canoe and island hop round the outer Hebrides, Row an open boat to ST Kilda, walk the Hadrian's wall coast to coast...
And that's just some ideas in the UK. You could take a train to Sweden and canoe down a river... walk for a week in the Andorran Pyrinees... climb the Matterhorn... swim the channel... cycle to Rome...
So many options. You almost get option paralysis just thinking about it.
Perhaps, to narrow down the option pool, some questions:
1) Preferred distance:
- Something in the UK
- Something in Europe
(in a week, getting anywhere else is going to be tight)
2) Preferred mode of locomotion:
- Walk
- Canoe
- Cycle
- Sail
3) Do you want to go solo, or invite a friend?
Answer those three questions and you're on the first step to planning your adventure.
Just don't forget your microadventure's while you are planning your big adventure.
Julia