Adventure is a State of Mind
A friend recently returned from Italy and told me how she and her sister had been on “a quest to find the best gelato.” Luckily, their quest involved visiting different gelaterias and sampling different types every day… sometimes multiple times a day!
I previously wrote about bucket lists, which are closely related to quests. What’s the difference between a quest and a bucket list? Let’s compare them and consider why a quest might add more to your travel adventures than a bucket list.
Quest vs Bucket List
Okay, to be honest, the first thought that comes to mind when I hear the word “quest” is the bridge scene from the classic movie, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. If you’re a nerd like me, you know the line – “WHAT is your name? WHAT is your quest? And WHAT is your favorite color?” You also probably know the difference between an African and a European swallow, but I digress…
Okay, for those of you who don’t nerd out on Monty Python, the Oxford English Dictionary defines a quest as “a search or pursuit in order to find something; the action of searching.” It defines a bucket list as “a list of things that a person hopes to experience or achieve during his or her lifetime.”
The primary difference is right there in the definition – a quest is an action and a bucket list is a thing. In other words, a quest has more life and energy in it.
Now, having said that, a bucket list can include quests, depending on what we’ve chosen to put on the list. And being involved in a quest can result in us checking several items off of our bucket lists.
Have I managed to confuse you so far? Maybe it will help if we talk about each separately. Since we’ve previously explored bucket lists and most of us are probably more familiar with that term, let’s start there.
The Benefits of a Bucket List
Many, if not most, people have a bucket list. It often includes travel, but it can also contain items related to education and career, health, relationships, and much more. Such lists give us some direction as to where we want to go (literally and figuratively) with the rest of our lives. And writing a bucket list increases the chance that we will actually achieve the goals we put on our lists.
The downside of a bucket list, however, is that it ultimately is just a checklist, much like a shopping list. And some individuals can get so caught up with checking items off their lists that that is all they focus on. They miss out on actually enjoying the experiences.
One way to avoid a checklist mentality is to ask yourself whether you would do the thing if you couldn’t tell anyone… and you couldn’t post a picture of it on any of your social media!
It’s an interesting thought experiment, isn’t it? There are probably things on each of our bucket lists that are there because of FOMO (fear of missing out) or some sort of competition with our friends and family. Those items would drop off of our lists if we knew that we would never be able to tell anyone else about them.
There are other things, though, that we want to do so badly that we don’t care whether anyone else ever knows when we achieve them. We want to do those things just because we’re curious. The thought of doing them lights us up inside. Those are the goals to keep on your list!
Benefits of a Quest
Quests, by definition, involve a journey and action. Much like a video game quest in which the player has a long-term goal but becomes involved in multiple adventures along the way, quests tend to be more involved and long-term.
Quests are often similar to Joseph Cambell’s “hero’s journey,” in which the hero leaves their home and familiar world, learns about themself and gains various skills, and then returns home as a transformed person. It’s the common narrative of most movies and novels. Quests involve learning through experiences with various obstacles and in relationship with others.
The Purpose of the Goal
Both bucket lists and quests have goals, but with a bucket list, checking something off the list is what the person seeks.
With a quest, there is also a goal, but the focus is on the journey to obtain the goal. Through the journey, the individual on the quest gains skills and learns about themselves and others. Even if they are unsuccessful in obtaining the goal of the quest, they have not failed because they have become a better person.
What I think is that a good life is one hero journey after another. Over and over again, you are called to the realm of adventure, you are called to new horizons. Each time, there is the same problem: do I dare? And then if you do dare, the dangers are there, and the help also, and the fulfillment or the fiasco. There’s always the possibility of a fiasco. But there’s also the possibility of bliss.
Joseph Campbell
Travel as a Quest
As mentioned earlier, focusing on checking items off of a list is not the best way to travel since it sometimes means missing out on the experience itself. A bucket list can include a list of quests, but if that is the case, it probably works best to pick a single quest when planning a travel adventure.
Travel adventures are the perfect settings for quests! Most of the time, they involve traveling to someplace unfamiliar. Traveling to an area with a different culture and customs is a guaranteed way to help us learn about ourselves and others. And, like it or not, they often include obstacles that help us to gain confidence and new skills.
How to Change a Bucket List Into a Travel Quest
Being brave and willing to try something new and unfamiliar is the first step in creating a quest. A bucket list can include sampling every item on the menu at your favorite restaurant, but most people wouldn’t call that a quest. Traveling to a new country and being open to trying new foods that you’ve never even seen before, however, could become a quest.
To create your travel quest, identify a goal and your motivation for trying to obtain that goal. What skills or knowledge do you hope to obtain in your journey toward that goal? How can you embrace the possible discomfort or obstacles you might face on the journey so as to grow as a person? Asking yourself these sorts of questions can help turn a bucket list item, such as “climb the Eiffel Tower,” into a quest that involves seeing the Eiffel Tour as part of a journey to learn more about French history and culture… and practice speaking a little French!
A benefit to travel as a quest rather than as a bucket list is it leaves you receptive to the entire experience. In the example above, if during your travels in France, you sprained your ankle (probably on a cobblestone!) before reaching Paris, it’s unlikely that you’d be able to take the stairs to the top of the Eiffel Tower. With a bucket list approach, not climbing the tower means no checkmark on your list. Viewed as a quest, however, you can find adventure in the entire experience… including the visit to a French emergency room!
Using Quests to Add Value to Your Travels
Occasionally frequent travelers complain that their travels are becoming boring. It’s definitely a first-world problem, but the complaint is something along the lines of, “If you’ve seen one castle, you’ve seen them all…”
Feeling increasingly “meh” about your trips doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t appreciate the travel opportunities in your life. The problem is that it is human nature to habituate to things we do over and over, even if we really enjoy those things.
If you’re not as excited about travel as you used to be, consider what used to excite you the most about your early trips. Most likely, it was seeing and doing things for the first time. Our brains love novelty!
If this is the case with you, consider trying something new and out of your comfort zone. If all of your foreign trips have been to Europe, consider visiting Asia or South America. If you’ve always traveled with a tour group, consider planning your own independent travel adventure.
Perhaps there are other reasons that your travels have felt stale recently. Did you used to participate in more physical activities, but due to age or health concerns, your recent trips have been more sedentary? Can you find a way to build some of those activities back into your schedule?
Because of age and health, the activities might look different than they used to, but it doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing choice. For example, maybe you used to enjoy hiking into the wilderness for weeks at a time, but you no longer have the stamina for that… or the desire to sleep on the ground. That doesn’t mean you can’t create a quest to increase your time in nature. Instead, maybe you can plan to hike for a few hours before heading back to the comfortable bed in your hotel.
Other Ways to Create Quests
Quests often involve personal growth, but they don’t have to. For example, your quest might be to research your family genealogy. Or perhaps you have a relative who was stationed in Europe during World War II, and you’re interested in retracing their military experiences.
Follow your curiosity. Yes, visiting the places where your great-grandparents were born can be a checklist activity. But if you are mindful of the moment and open to following your curiosity and learning whatever the experience presents to you, it becomes a true quest.
Using Themes to Inspire Quests
Maybe you can’t identify a quest for your next travel adventure, but you’d still like to add some extra value to your trip. If this is the case, consider creating a theme for your travels. Much like my friend seeking the best gelato in Italy, this can add value and fun to your adventures.
Sometimes the theme occurs naturally. Whether it’s finding the best gelato or the most beautiful waterfall, the places you are visiting seem to suggest a theme to you.
The time of year when you are visiting can also suggest a theme. If your visit occurs on or near a holiday, it may naturally impact your activities, such as visiting Christmas markets in Europe.
Or the seasons of the year can also become themes, whether it is visiting Japan during the cherry blossom season (Sakura) or viewing the Northern Lights during the long, dark, winter nights in Iceland or Alaska.
Sometimes the theme will present itself to you in some random way. When traveling in France with our friends, Shelley and Mike, Shelley and I began joking about how many statues of naked people we were seeing in the museums. We jokingly decided that we were on a tour of the “butt cracks of Paris,” which made us notice them even more. (And a few individuals with low-hanging trousers.) It was obviously a very silly quest, but it added a lot of laughter to our adventure.
Setting an Intention Word
As we discussed, quests often involve learning and personal growth. Using an intention word for your adventure can encourage this. Intention words are powerful because we all tend to see what we are looking for. For example, maybe you’re taking your first trip abroad. Setting an intention word like “courage” will help you to focus on this throughout the journey. You will be more likely to notice and remember when you are doing something brave. You may even seek out additional opportunities to practice your courage.
There is no right or wrong intention word. It can be a trait you want to cultivate in yourself, such as “curiosity” or “spontaneity.” Or it can be something you’re seeking to find more in the world, such as “beauty” or “kindness.”
A Quest is a Direction
Quests and bucket lists can both be useful tools, depending on the situation. Both can give some direction and purpose to our travels. Quests, however, may add the most value to our travel adventures. They not only give us direction, but by definition, they remind us that it is the journey itself that is important.
Consider creating a quest for your next travel adventure. Is there a natural theme or intention that you think of when planning your trip? If not, what do you want to see, experience, eat, share, do, try, accomplish, or gain? Can any of those goals become part of your quest?
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