Life of an Adventure Guide
May 5, 2015 7:15 AM   Subscribe

After reading these two articles from Outside Magazine (1, 2), I would like to read more blogs/essays about the day to day life of an Adventure/travel guide. Any recommendations?

Google has not turned up any results that fit what I am looking for. I prefer blogs that focus on interactions with clients, coworkers, etc, rather than a blog about general adventures.
posted by mtheshark to Travel & Transportation (2 answers total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
Not a blog, but Epic Quest, a show on Outside TV, covers the topic.
posted by craven_morhead at 7:28 AM on May 5, 2015


I work in the adventure travel field and have done a bit of guiding myself. I actually know one of the guys interviewed in the article as well as quite a few other people who do this for a living. I thought those articles were pretty realistic.

Why you don't find a lot of current, active guides writing blogs:

1) The company they work for may require guides to write up blogs that are posted on their company website. Those writings are considered company property. Go wander around trekking, mountaineering and rafting company websites in their blog sections and you will see this. The blog content is usually meant to a) inspire people to join future trips b) give a view of what you'll experience on the trip and c) help bring fresh content for SEO.

2) For privacy reasons, guides won't go into a whole lot of personal details into interactions with clients - it's fine to be vague like the article, but if you are a guide who gives out personal information, you've breached confidentiality rules of the company who hired you. God forbid you mention how stinky Joe was on your last rafting trip, and that Joe happens to come across your blog making fun of him - well, you've just lost your job. And don't even think about writing anything negative about your clients or your job on Facebook.

3) Time limitations. When you're working 18 days in a row and "on call" 24/7, it's hard to find time to write.

4) Wifi connection when you're in the middle of the Himalayan mountains or the African desert or Southeast Asian jungles? Yeah, no.

Maybe look for memoirs from guides that might give a little more insight? Probably the most famous is Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air.
posted by HeyAllie at 12:39 PM on May 5, 2015 [1 favorite]


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