What We Lose When We Stop Being Curious About Each Other’s Adventures

After Lisa’s Western Arthurs story sparked plenty of discussion online, she found herself reflecting on something bigger than one comment section. Are personal adventure stories increasingly being met with judgement rather than curiosity?

Against my better judgement I read the comments.

The story I’d written about my trip to the Western Arthurs in Tasmania left me feeling vulnerable. It’s a lot harder to write about the adventures that don’t go to plan than the good stuff. So after my piece was published on We Are Explorers, I found myself scrolling.

There was plenty of encouragement, curiosity, and shared experiences. But threaded through it was something else. A steady stream of confident opinions about what I should or shouldn’t have done. Decisions I’d made, supposed risks I’d taken, assumptions about my preparation, my experience, even my mindset.

It didn’t upset me (I have thick skin) and I love debates but I was intrigued. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen it play out, but it feels like it’s happening more often. Comments posted with such certainty, as if sharing an adventure now comes with an unspoken agreement that it’s open for assessment.

The more I read, the more I realised people weren’t responding to the experience itself but to their version of what it should’ve been.

Around the same time, I saw a similar pattern play out on another, far more serious story. A young woman shared her experience of being followed on a trail, to the point where she felt unsafe and called police.

What should’ve been a conversation about safety, awareness, and what happened to her, instead became a rolling commentary on why she’d gone alone in the first place. An important story that shifted from her experience to her decision.

Part of it is the nature of social media and content posted online for all to see. While this has opened a world of new shared experiences, strong opinions rise faster than quiet ones and confidence can easily be mistaken for credibility.

This isn’t new information, but what bothers me is the blurring between sharing knowledge and projecting it, especially when it comes to outdoor adventuring.

The hiking community has always had a strong culture of looking out for each other. Advice is shared, lessons passed on, mistakes are talked about openly. That’s part of what makes it such a supportive space, especially for people building experience or looking for their next challenge.

I admit I did plenty of dumb things when I was starting out, like hiking solo in the rain without a pack liner and completely soaking my sleeping bag. That one’s fair game.

But there’s a difference between offering insight and rewriting someone else’s experience through your own lens. Most of the time, what’s missing in these conversations is context, the part that sits behind every decision made on the trail.

I’ve gained a lot from other people’s stories. How they’ve handled bad weather, the decisions they’ve made about gear, how they’ve pushed through the mental side of a tough track.

I love reading about others’ adventures, because heading into a remote hike isn’t a walk in the park (literally). It takes planning, experience, and a clear sense of risk.

Pushing on in bad weather isn’t automatically reckless if it’s considered and planned. That’s part of what adventuring is. And let’s face it, if we waited for a week of sunny weather in Southwest Tasmania, no one would be hiking. It’s not always comfortable and it’s not always neat but that doesn’t make it wrong.

I recently read about a hiker who tackled a massive quest in Tasmania’s Southwest – combining Federation Peak, the Eastern and Western Arthurs Traverse, Port Davey Track, and the South Coast Track, all on a diet of fats and protein, which included freeze-dried intestines and animal testicles. I’d personally rather eat dirt than freeze-dried body parts but it clearly worked for him and I loved reading his story. It was inspiring and it was different.

And that’s my point. We don’t have to relate to someone’s choices for their experience to be worth sharing.

What’s interesting is how different it feels on the trail. Out there, people ask questions, swap stories. They’re interested in how something felt, not just how it was done. There’s an assumption that everyone is working within their own level of experience, making their own decisions, and learning in their own way.

That’s not to say conversations about safety or risk don’t matter. They absolutely do and they’re a huge part of how people learn, prepare, and stay safe outdoors.

Debate has always been part of outdoor culture, as it should be. People share different approaches, challenge each other, swap ideas about what works and what doesn’t. That’s how most of us learn. But there’s a line between sharing perspective and passing judgement – or trying to correct someone’s story.

Replace curiosity with loud negativity around people’s experiences and eventually they’ll stop sharing them.

That’d be a huge loss for the hiking community, not just the person telling the story. Because the best parts of outdoor culture have always been built on listening. On swapping experiences without needing to rank them. That shared understanding that no two adventures look the same.

Maybe that’s the piece worth holding onto.

Or perhaps I’m wrong. I suspect I’ll find out in the comments.

Photos by @mcyoungy

Musings on the State of Adventure

• What Happens When You’re Sick of Initiating the Adventure?
• Aren’t You Scared, Camping On Your Own?
• The 3 Types of Adventure Planners – Which One Are You?
• Find Your Tribe: On Having ‘Boring’ Friends