Adventure, But Slower

National Geographic published its adventure list for 2026, and the word they built it around is "immersion" — trips that engage the senses instead of the camera roll. Stargazing under properly dark skies. The specific smell of an old-growth forest. Places you absorb slowly rather than photograph efficiently and leave.

I read that and felt the small satisfaction of the travel industry finally arriving somewhere the rest of us have been waiting. You probably know the feeling that's being corrected here: a trip that was technically successful — sights seen, photos taken — that somehow left no residue at all. Box-ticking travel. The fix was never more destinations; it was more attention per destination. Going slower is not a compromise on adventure. Most of the time, it's the upgrade.

My favorite proof of this from the week is the Williams family of New Zealand, who just finished walking the entire length of their country — all six kids along, the youngest six years old. Months of walking, at the pace of the smallest legs in the group. No summit, no record, no finish-line tape that matters to anyone but them. It might be the most impressive outdoor achievement I read about all year, precisely because its only ingredients were time, patience, and a family that kept going. A six-year-old now knows the shape of her whole country on foot. Imagine that.

The week also carried its dark reminder of why "slower" includes "more careful." Three hikers died on Mt. Baldy in Southern California during high winds, among them a nineteen-year-old who fell 500 feet from the Devil's Backbone trail. Baldy's reputation is well earned — close enough to the city to feel casual, serious enough to kill — and wind changes a mountain completely. Checking the forecast and being willing to turn around aren't the opposite of adventure. They're what lets you keep having them for fifty years.

Two happier notes to close on. Indonesia's new capital, Nusantara, is being designed as a "10-minute city" where a bicycle gets you anywhere — part of a wider wave, London to Houston, of cities being redrawn for legs instead of engines, which I'm fully here for. And TechRadar ran a lovely, honest piece by someone using an electric gravel bike to get back into riding "without the shame of being woefully unfit." No shame was ever required — anything that gets a person back outside is legitimate equipment. The mountain doesn't check what's in your frame. 🌿

Here's to a slower, longer, more attentive 2026.