Holidays are an evergreen aspect of the average household’s year, whether swift urban escapes between an inauspicious Friday and its following Bank Holiday Monday or a full two-week stint somewhere sunny, sandy and soporific.
But with the overall cost of living threatening the affordability of even the most basic retreats, the holiday has come to mean much more than just relaxation.
For us to justify our international jaunts, we need to be doing more than simply relaxing and recharging.
A recent survey discovered that almost two thirds of holiday-goers seek a range of activities as part of their holiday – and that 42% would like to learn a new sport during their travels. These statistics make sense of a recent rise in popularity with regard to the adventure holiday model – but what is it that adventure holidays actually provide?
Bonding With Family
There are a great many different reasons for which activity-based holidays are on the rise, and this particular reason may not be the most immediate amongst them – but it is nonetheless a crucial reason driving a large minority of new adventure travels. Adventure travel is a fantastic means of bonding with your fellow holidaymakers, making it an ideal family bonding activity.
This is true for whichever sport you base your holiday around, too. Solo sports like surfing are simply an opportunity to share in a rare and exhilarating experience together, while team-building adventures like white-water rafting, rock-climbing or even tour cycling give you opportunities to learn from each other, grow with each other and understand one another.
Entertaining and engaging the whole family is notoriously difficult at home, but family activity holidays are universally engrossing and impactful.
Learning Skills
Adventure holiday retreats are a perfect opportunity to gain some fresh knowledge and experience. Whether or not you are a dab hand at other sporting activities, there’s always something new you can pick up as part of a sporting getaway.
The exhilaration of starting to get the hang of a new skill like surfing is incomparable, and especially so when you’re doing it against a beautiful, weather-perfect foreign backdrop.
Exploring Authentically
Adventure holidays share a unique relationship with the environments that host them, and in turn allow you to gain some unique experiences in your holiday destination of choice. For instance, a white-water rafting trip in Portugal would show you sides of the Paiva River you’d never have otherwise seen, giving you a truly authentic glimpse of the stunning natural landscapes the country has to offer.
The same is true of Croatia, where mountain-biking and rock-climbing can give you peerless views and otherwise-unobtainable understandings of Croatia’s rural best. Even urban adventure holidays can put you in touch with parts of a city you’d never have seen, giving you memories to truly last a lifetime.
Staying Fit
Lastly, but no less importantly, there is the ancillary benefit of fitness associated with adventure holidaymaking. Adventure activities are naturally strenuous, and in different ways depending on the sport or skill you land on. As such, an adventure holiday can present an opportunity to your fitness journey, as opposed to a roadblock. Conventional holidays are often gluttonous or restful affairs that can take you out of the swing of things, but adventure travel can keep you on your road to fitness.