It’s 5.45 am. Black coffee and black skies outside the window. My favourite time of day. So much potential still hangs in those hours ahead.

Last week we passed, apparently, “Quitters’ Day”, when all those wildly-ambitious New Year Resolutions and gym memberships come crashing down in a damp January disappointment.

If I could suggest a resolution for 2024 it would be to choose something small enough to become a regular habit without demanding brutal and unyielding willpower!

For example: a plan to get outdoors once a week and explore somewhere new in your local neighbourhood. Buy a map of where you live, pay attention, and be astonished.

(If you’re in the UK, get the Explorer map for where you live. In the US, download the topo map of your home for free. Worldwide, this is a useful free tool for exploring where you are.)

• A fantastic first project with your new map could be to tackle your own local Seven Summits Challenge. This was one of my favourite adventures of last year. (Use this map to find the trig points close to where you live.)
• I shamelessly stole the idea for that video from Brendan Leonard who also wrote this really nice essay about resolutions, running, and living well.
• I’ve been banging on incessantly about exploring one map. How about exploring ALL the maps in the UK, in the right order too?! A whopper of an adventure.
• The Next Challenge Grant is a crowd-funded bursary for adventures.
  Apply if you’d like help going on an adventure.
  Donate a little cash if you’d like to help others with their plans.
• Some of us cycle across Africa for fun and adventure. Mamadou did it to try to change his life and get a place at university. Fabulous story.
• I do quite a few podcast interviews. Most are fun; a few are formulaic and boring. This one I enjoyed for its different take on story-telling and digging into the motivation for adventuring: Bicycles, Bad Violin Playing, and Blank Maps: Redefining Adventure.
• There’s still some tickets available for the talks I’m giving over the next few weeks. Please come along! (Especially if you’re in Berkshire / Surrey / West London – my talk near you has hardly any takers so far!!)
• Did you honestly think you’d make it through a newsletter without me banging on about my new book, Local?! Thank you to everyone who has bought a copy so far: it’s had a strong opening couple of weeks. 

Let me know if you have a relevant project that my readers would appreciate. Here’s what you guys have been up to recently:

50 Newsletters Ago

SHOUTING FROM THE SHED 66

️ For just £20, you can sponsor a 3×3 metre square of land to help Heal acquire a rewilding site in the South of England. ️ Love Her Wild is run by women for women who want to get outside and have adventures big or small. They have a thriving facebook community and a bunch of local groups all over the UK. ️ A video snapshot from the first 4800km of Rosie Watson’s run from the UK to Mongolia to tell ‘new stories’ for humanity in the face of the Climate Crisis.

(If you’re seeing this newsletter for the first time, you can subscribe here.)

Cheers,

Alastair