Happy New Year!

👉 Here’s to a year filled with curiosity, adventure and time spent in nature. I blew away my New Year’s Day cobwebs with a river swim and this resolution: 

“Here’s to more nearby nature in everyday lives this year, more microadventures, more exploring the map that we live on, more noticing, more healthy habits every day. Here’s to less time on screens and more time outdoors, less money spent on stuff and more time spent doing stuff.
Here’s to a bright 2022 for everyone. Leap into it right away…”

👉 At the end of last year I experimented with making this a weekly newsletter. Many of you liked that format. But I’ve decided to revert to just sending them out every couple of weeks when I get the time. 

The simple reason is that putting together newsletters takes quite a lot of time, time that I could spend writing more books. 

Many creators solve this conundrum by charging for their newsletters. 

I’ve never particularly liked the idea, preferring to share my content as widely as possible. 

Another option is to save your best material for a paying audience. But I don’t like that either: I want all my content to be my best content, paid or not.

And yet feedback I receive shows me that there are some people who would be very willing and able to pay for my newsletters. 

👉 So I have decided to try a weird model, making payment for this newsletter optional. In other words, it will remain free for everyone to read and enjoy as usual. 

But if you’d like to pay for it in order to help me continue to write newsletters and books, then you can do so on Patreon here, paying whatever you like for as long or short a time as you like. 

Needless to say, I’m extremely grateful to any generous nutters who opt to pay for something that they can receive for free! It’s not a transaction so much as a contribution that helps everyone. It’s the difference between being a patron and a customer. As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this idea. We’ll see how it goes.

Anyway, on now to the good stuff!

Here are a few things I’d like to share with you today… 👇

• 💧 Watch the path of a raindrop from anywhere in the world. I adore this site.  
• 🚲 Danny MacAskill – everyone’s favourite bike rider – is back with a new video.
• 🛶 Neal Moore Finishes his Two-Year Solo Canoe Journey across the USA – I really enjoyed following this expedition.
• 💰 The Next Challenge Grant is an annual bursary for adventures. The money comes from small crowdfunded donations and contributions from other adventurers. You can either donate or apply to win a grant here.
• 🎻 I’m chuffed to bits that my Spain film has been picked for the Banff Film Festival World Tour. Check out the trailer here and find your local screening here.
• 📌 This New Year’s note to self from the superb book Essentialism is worth pinning above your desk (as I have done).
• 📷 The Red Bull Adventure Sports photos of the year are stunning. 
• 🌕 Full Moon Calendar 2022 – why don’t you plan a monthly swim / run / hike / tree climb / outdoor coffee / microadventure / camp for each full moon this year?
• 🧐 A Quote to Ponder:
  When I give talks at primary schools, I sometimes ask, ‘who would like to cycle around the world?’ Every child flings an arm in the air. Ask the same question to a roomful of adults and the response is very different. You get some chuckles at such a childish question. One or two eye-rolls (‘of course I’d love such an adventure, but it’s obviously not realistic for me – I’m a normal person, not an AdventurerTM.’) And much muttering about pension plans, dodgy knees, or the need to do a lot of research before buying a £10,000 bicycle… The audacity has gone. We have lost our boldness.