Making life a holiday with interesting vacation and adventure ideas.

He swam in the frozen waters of both the Arctic and the Antarctic but now
Lewis Gordon Pugh is paddling a kayak 1,200km to the North Pole in another effort to warn the world of how quickly the Arctic is melting.

The expedition, on behalf of the Polar Defense Project, aims to illlustrate just how thin the sea ice has become in recent years.

Labels: Antarctica, Arctic, environment, global warming, kayaking, Lewis Gordon Pugh, North Pole

Back in 1951, a deaf factory worker who had never learnt to speak, set off on a cycling adventure from his home in Buchan, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. He took just a single blanket, a few jumpers and his diary. His remarkable adventure led him 3000 miles to the frozen plains of the Arctic Circle and now they are making a film about him, his journey and the friends he made along the way.

I believe that the working title for the film is Dummy Jim, the name by which our hero, James Duthie, was affectionately called by his friends and the film producers have launched an imaginative website in advance of making the film, providing an entertaining opportunity to explore Duthie's world.

Labels: 1951, 2008, Arctic, cycling, Dummy Jim, film, film location, James Duthie, Scotland

The sinking of the passenger ship Explorer, while on a cruise to Antarctica, has raised concerns from a shipping union over the operation of cruise ships in increasingly remote locations. The union, Nautilus UK, points out that the sinking of the Explorer, is the latest in a series of similar incidents, recording at least three others in 2007 alone.

Only three months ago, seven passengers on board the Aleksey Maryshev were injured when part of a glacier fell onto the deck of the ship, while it was on an adventure cruise in the Arctic.

Understandably, questions are being asked about the suitability of some ships to operate in increasingly exotic, dangerous and remote environments, where they are often a very long way from adequate search and rescue cover.

Read more.

I guess the point is, that adventure always comes with an element of risk.

Labels: 2007, Adventure Travel, Antarctica, Arctic