“Turn on, tune in, drop out.” Timothy Leary’s famous 60s maxim was supposed to encourage people to relax, escape the pressures of everyday life and find out who they truly were. If he were alive today, I’d like to think he’s be urging people to turn off instead.
In an era when your phone is never off and even your fridge is bluetooth-enabled we are pretty much always plugged in. As adventure sports enthusiasts, we might be aware of the benefits of getting away from it all, but even we find ourselves needing to be constantly connected. Whether it’s checking surf forecasts, planning climbing routes or reading Mpora, it’s all done online.
“Woodland Parkour has all sorts of unexpected consequences, including (apparently) improving your sex life.”
So for our August issue, in a month that’s traditionally been about taking holiday and unwinding, we thought we’d take a closer look at what it means to go unplugged.
My Life in Pictures features a photographer who keeps things strictly analogue, preferring to shoot his summery surf pictures on film instead of digital. Adventure-gram looks at Ed Stafford, a man who knows a thing or two about going off grid, having survived for 60 days on an uninhabited island in the Pacific, while our Great British Adventures series focusses on Woodland Parkour. This new discipline aims to take gym-style moves into the wild, which has all sorts of unexpected consequences, including (apparently) improving your sex life.
