Microadventure ideas for adults

What counts as a microadventure

The test is simple: would you tell someone about it afterward? A walk to the store is not a microadventure. A walk to the store by way of the ridge you can see from the store, arriving as it opens, probably is. Three things tend to be present: a place you don't usually go, a time you don't usually go out, and a small, definite goal so that you know when it's finished.

Distance is not one of the three. Some of the best microadventures happen within a mile of the front door.

After work

Two hours between leaving the office and dinner is enough for most of these, at least while the evenings are long.

1. Four kilometers, straight from work Don't go home first. Walk four kilometers from the office or the station in a direction you never take, then get transport back.
2. Sunset from somewhere with a view Find a hill, a bridge or a public roof terrace and be there for the last twenty minutes of light. Check the sunset time first; it moves by a couple of minutes a day.
3. Dinner outdoors, on purpose Take the meal with you and eat it on a bench by water. It changes the taste.
4. The blue hour by the water Be at a shoreline, lake or river in the forty minutes after sunset, while there's still light in the sky, and then head home.
5. A bench you've never sat on Somewhere in your town there is a bench you've walked past a hundred times and never used. Sit on it for fifteen minutes and see what it was put there to look at.
6. The long evening shadow Go out in the last hour of sun with a camera and find a shadow longer than the thing casting it. Then keep walking until the shadows are gone.

On a weekend

With a whole morning or day, distances can stretch and the destination can be farther out.

1. Twenty kilometers in a day A day's march, at whatever pace suits you, with a proper stop in the middle. You'll see the edge of your known world and step past it.
2. Five kilometers before breakfast Up early, out the door, and no food until you've covered the distance. Breakfast somewhere new, then walk back slowly.
3. The nearest castle, ruin or lookout tower There's a fair chance one is within reach. Find it on a map, walk or take a bus most of the way, and cover the last few kilometers on foot.
4. Follow a river as far as it lets you Pick a river or canal and keep it on one side for a morning. Turn back when the path runs out or the time does.
5. A hilltop at sunrise Set an alarm, walk up in the half-light, and be at the top when the sun clears the horizon. Bring a thermos. This is the microadventure most people remember.
6. Somewhere else, seven kilometers away End your walk seven kilometers from where it began, as the crow flies, in a place you've never stood before. Getting home is part of the puzzle.

In winter

Short days push the after-work ideas to the weekend, but winter offers things summer can't: empty paths, visible breath, low sun all day.

1. Snow filling the whole frame On the first day it settles, go out and find a spot where snow is all there is. Snow is never quite white; see what color it is.
2. The whole of the daylight In midwinter, being outside for all of it is a real, finite goal. Out at sunrise, in at sunset, with a hot lunch somewhere in the middle.
3. A frosty morning, two kilometers before anyone else Be the first footprints on a path. It only works before the town wakes up.
4. Mist over a field Cold mornings after clear nights bring low mist. Find open ground at the edge of town and photograph it before the sun burns it off.
5. The three brightest hours On a gray winter Saturday, spend eleven to two entirely outdoors. It's the best light you'll get.

Rules that keep it small

Turning it into a habit

The hard part of microadventures isn't the doing. It's the deciding, on a Wednesday evening, that tonight is the night. Lists help for a while; then you've done the ones that appeal and the rest sit there.

RLQuest takes the deciding off your hands. Every morning it picks three to ten quests from a library of more than 2,700, fitted to your age, interests, the weather, the season and the time you've said you have. Many of them are microadventures in miniature: be at a shoreline for sunset, walk four kilometers after work, cover five before breakfast, get to a castle or a viewpoint you've never visited. The app checks the recorded route, the clock or the photo, and every walk uncovers new tiles on a hexagon map of where you've been. Be the first RLQuest player to complete a quest at a real place and it's logged as your first find.

It's free to download for iPhone and Android, with a Premium subscription that adds more quests per day. The list above is yours to use without it. The app is for the evenings when you'd rather be told.