Planet Earth is a vast and complex entity encompassing a dramatic beauty revealed in its bold landscapes and diversity of life.  Throughout the history of the human race countless individuals have had an innate desire to comprehend the world around them and an irrepressible urge to search beyond what was known.  Exploration first emerged as a means of survival, the need to seek out food and shelter.  This was a time when a long journey was only a few miles, yet nearly everything was beyond the realm of experience.  Every step was a discovery which added to the store of human knowledge.  Those few miles stretched into several days and on into weeks.  Travel was a necessary part of life.  Survival depended upon a nomadic way of life where an understanding and respect of nature was paramount.


At some point in the past few thousand years travel ceased to be a necessity for survival. Tribal societies developed agriculture and systems of laws.  People had more time free from labor, which led to the advent of art, writing and war.  Civilizations arose and more people devoted their time to traveling out of curiosity of the unknown or the lust for power and wealth.  Traveling was all about firsts, a race to see what country or individual could claim new land for their empire or who would be the first to sail around the world.  It was a time of conquests, expeditions, discovery and adventure.  This was a cruel, often brutal, time when humanity grossly exploited itself and earth’s natural resources, yet what an exciting time it must have been to wander the globe!

Today we live in a world of mobile phones, television, fast food and the internet.  Survival is not a major concern for most of us in the “developed” world.  Nearly every inch of the globe has been explored.  The tallest mountains have been climbed and the thickest jungles have been penetrated.  An overabundance of information is easily accessible to us describing every event and answering every question we may have, except one…  What is it like to actually experience something?  That one question can only be answered by direct action.  We can not physically experience the past and so we will never feel the joys and pains of sailing around the world with Marco Polo or exploring nature’s wonders with Alfred Russell Wallace in the Malay Archipelago.  What we can do is open our minds, hearts and souls to the world around us and continue to expand our boundaries of personal experience.  As explorer Lewis Mumford once wrote:
“There comes a time when one realizes that adventure is humdrum and routine unless one assimilates it, unless one relates it to a central core which grows within and gives it contour and significance.  Raw experience is empty, just as empty as in the forecastle of a whaler, as in a chamber of a counting house; for it is not what one does but what one realizes that keeps existence from being vain and trivial.”

Our world is mind numbingly huge.  It is a gigantic spherical mass of water, land and molten magma held together by that bewildering thing called gravity.  There are some people who claim that planet earth is actually getting smaller due to the ease of crossing oceans and skipping continents with jumbo jets and massive road systems.  The fact remains that the earth is still very, very big.  If a person were to dedicate their entire life to exploring the globe, they would pass from this life very tired and very fulfilled; yet they would have only experienced a small fraction of what the earth has to offer.  There is simply too much to take in! At present there are over 240 political entities that are considered countries where approximately 6,912 different languages are spoken.  There are 109 mountain peaks that reach an altitude of 7,200 meters (23,622 feet).  Nearly 10,000 species of birds inhabit an incredible menagerie of habitats on this diverse planet.  Life is short.  Get moving.

                                                                                                                                                                          Global satalite images generated by NASA