The following is a repost from Adventure Treks Travel Company.
A Founder’s Letter: Why We Travel
On a recent trip, I came across an article in Psychology Today explaining why time seems to accelerate as we get older. The science behind it is straightforward: When we’re young, everything is new, and our brains form dense, detailed memories. Novel experiences make time feel fuller. But as adults, routine takes over. Days look similar, our brains make fewer “new” memory markers, and time feels like it starts to speed up.
That stuck with me. So did a story I heard about a family scheduling experiences together one weekend a month to intentionally build new memories. Not just to check something off a bucket list, but to “anchor” time in place and slow it down a little.
My husband and I actually put something like this into practice a few years ago; we stopped exchanging gifts over the holidays and instead agreed to come up with ideas for fun trips we could take to places we’ve never been.
This particular article, though, made us reflect on the moments in our lives that we remember most vividly. Nearly all of them happened while traveling or doing something outdoors:
- Standing at the summit of Mount Rainier.
- Riding a gondola up the mountain in the Dolomites to paraglide down.
- Biting into a fresh baguette from a small village bakery in France.
- The satisfaction and joy of successfully communicating with someone who didn’t speak my language.
- Hiking the Inca Trail, stepping through Inti Punku, and seeing Machu Picchu finally materialize in the distance.
- Finding friendly pups to pet in every country we visit.
Even those unexpected or “less than fun” (aka type two) moments during travel have become core memories:
- The airline losing our luggage for three days in Slovenia.
- Coming down with food poisoning in South America.
- Getting stung by a jellyfish in Costa Rica.
- Skidding out on wet roots in Oaxaca, Mexico, while mountain biking at 11,000 feet and coming away with some pretty good road rash.
- Realizing in Nepal that yak cheese is still… yak cheese.
- Hiking in Norway with umbrellas in dense fog and rain.
I look back on every single one of these memories—both type 1 and type 2—with fondness, pride, and something new I learned.
Travel has always done that for us: It slows life down and reminds us that our years don’t have to blur together. It makes our memories a little more vibrant, a little more poignant.
We’ve been seeing the long-term impacts of novel adventure travel on Adventure Treks teens for more than 33 years. We still get calls and emails from our alumni from 1993, talking about the friends they made and the memories they carry today.
It’s living proof that meaningful experiences formed through travel and adventure create lasting growth, broaden our perspective, and renew our sense of purpose and self far more effectively than staying within our comfort zone.
Novelty, purpose, and genuine connection with humans and the world are what change us.
The view that stops you mid-sentence. The small but meaningful comforts at the end of a full day. The feeling of sharing an adventure with people you genuinely enjoy.
And this is why we’re launching Adventure Treks Travel Co
For decades, parents have asked when we’d create trips designed for adults. Our first personal trip after covid restrictions lifted (to Italy in 2022) got our wheels turning. In 2024, the idea took hold and began to snowball, and in summer 2025, we ran several pilot programs in the Pacific Northwest and Peru for adults and families.
Those trips proved that adults and families need these kinds of experiences just as much as teenagers do.
And that is why we’re launching Adventure Treks Travel Company: Purposeful adventures that reset your perspective, allow you to breathe, and create memories that you’ll recall for years to come.
We’re opening our arms wide and embracing this new chapter with the goal of enriching as many lives as we can. With providing the opportunity to turn off autopilot and step off an airplane in a brand-new country, where endless adventures are just waiting to be had. With helping people find their most present, most alive selves.
The real question isn’t “Why travel?”
It’s “What incredible experiences will we allow ourselves to have? And when are we willing to take the leap and start creating them?”
And today, we invite you to come travel with us.
Amanda Fox and Dave McGlashan
Founders, Adventure Treks Travel Company
