Why It's Never Too Late To Start Your Adventure Era

A few years ago, I wrote a book for middle-grade girls about the wonders of outdoor adventure and the importance of bravery for their confidence and fulfillment. Parents agreed—courage was essential for their daughters, and the outdoors was a perfect teacher—and The Gutsy Girl: Escapades for Your Life of Epic Adventure quickly became a New York Times bestseller. 

It turns out that it wasn’t just girls who read the book. Grown women were also drawn to it, often at a moment in their lives when they needed bravery. Some read it post-divorce, others while recovering from illness, still others as they embarked on their first solo vacation.

These readers ran the gamut in age, but many were over fifty. They emailed or raised their hands at events and told me that, while growing up, they hadn’t been encouraged to get outside. “Is it too late for me?” they asked. “No,” I told them, with the fervor of an evangelist. “It’s never too late!”

I answered with a lot of enthusiasm but, frankly, not much evidence. Now, as my own horizon begins to glow with the number sixty, I look around to see many men my age alongside me paddling a surfboard or riding a skateboard or flying an experimental plane, but very few female peers. Isn’t being outside a vital elixir? Isn’t adventure enlivening and an important challenge? Why, then, aren’t older women out here with me?

At some age—it probably lies within a range—many women start believing that they can’t, or shouldn’t, be out there. Out there, as in the out-of-doors. Out there, as in a little bit unruly, a little off the beaten path. Out there, as in learning something new (my friend John took up flying ultralights in his mid-sixties), out there as in pushing physical comfort zones (Andy, at seventy-two, still paddles his surfboard into frigid and heavy winter swells).

I’m not speaking about freaky, hair-raising danger, or overwhelming physical stress. I’m talking about a version of outdoor adventure that fits the realities of our age but doesn’t succumb to the falsehoods—that as older women we are fragile, possibly mentally dotty, certainly not qualified to do anything but take constant precautions. 

Let’s face it, our biggest danger may not be a mountain bike, or a surfboard, or saying yes to a tandem skydive. Instead, the real peril for us as we age is a sedentary life that lacks pizzazz and challenge. And I’m a lifelong adventurer: surely, I can continue to defy societal messaging while also gracefully accepting the very real fact that my body is changing, that I am weaker, slower, creakier.

Ultimately, I’m my best self in the outdoors—curious, brave, and present. That in turn gives me confidence and optimism. All these seem like character traits I should hold on to as I age.

Yet years after I had so blithely responded, “It’s never too late to get outside,” I see that most women think that it is, in fact, too late. Not true, I say to myself. And this time I will prove it. And so begins my quest to more fully explore the benefits of outdoor adventure for me and for my peers.