So,you want to go on an
Expedition?
THE TIME AND MONEY SECRET Keep your lifestyle simple and your expedition cheap
Karen Holm in southern Chile. BY ROB WALKER and KAREN HOLM
In order to make extended trips on a regular basis, you’ve got to keep your lifestyle simple. Getting the time and get- ting away from the commitments of “real life” can easily be as challenging as the trip itself. We have sculpted our lives around our extended trips. Although we are at the age (40s) where our peers are beginning to slow down in their outdoor pursuits and pad their lives with comforts and trophies, we’re headed in exactly the opposite direction. We live in a tiny house, share a car, and have no debt.
We’ve got no kids, no pets and not even a house plant that needs watering. Our jobs, teacher (Karen) and nurse (Rob), are not high-paying but allow us the flexibility to take time off when we need to. We’ve also quit our jobs to make extended trips and will do so again if necessary. Our advice: Don’t be afraid to take the risk. It will certainly be life changing! The secret is keeping your lifestyle simple and your ex-
pedition cheap. Aside from the initial travel expense, how much can it cost to paddle through a remote wilderness area while sleeping on the beach and cooking noodles for dinner? A couple on holiday in Hawaii can easily
32 || Adventure Kayak spring 2006
Don’t be afraid to take the risk. It will certainly be life changing!
spend as much in a week as we did paddling for four months through the Inside Passage. We’ve also been very successful in gaining sponsor-
ship for our expeditions. Our six-month Chilean Passage Expedition was paid for by the Shipton-Tilman grant from W.L. Gore, the Polartec Challenge Award from Polartec, and the Seal Line Adventure Award from Cascades De- signs. Our equipment was sponsored by Kokatat, Moun- tain Hardwear, NRS, Werner Paddles, Gerber Knives, Brunton and KAVU. Feathercraft (the manufacturer of our kayaks) was the
only company that turned us down, but our local retailer cut us a deal on a pair of Feathercraft kayaks in exchange for a slide presentation. Understanding the role that sponsorship plays for a business is essential in obtaining funding. If you consider sponsorship as a form of advertising, then giving $1,000 in cash or product to an expedition is relatively cheap when compared to placing a glossy advertisement in the pages of a paddling magazine. But unlike the magazine ad, sponsorship is full of risks. The sponsor is never really sure what kind of exposure they’ll receive for their invest- ment—if any. And it’s all about positive exposure. Having successfully made a previous kayak expedition
as a team—and even better, having published a story about it—gives credibility to the team and will help al- lay any of the potential sponsor’s fears. Our advice: Start small and work your way up to the big expedition grants.
—Rob Walker and Karen Holm of Bend, Oregon, have been making extended, human-powered expeditions since riding their mountain bikes from Seattle to La Paz, Bolivia, in 1987–88. In 2000 they kayaked from Glacier Bay, Alaska, to Lopez Island, Washington. In 2003–04, they made the first complete traverse of Chile’s southern channels by sea kayak.
ROB WALKER
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