At the beginning of 2018, three young Aussies straight out of university left the country for a year of adventure in South America. Some people would see it as a yearlong holiday, but we beg to differ. It was tough, we leapt out of our comfort zones and had endless rich learning experiences. Only having a few days of riding experience up our sleeves when we got off the plane, our first and foremost lesson was how to ride motorbikes. But once we hit the road we learned so many more valuable lessons. So, here’s a short list of our most important ones….

Take the Road Less Traveled

“She’ll Be Right” is an Australian expression meaning to go with the flow because everything will work out. And it’s actually true. It’s easy for us to say don’t plan your trip down to a tee because we had a year to take our time. I can tell you that all our favourite memories came from spontaneous decisions where we shrugged our shoulders and said, “She’ll Be Right.” Machu Picchu was amazing to see, but because of photos on the web, I felt like I’d seen it hundreds of time before. Whereas, I’m unlikely to ever forget the intense feeling of tackling closed Argentinian desert roads our guts told us to follow. The internet is full of places you should visit, but we found making our plans by talking to people we met along the way always led to far more beautiful, quiet and remote places. Share a meal with locals if they invite you in, follow that dusty track into the mountains your heart is telling you to take, stay a few extra nights at that secluded waterfall you love. Memories created like this are always so much stronger than if you fly through visiting all the places you’ve already looked up and seen photos of. So get out there, say “She’ll be right,” and beautiful things await.

It’s Not All Butterflies and Rainbows

Adventure isn’t a holiday at the resort, it happens sometimes when you realize you might have bitten off more than you can chew. Perhaps you weren’t as prepared as you thought. It’s not all butterflies and rainbows, but it will leave you with great memories you won’t forget for a long, long time. That’s why this year hasn’t been an extended holiday. We’ve really pushed ourselves, far further than previously set limits. Barely anything went as expected. But now uncomfortable situations aren’t scary—they’re normal. They’re where we thrive and where we know we’re going to grow as people. To be standing in the middle of a landscape, no roads, no shops, barely any other humans, no signs, no noise other than that of each other or of nature itself…. Standing there, with everything you need to survive hugging closely to your back, chest and hips is so damn cool. I can’t count the number of moments where we’d all look at each other, in absolute awe that we have able bodies, enough time, money and willingness to actively chase these moments, because sometimes it’s hard to step outside of our uniquely developed bubbles of comfort. When you do, beauty awaits.

We’ll See

There is a Chinese proverb that about using the “We’ll see” phrase to mediate our temperament. Some moments can seem like strokes of good or bad luck, but by observing the situation and realizing that every action has a reaction you can sit back and see how the luck creates a new experience. For example, on the famous salt flats of Uyuni, I had a stupid accident and lost a lot of the skin. It was exceptionally painful, but worse, it was halfway through the trip and would be weeks before I could ride the bike again. Instead of feeling sorry for myself, I looked for an opportunity in this unlucky situation and started taking Spanish lessons. Obviously, the Spanish helped down the line but once I was good enough to get going on the bike again we met people and had some of the most memorable experiences of the trip. Including having an indigenous leader take us on a canoe deep into the Amazon to visit remote indigenous communities far from the outside world. These things occurred because we were in the right time at the right place, thanks to the setback from my accident.

Take it Slow

It always feels like there is so much to see and do which can be overwhelming. You try to do it all but it inevitably becomes a trip of ticking off places and things, like just running through a bucket list you can never reach the end of. So our advice is to take it slow, even if you only have two weeks, rather than see a bit of everything, see one or two things really well. If you love where you are, stay a few days longer, if you love what your doing, do it a few days longer. We travel to explore and we travel to be happy. So why run away from a happy place just to tick off another item. Move on when your ready and you’ll finish your trip with so many more rich memories.

Don’t Set Expectations

There’s nothing worse than anticipating a place to blow your mind and expecting an incredible experience, only to be let down. When you think of it objectively, it’s still really good. But no matter how hard you try to rationalize your feelings, you’re left feeling a little disappointed in the place you have come so far to visit. Or conversely, maybe you’ve been dragged along somewhere you weren’t keen to go and it totally blew you away. These opposite reactions are the result of setting expectations. That’s partly why our favorite trips this year have come from recommendations from other travelers. They tell us a name and a few details to get us excited, but without having seen photos it’s hard for us to set expectations for our experience. We rock up with a neutral mindset and see the place for what it is. Sometimes it’s not for us but we’re glad we tried because other times they have been some of the most epic places we have seen. That’s why we find tourist attractions underwhelming, we’ve seen many photos of them before looking amazing in their saturated colors with the tourists Photoshopped out. But when you arrive on a rainy day and the place is still crowded, it’s not going to put a rosy glow over your mind when you look back on it. That’s why I’d say trust your gut, trust your fellow travelers, and go out to see the world as it is, not how you imagined it.

Know Your Limits

Arriving in Bogota after our final ride, we celebrated. We celebrated completing an epic journey, but we also celebrated that we’d all made it alive. Maybe it’s because we’re young, maybe it was because motorbikes are dangerous beasts we didn’t always respect, maybe we only realized the consequences afterwards, but we took some serious risks. Sitting in the saddle, hand wrapped around the throttle, you feel alive, you feel invincible. After a few months we thought we had riding part down, but really, we were still inexperienced riders. Everyone can be more experienced. Everyone has something to learn. While its great to push yourself and see what you can accomplish, you need to know your limits and take them seriously. The times we exceeded our limits it ended with a torn ACL, with about a square foot of skin lost. And we were lucky, the number of other crashes and near misses could’ve been far worse. Adventure is fun because it means you’ll be taking risks. But we’ve learned that it’s important to play the long game. We don’t want to write ourselves off in our twenties and miss out on all the rides and experiences we could have had in our thirties, forties, fifties and onwards. Motorbikes and your life are to be respected. Not to be abused.