Say Yes to Adventures

The Wilderness Idiot: A Review

Little brother: don’t read past this—you’ll be getting a copy for a present soon. 

This collection of essays has been a charming, funny,  and vicarious adventure to locations I’d love to visit. Author Ted Alvarez racks up unique experiences by “not being smart enough to say no.”

I’ll skip eating rat meat, but a lot of these other adventures are swoon-worthy: Japan, Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia, Hawaii, Tierra del Fuego, Denali, and Vietnam. I spent hours going down a YouTube rabbit hole after reading about his wild gym workouts with Mick Dodge and Dan Vinson.

I shared his utterly sweet story, “Mom’s Big Adventure”, with my mom — I was won over how he wanted his mom to have her own revelatory outdoorsy adventure. As an inveterate worrier, their tale of gracefully adapting when things didn’t go according to plan might as well be a trip to a foreign country.

Throughout, his intrepid spirit is garnished with humor. “Crafting witches disguised as Midwestern housewives on YouTube” help him craft his own custom backpack. In another tale, he dines on “Mountain House spaghetti, seasoned with a lot of soreness, a touch of contentment, and a dash of fear”, a recipe that sounds oddly familiar (even on my relatively tame adventures).