Can extreme sports prove Olympic success starts in school?

Mark Pawlak    Adventure Sports & Travel Thoughts     BMX, coasteering, extreme sports, football, kitesurfing, learning sports, mountain biking, Norway, Olympic games, olympics, parkour, Skiing, united states, Vancouver

Everyone remembers school sports. And unless you were very lucky, there was the very familiar list of ‘choices’ which then filled our Wednesday and Friday afternoons. Only recently have schools started to lighten the curriculum and include a new range of sports – some have gone further still and brought extreme sports to sports afternoon.

Now, there must be a correlation between which sports are taught in schools and the Olympic medal tables? We’ve long seen the summer Olympic tallies dominated by the larger countries. But will this remain true with the integration of extreme sports events?

It’s about support: How much do governments support emerging sports; do they invest in training programs and do they even insist that children take part in sport at all? read more

Round The World in Two Ways

Mark Pawlak    Adventure Sports & Travel Thoughts     Africa, budget adventures, Egypt, Europe, France, gap year, multi destination, north america, Peru, rtw trip, South America, tailor made holidays, united states

Having spoken to friends and having had a good look around the Internet, there appears to be two distinctly different ways of approaching a round the world (rtw) trip: the tick-box method, and the scattergun approach.

Now, while neither is exclusive, each has its own benefits and pitfalls, so let’s take a look.

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Books to take travelling

Mark Pawlak    Adventure Sports & Travel Thoughts     Adventure Travel, India, motor biking, thailand, united states

So, you’re packed and ready to go. All that’s left is to decide which books to take. It’s down to taste, no doubt, but there are some books that just beg to be stuffed into your rucksack, to appear thousands of miles later dog-eared and experienced.

So here’s our top three adventure travel books; if you’ve suggestions, just let us know, we’ll include the most popular in Pt2. read more