No pain, no gain: The endurance traveller

When The Proclaimers first confessed in 1988 that they “would walk 500 miles and… would walk 500 more”, their intention wasn’t to foreshadow a trend for endurance travelling that would develop almost 40 years later. How do I know this? Because their next piece of insightful advice was “da da da, da!”. So what do they know, really?

University life is largely sedentary. As you sit alone in the SU on a dreary November afternoon biding your time until T-Bar opens, it is not difficult to get itchy feet. And yet it seems that increasingly, in this moment, two thoughts cross your mind. Firstly, the need to buy a decent foot cream for your itchy feet. But more significantly, the need to go trekking/cycling/running through the Australian outback, or something very similar. 

The solitude gives you time to think, to be present with yourself. It makes you appreciate the smallest things 

Marathon des Sables participant

In an article on this new travel trend for the BBC, a participant of the 250km Marathon des Sables (set in the Moroccan Sahara), noted: “You’re running huge distances in brutal heat, sleeping rough, living on the bare minimum…The solitude gives you time to think, to be present with yourself. It makes you appreciate the smallest things”. The same article claims that the famous cycling Race Across France event saw an increase of 1,100 competitors from 2021-25, and that such events can generate up to €50,000 for the local tourism industry. 

But is endurance travelling truly accessible? Can it rival relaxing seaside getaways when it comes to holiday enjoyment? Even if we adjust the definition of endurance travel to include camping or hiking holidays, this requires an amount of disposable income that most double-income households (let alone students) don’t have. With the adventure travels company Exodus, a week-long group hiking holiday for two on the Amalfi Coast in July would cost £3,398 in total (excluding flights and hiking equipment). An all-inclusive seven-day package holiday with Tui  in the same location, at the same time of year, would cost the same couple £2,274 total – a saving of £1,124. This makes the traditional relaxing retreat the far more affordable option, especially in times of financial pressure. 

The student thinks to themself, “How sedentary university life is! I do need a holiday. But I wonder whether cycling the entirety of the Australian outback will be a rewarding, cost-effective, and environmentally-conscious use of my third maintenance loan?” 

Seasoned endurance travellers would claim that they will have a far more rewarding holiday experience than their lethargic compatriots. Indeed, this is probably true. After all, those who wish to work on their tan by the hotel pool must first consider whether a saving of a thousand pounds is worth sharing said pool with a family of Brits in Portsmouth shirts, who are telling another family of Brits in Leeds shirts their life stories for the entire pool to hear.

When evaluated from a sustainability angle, neither travel style covers itself in glory. The entire industry of tourism and travel constitutes 6.5% of global greenhouse emissions. For an endurance traveller, 70% of their total carbon footprint is spent on travel to and from their event alone. For those on a traditional family holiday, a single short-haul flight can generate just under 43 tonnes of carbon. But we don’t need to worry about that now, do we?  

And so that same student glances at the time on their phone, as the merciless November rain rapidly turns the plaza into an oversized swimming pool: 3:51p.m. Nine minutes until opening time. In a shocking moment of dramatic irony which conveniently furthers the narrative of this article, the student thinks to themself, “How sedentary university life is! I do need a holiday. But I wonder whether cycling the entirety of the Australian outback will be a rewarding, cost-effective, and environmentally-conscious use of my third maintenance loan?” 

I think we can all agree that a worthwhile holiday is the happy medium between walking the Appalachian Trail, and a trip to Rome in which your family spends just twenty minutes in the Colosseum

Ultimately, there is no inherent moral merit in opting for either style over the other. Yet I do appear to have been harsh on endurance travel. If you noticed this, congratulations on identifying author bias, and please help yourself to a History GCSE on your way out. What we must remember is that endurance travel surely is an experience of a lifetime, and these days, an increasing number of dedicated holidaymakers select the admirable choice of activity over lethargy – for that I applaud them. 

Those who know me are aware that I will gladly read A Walk In The Woods (1998) – the book charting Bill Bryson’s attempt to walk the 2,198 mile Appalachian Trail along the East Coast of the United States. I would rather eat my own leg than do it myself, and the fact is most students don’t have the financial means to engage in these excursions. I think we can all agree that a worthwhile holiday is the happy medium between walking the Appalachian Trail, and a trip to Rome in which your family spends just twenty minutes in the Colosseum.