Since the inclusion of TIME Magazine´s Modern Explorers I am getting loads of emails like the one below from Albert:

Dear Mikael,

My name is Alfred, I’m 20 years young and have the desire to become a renown explorer just like you! It is all I have ever wanted to do. Not for the sake of fame or fortune, but to discover the secrets that this world has to offer in hopes of bettering this world that we live in.

I know you are extremely busy, but I just have one question that if you could answer I would be eternally grateful, I will become an explorer, but my question is when did you realize your vision and how did you go about obtaining it? My whole life I have felt the desire to be something more and to explore more than a cubicle at a desk(which is what I’m currently doing). There has to be more to life than what everyone considers “normal”

Hope to hear back from you soon so I can start my own adventure.

Sincerely,

Obviously I feel honored that young people think I can be of any help. Earlier almost all queries dealt with how to become an explorer and I have written stuff on that issue, see here. However, as Alfred asks, when did you realize and how did you go about obtaining it.

There´s no doubt that you upbringing helps. Even though I am brought up in what in England calls a working class back ground my sister moved to the UK early and became a big traveler and my visits to England and her, was an early inspiration. So was the introduction to books. And they made the biggest difference. Once discovered I have ever read since and they taught me to cross that fence and continue into the unknown. I started to read travel books at an early age. And once I realized I would never become a professional footballer, it was all about travel.

And travel opens your mind. So, it is all a development over the teens, where books and travel where the two major factors. So, basically:

1. Read, read, read.

2. Travel, travel, travel.

Both will teach you which road to travel down and will eventually indicate if you at the end have what it takes to choose a life which differs from others. Considering that we live in a world where everyone needs to be perfect, we need much more people choosing a lifestyle which differs and questions normality.