What about everywhere else?
Consider this graph from Chris Anderson’s blog. It shows air travel patterns from the UK over the recent decade.
The changes in the airline industry and the way recommendations flow is meaning that more people are going to the places you’ve not heard of before, not just the famous spots.
When I saw this I immediately thought of climbing. I’ve always had a strange relationship to travelling to climbing destinations. Although, the famous spots around the world are such because they are (on the surface at least) good, I find that I don’t always have the best time there.
Sometimes the good climbing is offset by too many people, crap logistics, unfriendly people, bad food etc etc..
There is good climbing in soooo many places all over the planet. Folk ask me a lot why I don’t travel abroad more to climb. I sort of understand why they ask because people generally are still fairly conditioned to think about the famous places and imagine that if they haven't heard of somewhere it’s cant be good.
Lot’s of people haven’t heard of most of the crags I climb on, so they wouldn’t at first realise that just because I live in one of the ‘everywhere else’ places it doesn’t mean I don’t have just as good climbing nearby.
In 17 years I’ve never once felt bored or short of new things to go and climb within three hours drive of my house. What more could you ask for?
