Storytelling is universal. Stories in which a hero (that’s you) sets off from their comfort zone and returns with the good news for the rest of the digital village? That’s an adventure. The best way to adventure right is to get off that phone of yours and get out into the real world. Here are our five favourite journeys into the unknown.

Maybe the greatest book on trekking towards enlightenment is Mr Peter Matthiessen’s classic The Snow Leopard, in which the writer and co-founder of The Paris Review goes on a perilous search for the most elusive land animal in the Himalayas while reflecting on his own practice of Zen Buddhism. His descriptions of the herculean physical feats are by turns sobering and intoxicating, but always a call to action. One World Trekking offers a trip in Mr Matthiessen’s footsteps and so has the top spot on our bucket list.

oneworldtrekking.com

Your own luxury tent in the Masai Mara? Sure. A gourmet experience on a game reserve overlooking Kilimanjaro? Definitely. Messrs Paolo Parazzi and Sam Stogdale, founders of the bespoke safari service Africa Born, are native Kenyans with incredible access to the best terrain (it helps that they are both pilots with their own Out Of Africa-style prop plane) with the kind of ecological and cultural consciousness you’re looking for in a travel partner today.

**africa-born.com **

The Ashram, a rigorous wellness and fitness getaway organised by Ms Catharina Hedberg and Ms Anne-Marie Bennström, began more than 40 years ago and hosts a baker’s dozen of dedicated pilgrims at its regular retreats in California, Mallorca and Iceland during the summer months and, in autumn, on the Camino de Santiago in Spain. The Ashram preaches transformation through a regime of healthy eating and detox and delivers enchantment with hikes that offer some of the most striking views in the world.

theashram.com

In December 2020, our friends at Prior are arranging a two-week excursion to Chile, which will culminate with a viewing of the coming solar eclipse from a luxury tented camp in the Atacama Desert. Along the way, the group will arrange for you to ride with Chilean gauchos, experience a traditional asado barbecue and trip out on the lunar-like landscapes of the glacial and arid country while enjoying a civilised sundowner.

prior.club

Mornings at Mongke Tengri, Mr Christopher Giercke’s luxury camp 200 miles west of Ulaanbaatar, on the Mongolian steppe begin with organic Himalayan coffee, brought to you in your ger, one of 40 camel-leather huts in the camp, by an attendant who will also see to the embers of your fire. If you can then pull yourself out from under your cashmere blankets, made from fabric Mr Giercke has sourced in his day job, you may go riding with local herders or while away the day in the wood-fire-heated tub before a dinner of roasted meat and French wines.

mongke-tengri.com