Exploration & Survival
Archive
The definitive guide, built upon real-world experience
After a mental-health breakdown, Mexia grew obsessed with plants in her fifties and became one of the early 20th century’s great botanical collectors
Watch Travis Kauffman describe the incident in his own words
We were skeptical—until we learned the gruesome details from the scene of the attack
Take our advice and don't become a statistic
Bomber tie-downs and secure hitches to have in your repertoire
With affordable snow safety and touring clinics by day and music, events, and films at night, it's a winning formula
For decades Jeffrey Lendrum helicoptered up and rappelled down to aeries on cliff faces from Patagonia to Quebec, snatching unhatched raptors and selling them, investigators believe, to wealthy Middle Eastern falconers. This week in London, one of the most bizarre criminals in modern history goes on trial for the fourth time. Here is his story.
We reached out to outdoor expert Yong-Soo Chung, founder of Urban EDC Supply, to give us a few tips on how to sharpen a pocketknife
Soul-sucking whiteouts and not enough food stymied the polar explorer’s best efforts
Three epic adventures you can give any outdoorsperson
Justin Alexander went searching for higher meaning. No one expected the quest to end in a search for his body.
This is the trailer for ‘A Land Shaped by Women,’ which explores gender equality in Iceland.
The renowned polar explorer is on a solo, unassisted, and unsupported South Pole speed record attempt
A few tips and tricks to keep you comfortable and your trailer in working order when the mercury drops and the snow starts to fall
When 60-year-old Tim Watkins disappeared on a stretch of singletrack outside Colorado Springs, no one suspected that the truth of how he died would rip the community apart
What happens when America's most fabulous advice columnist fires up her polka-dot car and hits the road to ask total strangers about love and cleaving in a bunch of tiny towns called Eden? Let's just put it this way: Paradise is Regained, and John Milton himself would have said, “Oh. My. God.”
This film aims to answer the question of why these athletes push themselves to the outer limits.
Richard Carr, a retired psychologist who had long dreamed of sailing around the world, was in the middle of the Pacific when he started sending frantic messages that said pirates were boarding his boat. Two thousand miles away in Los Angeles, his family woke up to a nightmare: he might be dying alone, and there was almost nothing they could do about it.
Building some of the country’s best trails isn't just about crafting flowing ribbons of singletrack. It's also about navigating miles of red tape.
Urban trails, climbing gyms, and indoor mountain biking parks are just the start. If you have the right mind-set, cities can be way more adventure-filled than you might think.
About an hour before midnight on Mother’s Day in 1986, a group of teenagers assembled at an Episcopal high school in Portland, Oregon, to embark on an expedition. Their goal was to summit Mount Hood, completing an adventure program that was required for all sophomores. What followed was a story of tragedy and loss that is commemorated annually at the institution it changed forever.
This trailer for the upcoming film, Janhukot, follows three British mountaineers as they try to summit the film’s namesake peak
A collection of the scariest, strangest, and most riveting tales we've ever published
There's a reason that some form of the Bigfoot legend persists all over the world
When someone rolls into the campsite next to yours, go say hi. You probably have something in common.
Losing your home to a wildfire is often just the start of your troubles
It will serve you well when things go wrong
These organizations want to help you tick that big once-in-a-lifetime trip off your list
After President Trump reduced Bears Ears National Monument by 85 percent, environmentalists predicted mining companies would soon overrun the landscape. But is there really any uranium to dig up? We decided to have a look for ourselves.
Lyfx wants to revolutionize the way we play by connecting local guides with traveling adventurers. But can it succeed where other apps have failed?
The Women's Euro-Arabian North Pole Expedition team made it to the North Pole on April 21, 2018, enduring minus 40 degree temperatures, the prospect of aggressive polar bears, vast open leads of water, and even the vagaries of the Russian government.
It's the seemingly mundane storms that will catch you off guard. Here's how to never let that happen.
A rare convergence of events turned a wildfire in the Boundary Waters into a massive burn. Two campers were right in its path.
Find Yourself Outside, from Hipcamp and filmmakers Avocados and Coconuts, encompasses an evening in the outdoors.
The crash occurred Saturday, August 4, 14 miles southwest of Denali’s summit
‘Annapurna One’ features a team of mountaineers making a summit attempt at Annapurna.
Lauren Geoghegan and Jay Austin were riding around the world when they were killed in a brutal attack
Carina Hoang fled the Vietnam War on a boat that was supposed to take her to a refugee camp. Instead it took her to a deserted island.
As wildfires get worse, these powerful new tools will help keep you safe
In one of the most complex caves in the world, a handful of divers raced against the clock to locate the stranded team
It was 1994 and writer, director, and photographer Jeff Johnson was a lifeguard on Oahu when 30-foot waves started detonating on the reef.
When the engine light flicks off, do you listen to the voice that says it's time to panic or the one urging you to calmly set the plane down?
Quite possibly the most storied, most coveted, most majestic of all tricks—held for three glorious seconds
After 13 agonizing years of waiting, it finally happened for writer Wells Tower—and then the moment disappeared
Writer Susan Casey will never forget the moment she came face to face with the most feared animal in the ocean
At 55, writer Pam Houston finally let herself fall.
When all else fails, run around like a raving lunatic while you swing a burning log
Our writers talk about the incomparable thrill of experiencing something new—whether it was big or small, and regardless of how it turned out.
A group of the world's best cave divers joined to help save the 12 boys and their coach in one of the most dangerous missions of its kind
The 20-year-old faced three wildlife attacks within 36 months
‘Epic Trails’ is a series from Heliconia and backpacker Eric Hanson as they explore the world’s best trails.
The doctors who scrambled to rescue and triage survivors in 2015 look back in search of lessons.
Rescuers spent nine days searching for the 12 boys and their coach. They finally found them two miles deep in the Tham Luang Nang Non cave system.
From miles out in the storm-ravaged Chesapeake Bay, the Tangier Island crab boat radioed a mayday, then fell silent. Fellow skippers from this lonely and legendary speck of land rallied to save the two-man crew. God willing, they'd get there in time.
When Kyle Dickman set out on a month-long road trip with his wife and infant son last spring, he was fueled by a carefree sense of adventure that had defined his entire life. Then he got bit by a venomous snake in a remote area of Yosemite National Park, and the harrowing event changed everything.
Meet the researchers braving toxic fumes and wildlife encounters to understand the microbial life lurking in the national park's geothermal features.
This is the trailer for Redd a film about an all-female group of horsepackers traveling 900 miles over endangered salmon habitats.
It doesn't matter whether you're barbecuing in your backyard or circling a fire at a campground, you must cook over open flame.
Even if you’re not planning on climbing Denali, you can still learn some backcountry best practices from these mountaineering incidents
In 1869, John Wesley Powell led nine men and four boats on the first documented descent through the Grand Canyon. As is made clear in this excerpt from 'The Promise of the Grand Canyon,' it was a hell of a challenge.
Harvey Butchart was hiking the canyon long before others thought to follow
Before her death last November, Katie Lee spent half a century working to restore Glen Canyon, a lost place that was even more astounding than Grand Canyon
It's called accidentology. Yes, that's a real word.
Dozens of climbers were forced to turn back just shy of the summit after their oxygen regulators failed suddenly
The ins and outs of not dying from Lyme disease
A new book breaks down the skills required for dealing with 40 different creatures
Since 1997 there have been four attempts at a first kayaking descent of British Columbia’s Klinaklini River, none have been successful.
Aimée Crocker sailed across the Pacific, narrowly escaped murder in the jungle, and trounced the sexist and racist norms of her day
Shooting life above, below, and on the ocean
A new study has reignited the contentious debate about what led to the explorer's demise in 1912
David Grann’s New Yorker story about a doomed Antarctic adventurer was a spellbinding read. But as he—and Outside—seem to forget, other people had already done what Worsley was trying to pull off.
Students in the Extreme Polar Training course, a two-week freeze-fest held near the Arctic Circle on Canada's Baffin Island, learn how to live in Earth's coldest conditions. Still, nothing really prepares you for 72 hours of a sled-pulling, pathfinding ordeal on a skinny pair of skis.
Forget expensive new gear. Here’s how to have more fun—for zero dollars.
A professional adventurer has to break a few eggs along the way—and, apparently, several bones and a skull. Mark Jenkins tallies up the most memorable injuries and mishaps from a life lived on the edge.
