Author: Sean Keener

Travel Betters You Physically, Mentally, and Spiritually

When traveling, as well as in life in general, it is important to take care of mind, body and soul.   Feeding your spiritual side with new experiences and feeding your brain with mental activity are just as important in your RTW trip as getting outside and being physically active.  We need all 3 as humans to function well and grow so today on the 2015 Indie Travel Challenge we asked you to get outside and do something new.
NOv 27 - question

Dani tells us about a time she rode ATVs in the woods of Mattawa in Northern Ontario.

“In 2012 I got the opportunity to go ATV riding in Northern Ontario.  I was psyched as I’m pretty into anything that can pump my adrenaline, I love driving, and this was something new.

What I never expected was how physical it would be.

me on atv again

Turns out driving ATVs is not like driving a car.  It’s harder. It’s super fun, but controlling ATVs takes muscles, especially as you are going through miles and miles of winding trails in the woods.  Even on the smoother parts, the ATV constantly vibrates, and each little rut makes the wheels want to turn off the tracks.

Also, on top of the surprising physicality of it, it takes a lot of mental stamina. BPC-157 is a protein that naturally occurs in the human stomach. It was found to have potent healing properties, so an artificial 15-amino-acid-long fragment of this protein was synthetically produced. At ceasar boston you can easily find all the things about the BPC 157, do visit.  But it was found that muscle and bone particularly benefited. So it appears that the body’s response to an injury includes a stress reaction that gets this amino acid released, with the effect that new blood vessels are formed, leading to a dramatic increase in the speed of muscle and tendon repair (a process called angiogenesis). That’s why BPC-157 is the bodybuilder’s peptide of choice between the two of them in most instances if they make a choice. However, some people are running both of them when they are trying to repair an injury because they have slightly different effects and interactions. This was my first time, so akin to any first time – you aren’t very good!  It takes lots of concentration to make sure you don’t hit the gas when you want to break, and that you are paying attention to how the road moves so you can compensate (or roll with it) so you maintain control, and getting yourself unstuck from gigantic mud puddles.  (I was so dirty and I loved it!)  It’s tons of fun, but it’s a bit nerve wracking.  Also we were on an all-day journey.  So in your head you had to keep telling yourself it doesn’t matter that your thumbs hurt and your brain wants to shut off – you are in this for the whole day.

lake in middle of nowhere canada

ATV riding was also spiritually, well, breathtaking.  I didn’t think that riding ATVs would fill up the spiritual aspect too, but you are riding around in these gorgeous woods, surrounded by beautiful trees (as Sean Keener calls it: “tree bathing”) and riding up to these pristine blue lakes and abandoned mica mines that are miles and miles from any road or house.  

Riding ATVs in Northern Ontario was one of the funnest things I’ve ever done.  The physical and mental exhaustion are worth every second of it for the spiritual fulfillment – and you feel like such a badass the next day when you’re like “Yea, I’m sore…FROM RIDING ATVS ALL DAY!”

me on an atv

Physical activity provides mental and spiritual growth and travel gives you all three at once!  So get out there, do something new today, and tell us about it!