Ed Stafford, record-breaking Explorer
Ed Stafford on isolation, motivation, and facing challenges head on
On 9th August 2010, after spent 860 days trekking, explorer Ed Stafford became the first person to have walked the entire length of the Amazon River. He went on to feature in the Discovery Channel’s Marooned with Ed Stafford – a series which saw him abandoned in remote destinations around the world to survive on his own. In the first of these challenges, Ed was left on the uninhabited tropical island of Olorua in the Pacific for 60 days with just his camera, an emergency satellite phone, an emergency medical kit, and no clothes. As such, he seemed like the ideal man to talk to about coping with solitude, developing ideas for adventures, and planning epic expeditions. Trail caught up with Ed Stafford during the coronavirus lockdown via video link for a socially-distanced, frankly honest, and fully clothed chat…
As someone drawn to epic challenges, how are you channelling this energy during the confines of the current lockdown?
“I’m not deliberately having to do anything. I think the reason I’m not necessarily bored is that this is a challenging time. I’m starting a podcast and filming my own bush craft courses. We’ve been fixing the house and growing vegetables rather than endless virtual pub quizzes! I get a buzz out of challenges and, in a weird way, suddenly the world’s in lock down and this is exactly the sort of thing I love!”
You’re a man who’s spent a fair bit of time on his own. How has it affected you?
“Marooned came about because, walking the Amazon, I had other people to rely on, especially my long-term walking partner Cho who was with me for two years. It niggled me that I hadn’t completely looked after myself, so I wanted to set up a survival challenge; if I had absolutely no help from anybody else, how would I be able to cope? I’d thought it would take a couple of weeks before I got lonely or missed anybody else. But as the boat engine faded out of earshot and I couldn’t hear anything, it was utterly overwhelming, disproportionate to the level of danger. There were coconut trees for fluid and food, I had everything I needed for the first couple of days. It wasn’t that. It was the enormity of being completely on my own.
“There’s a term in psychology called ‘a reflected sense of self’. If you tell a joke and people laugh, your reflected sense of self is that you’re a funny guy. People would tell me that I must be tough to have walked the Amazon, so my reflected sense of self was that I was a tough guy. The weird thing about being on the island was that there was absolutely no feedback from anyone. I realised I’d never developed an innate sense of self, a self-love, self-esteem. It was the lack of outside feedback that made it impossible to live with myself. I couldn’t sit down; I couldn’t enjoy anything. I didn’t know who I was. I wanted to scream ‘Who the fuck am I?’ I decided to work out my morals – am I prepared to lie, am I prepared to cheat, or do I want to be honest and reliable? I built up the things I believe to be my own values. Looking back, it was one of the most healthy things to happen to me in terms of self-awareness and holding on to who I am. It’s a good thing to know who you are.”
Having had that experience, is solitude something you enjoy and seek out?
”I’ve always enjoyed going on a long run and that time alone; it’s a reset and I value that time massively. It’s so easy to distract yourself in life; you go on your phone, or you grab some chocolate, or you have a cigarette or you have a drink – there are a million different ways to distract yourself from sitting with you as a person. About a year after coming off the island I had a breakdown; it was learning to meditate and just be comfortable in my own skin that was really valuable. Being on your own for a short while can be positive and indulgent.”
We know we currently have readers who are stuck at homing dreaming of their next adventure. How do you go about creating your expeditions?
“It’s always started with an idea. The bigger expeditions – the walking the Amazon type ones – come up as an idea that both scares me and makes me do somersaults inside; could it be possible to actually do that? The more the concept sunk in the more I thought ‘this is something I’m going to do’. I personally believed it was possible. Everyone was telling me it was impossible. That was quite annoying. I was like ‘why are you being so negative?’ Surely any one of those days is walkable. Just bolt them all together and it’ll be possible.
“Telling people you’re going to do it is a big thing too. The energy’s out there, then. ‘I’m going to walk the Amazon!’ ‘That’s cool, Ed Stafford’s going to walk the Amazon!’ Then it becomes embarrassing if you don’t walk the Amazon so you’ve got to do it!”
Is taking a massive challenge and breaking it down into its component parts or days a standard tactic for you?
“I think that was actually the way I was calming myself down for the expedition! The whole thing in its entirety was overwhelming; I think that’s why most people thought it was impossible. I’d done a number of expeditions for conservation charities and I knew I was competent. I could swing a machete, I could set up a hammock, I could look after my feet; surely I could bolt together an expedition that’s really long? It wasn’t rocket science really: pack a rucksack, put one foot in front of the other and walk. Over the years it has proved to be a good tactic not to get overwhelmed by things.”
Is there a sense that sometimes you just have to give these things a go and see how they turn out?
”Yeah. When I went to do the Amazon, it had been suggested that I should go and do more smaller, shorter expeditions first. That’s such a stupid attitude, that you have earn your stripes spending years and years doing ever-so-slightly incrementally bigger expeditions. 110 years ago, only four of the ninety-something people on Captain Scott’s expedition could ski before they set foot on the ice! I just think that’s what exploration is – it’s about being ballsy! It might be a bit reckless, but I like that. If everything is calculated down to the last nail, it kind of takes the soul out of it. That’s why I still do adventures, that concept of being put into situations where you don’t have all the answers. That’s the fun thing. You’ve learned a bit more a become a better version of yourself.
But are you still a fan of poring over maps?
”I love maps. I’m a geographer, I could spend hours looking at maps. That said, walking the Amazon, most of it was done with black and white print outs of Google Earth! You just had to roughly go east! Walk towards the sun in the morning, walk away from the sun in the afternoon. I’m quite a dreamer, though. If I let myself think of these things late at night I won’t sleep. Name an expedition and I’ll spend hours and hours and days and days thinking about it!”
Any advice for would-be adventurers?
“You’re no different afterwards unless you’ve learned something along the way. Having walked the Amazon, the Guinness World Record means diddly-squat, but the lessons learned make you a more rounded human being. I think it’s looking for those things that challenge you, that allow you to grow. And sometimes that’s stuff that isn’t particularly pleasant at the time.”
Finally, any big adventures in the pipeline at the moment?
”My wife and I have twin baby girls on the way! That’ll do for now!”
Lockdown Survival
Ed is an ambassador for Vivobarefoot footwear. As part of their #VivobarefootHealthBroadcast, he shared his top tips for surviving lockdown:
Using your daily exercise to get outside not only gives you physical benefits and some vitamin D, but also helps give you some perspective, particularly on your household and those you are locked down with!
Meditate. You don’t have to spend all your time in lockdown with other members of your household. Taking that time for yourself will make you a better housemate to them.
Attitude. The difference between an adventure and an ordeal is your attitude. You can take control and have power in your life by taking responsibility and having a positive attitude.
Ed Stafford is the Guinness World Record-holding first person to walk the Amazon River. In 2011 he was awarded European Adventurer of the Year and the Mungo Park Medal by the Royal Scottish Geographical Society in recognition of outstanding contributions to geographical knowledge through exploration.
Sir Ranulph Fiennes described his expedition as being “truly extraordinary… in the top league of expeditions past and present.” Ed is now an established face of Discovery Channel and his seventh series Ed Stafford: First Man Out airs on Discovery Channel late 2018 globally.
Read more about Ed at edstafford.org
