Raising Outside Kids in A Digital World - Henry Brydon (We Are Explorers)

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Today's guest is Henry Brydon — adventurer, writer, and founder of We Are Explorers (Australia's biggest adventure publication) and Outside Kids (a platform for dads raising adventurous children).

In this episode, Henry shares his epic two-year, 38,000km bicycle journey from London to Sydney through 30 countries — including Central Asia in minus 30°C temperatures and the Middle East during the Arab Spring, all on a $5/day budget. He unpacks what the trip taught him, how it shaped his mission to raise adventurous kids, and why "good friction" matters for children growing up in a world full of digital distractions.

This is great conversation and even more so for fathers

Guest Links

• Outside Kids: https://outsidekids.co.uk
• We Are Explorers: https://www.weareexplorers.co
• Henry Brydon Instagram

Chapters
00:00 —"Let's go to Beijing"
00:56 — Welcome to the Adventure Diaries Podcast
02:31 — Meet Henry Brydon of Outside Kids & We Are Explorers
03:26 — Growing up in Shrewsbury & the road trip that sparked it all
07:22 — From Dubai recruiter to London–Sydney by bike</title>
10:16 — The route: Europe → Balkans → Middle East → Asia
11:28 — Kurdistan in midwinter & the kindness of strangers
12:56 — Arab Spring, Syria, Iraq & shifting world views
16:54 — Iran, Tehran couch-surfing & Indonesia highlights
19:15 — Arriving in Sydney & meeting Susie on day one
22:35 — Lessons from the trip: agency, self-belief, comfort with uncertainty
27:20 — Founding We Are Explorers
39:13 — Why he launched Outside Kids
43:22 — Dads, rough-and-tumble & writing with humor
47:26 — "Good friction": building resilience through discomfort
50:35 — Shared family memories & making the most of time with kids
54:46 — Advice for parents new to the outdoors (start small, geocaching, litter-picking adventures)
1:01:32 — Off-grid cabin trips & digital detox with "Brick"
1:05:11 — Upcoming dads & kids camp-out (June)
1:06:35 — Pay It Forward: Marcus Skeet (The Whole Boy)
1:08:50 — Call to Adventure: Tasmania & the Franklin River
1:10:27 — 10 Fire-Round Questions
1:17:51 — Wrap-up & where to find Henry

Transcript

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[00:00:00] Henry Brydon: It was like, let's just do a big trip. And at the time, you know, I think I was like, let's go to the end of Europe. 'cause that alone was like, whoa. Cycle to Turkey. That would be bad. Yeah. And then I think after a couple of beers it escalated and it was like, let's go to Beijing. It's the furthest, that's the furthest we could go to.

[00:00:15] Henry Brydon: Uh, I suppose the furst would be all the way around, but the other side of the planet for us was, was down under. And so we kind of just agreed there. And then after probably a few too many pints and hugs that, that, that's what we do. Since starting outside Kids is, I think a lot of our audience, a lot of the audience are, you know, people that haven't got a lot of experience doing this.

[00:00:34] Henry Brydon: Certainly some, certainly some that, that do, but just don't have time. And, and they perhaps want to bring that back. You know, they maybe had their, their former adventure selves and, and that identities in somewhat lost, and they're trying to figure out how to, how to do that with kids. But for a lot of them, it's like, for a lot of parents reading, they don't have a lot of experience and I think they feel overwhelmed.

[00:00:53] Henry Brydon: And the best advice I always give is 

[00:00:56] Podcast intro & welcome

[00:00:56] Announcer: welcome to the Adventure Diaries Podcast, where we share [00:01:00] tales of adventure, connection, and exploration from the smallest of creators to the larger than life adventurers. We hope their stories inspire you to go create your own extraordinary adventures. And now, your host, Chris Watson.

[00:01:19] Chris Watson: Welcome to another episode of The Adventure Diaries. Today we're joined by Henry Brydon, adventurer, writer and founder of both. We are Explorers, Australia's biggest adventure publication and more laterally outside kids, a platform for dads raising adventurous children in a world full of digital distractions.

[00:01:42] Chris Watson: Henry also undertook an epic two year cycling adventure cycling from London to Sydney over 38,000 kilometers through 30 countries across Central Asia in minus 30 degree temperatures, and through the Middle East [00:02:00] during the Arab Spring, and all in a shoestring budget of only $5 a day. And in today's episode, we unpack that bike trip, what it taught Henry, and how those same lessons now drive his mission to raise adventurous kids, kids who embrace challenge, discomfort, and the great outdoors.

[00:02:20] Chris Watson: And as a father, I absolutely love this. So please settle in and enjoy this fantastic conversation with Henry Brydon.

[00:02:31] Meet Henry Brydon

[00:02:31] Chris Watson: Henry Brydon, welcome to the Adventure Diaries. How are you? 

[00:02:35] Henry Brydon: Chris, thanks so much for having me, mate. I'm super excited to be here. I was looking at the, um, the lineup of previous guests you've had and listened to some of them and 

[00:02:43] Chris Watson: yeah, 

[00:02:44] Henry Brydon: I'm an esteemed company, so 

[00:02:45] Chris Watson: yeah, 

[00:02:45] Henry Brydon: I really appreciate you inviting me on.

[00:02:47] Chris Watson: Excellent. No, that the, uh, it's an absolute pleasure for me. It's, uh, there's a lot to kinda get through today and, and unpack. Uh, you've been kinda on the radar a little bit, uh, a little bit a, a long time, but it was actually with We Explorers. I didn't [00:03:00] actually say to you off offline, that was on my to-do list on one of my whiteboards that's over there.

[00:03:04] Chris Watson: And then when I seen the outside kids launch, I thought, that's the catalyst. So I brought that forward. So I am equally excited to have you on today and I I, I do appreciate it. So with that said, foreshadowing a little, but the kinda conversation frame that we will get to, to the other crux of this is about raising adventurous kids, particularly in our, in our world that is full of digital distractions.

[00:03:26] Growing up in Shrewsbury & the road trip that sparked it all

[00:03:26] Chris Watson: So that's kinda what I want to get to in some of your, uh, your fantastic adventures. And there's some amazing stuff in your newsletter as well, which we'll come to as well. So we'll come to that in time, but bringing it right back into Switch it more to you and to shut me up a little bit. So what was like life like for Young Henry was you grew up in Shrewsbury, what was your formative experience?

[00:03:47] Henry Brydon: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I grew up in, um, in a little medieval market town in Srhi, which is one of the most rural counties in the uk I think. So, um, you know, as, as is normally the way you don't really [00:04:00] appreciate how wonderful it is. It's only since I've grown up and I've gone back, I'm like, wow, I wish I was more into like hill walking when I was younger.

[00:04:07] Henry Brydon: The Srhi Hills are crazy. But yeah, I, I, I think growing up, you know, I'd love to say that I was, you know, sort of raised by wolves and, and um, you know, spent lots of time surviving in the wilderness, but it was nothing crazy for me growing up, you know, like caravan around the UK and to France and Spain was probably like the preferred mode of, of travel for my family.

[00:04:29] Henry Brydon: And you know, I grew up with three brothers. One of 'em is a twin, and so we're all quite close in age as well. So, you know, if we had a garden and some trees to play around in, we could pretty much have an adventure anywhere. And so I wouldn't say my childhood was overly adventurous, but we were really good at creating, you know, fun, adventurous moments.

[00:04:52] Henry Brydon: And there was probably one trip that really stood out when I was younger and I think I would've been about 11. And we did a, it [00:05:00] was one of the main sort of big overseas trips we did. And that was over to the states and we, we'd road tripped. I know you were in the states quite recently. We were, we were a bit further up towards, uh, South Dakota, Wyoming.

[00:05:11] Henry Brydon: And I knew nothing about this area at all before we went there, but I just remember doing this road trip for a week or two through those two states, making it up as we went. You know, me and me and my, my brothers and mom and dad. And I just remember probably for the first time, tapping into that sense of awe.

[00:05:31] Henry Brydon: You know, like big landscapes, just like having my little brain blown and I can distinctly remember the music we were listening to in the car. I remember the stop evers that we were doing. I remember going to the Badlands. Is at sunset, which is the crazy landscape. And I just remember thinking like, this is, there's a big wide world out there to explore.

[00:05:52] Henry Brydon: And that I think that really etched something. 

[00:05:55] Chris Watson: Yeah. 

[00:05:55] Henry Brydon: You know, in my psyche. And, and I think, uh, I think I've probably just been trying to chase that sense [00:06:00] of, of awe now for, 

[00:06:02] Chris Watson: yeah. 

[00:06:02] Henry Brydon: Forever. Since, 

[00:06:03] Chris Watson: yeah. I, that's phenomenal. We'll talk when we get into outside kids. We'll, we'll talk about that kinda, I think someone said it to me on one of the earlier seasons about planting that seed of adventure, and if I can do it, it was Cy Dermo and he, he was a guy that paddled across a Pacific and the Atlantic kayak, but he, he said, if I can plant that seed of adventure and a kid when they're like, I think it was 11 or 13, imagine what they'll do in their, you know, in their twenties and thirties.

[00:06:28] Chris Watson: And it's, it's always stuck with me. And you talk about that road trip. I'd been to, to the States and we were planning a road trip in the States this year when my, my little girl's living, well, she will be living by the time this happens, but we kind of flipped it and went, uh, going to Canada and it coincides with our Okay.

[00:06:44] Chris Watson: School project that she's got. But we just, we we're sitting on like, I boat maps and books and we're sitting on YouTube and we're kinda armchair adventuring about the road triple ready. And we just like, were dotted. Bikini little places that, that we're absolutely going to go, but there's a lot of room for, [00:07:00] let's just see what happens when we get there.

[00:07:01] Chris Watson: And I would love, like if, if Nina in, you know, 15, 20 years time said something like, you just said that it was Exed in our mind, I think we'll be, we'll be doing something right. So, uh, that's 

[00:07:11] Henry Brydon: so cool. Yeah. It's, it's it's potent stuff. 

[00:07:14] Chris Watson: Yeah. 

[00:07:14] Henry Brydon: Those trips. And I think when you're introducing young people, especially when it's your own offspring Yeah.

[00:07:20] Henry Brydon: It's so special. 

[00:07:20] Chris Watson: Yeah. 

[00:07:21] Henry Brydon: Oh, that sounds amazing, Chris. 

[00:07:22] From Dubai recruiter to London–Sydney by bike

[00:07:22] Chris Watson: Yeah. Uh, right. So, so how do you go from that to cycling from London to Sydney? Because, 'cause that's pretty, uh, that's pretty, 

[00:07:30] Henry Brydon: yeah. Well I think as a younger person, I went with the flow, you know, did school, did a gap year, did uni, ended up in London, was working in a recruitment job and, you know, realized that I was at the absolute prime of my life.

[00:07:43] Henry Brydon: And I think whilst some of my peers seemed quite content with heading down, you know, the career path and. And, and doing that at that age, I certainly felt, uh, like I was somewhat repulsed by that, at that, at that moment. You know, I had so much energy to do something really [00:08:00] interesting and exciting, and that voice just got louder and louder in my head to, to, you know, to do something about it.

[00:08:06] Henry Brydon: At the time, I'd actually relocated to the Middle East. I was working in Dubai, you know, I was recruiting people into banks during a, a global financial crisis. I mean, it was all, it was awful on many, many levels and, you know, it, it was the perfect storm. You know, I'd been reading lots of books about people that had done these big adventures, particularly by bike, and it had gone from that sense of, gosh, like, how'd you go about doing that?

[00:08:29] Henry Brydon: And then the, the self-doubt that comes with, well, I couldn't do that. You've gotta be sort of hardcore to do something like that, to then getting to a point where you're like, screw it. Let's let, let, let's go. And, and it seemed like my environment was pointing me towards shaking things up and, and, and making a change.

[00:08:46] Henry Brydon: And, and so that's what I ended up doing. I think I was 24 or 25 at the time, and I basically said, fuck it. Let's. Mm-hmm. Let's buy the bike, save up some money and uh, and point the wheels east. 

[00:08:57] Chris Watson: Yeah. And two, two years, wasn't it like [00:09:00] 38,000 kilometers or something? 

[00:09:01] Henry Brydon: Yeah, yeah. It was two years at the time. It sort of started out, it was me and a another guy that I met through a, a mutual friend who thankfully, you know, we got on really well, which was quite handy when you're gonna be living in a, in the same tent for two years.

[00:09:13] Henry Brydon: Initially we, it was like, let's just do a big trip. And at the time, you know, I think I was like, let's go to the end of Europe. 'cause that alone was like, whoa. Cycle to Turkey. That'd be mad. Yeah. And then I think after a couple of beers it escalated and it was like, let's go to Beijing. You know, let's cycle all the way across Asia.

[00:09:28] Henry Brydon: And then it sort of goes out next step further where you're like, what's the furthest, what's the furthest we could go to?

[00:09:37] Chris Watson: Can I ask a quick favor? Please. If you are enjoying the Adventure Diaries Podcast, could I ask that you take the time to click that subscribe or follow button, and if you're feeling extra generous, a written review or a star rating on your platform or choice would be greatly appreciated. Now let's get back to the episode.

[00:09:57] Chris Watson: Thank you. 

[00:09:58] Henry Brydon: I suppose the first would be all the way around, but [00:10:00] you know, the other side of the planet for us was, was down under. 

[00:10:02] Chris Watson: Yeah. 

[00:10:03] Henry Brydon: And so we kind of just agreed there and then after probably a few too many pints and hugs that, that that's what we do. So yeah, it was, it was two years in the end, uh, and it was through 30 countries and yeah, close to 40,000 Ks, I think in the end.

[00:10:16] The route: Europe to Asia

[00:10:16] Chris Watson: Wow. What, what was your route into Australia, if you don't mind me asking? Yeah. How did you get, because obviously it's not, it's not landlocked, so how, what, what, what route did you get into Australia? 

[00:10:26] Henry Brydon: Yeah, so we, we've obviously crossed over into France and the idea was let's get to, uh, Istanbul and then we'll hop on the sort of Silk Road or Silk Road network of roads and then work our way through into, into China and um, and then down into Southeast Asia and, and sort of basically island hop.

[00:10:43] Henry Brydon: Mm-hmm. The plan was to go as far as East Timor basically just, you know, cycle as much of it as we possibly could and get boats when we needed to. So yeah, that's what we did. We, we kind of ended up sort of in Europe, we got about a month or so in, and we thought we were following the Danube, which is quite a, uh, a safe track.[00:11:00]

[00:11:01] Henry Brydon: It's obviously very flat, so following a river. And so I think when we got to Hungary. Somewhere around there. Um, yeah, I think it was Budapest. We decided to mix it up and we ended up sort of heading down into the Balkans. We got to go into like some amazing, uh, parts of, you know, into Montenegro and Serbia and Albania, and it was ama that was where it started to get, okay, this is getting exciting now.

[00:11:22] Henry Brydon: This is kind of really off the beaten track, but then it really got fruity when we got into the Middle East and Central Asia. 

[00:11:28] Chris Watson: I was gonna, 

[00:11:28] Kurdistan in midwinter & the kindness of strangers

[00:11:28] Henry Brydon: that was just like, 

[00:11:29] Chris Watson: I was gonna, you 

[00:11:29] Henry Brydon: know, when I think about the trip, like if, when you ask me about the trip, it's like, the picture that I have in mind straightaway is, is the Middle East.

[00:11:37] Henry Brydon: It's like these big empty landscapes, the kind people that we met there, you know, all those sort of weird things that happen when you cycle in that part of the world and, and to, and to top that section off. We, we basically rode through Kurdistan in, we didn't realize it at the time when we were planning because we were just sort of going with the flow.

[00:11:54] Henry Brydon: We realized that we were gonna ride across the mountain range of Kurdistan. In midwinter. It was like minus, [00:12:00] I think it was minus 30 when we got there, and it was about 4,000 meter peaks. And you're riding through. You know, like 

[00:12:07] Chris Watson: take, it was like a three season. 

[00:12:08] Henry Brydon: I mean, everything about it is like 

[00:12:09] Chris Watson: three season tent or something that you took, I imagine.

[00:12:12] Chris Watson: Yeah, 

[00:12:12] Henry Brydon: we did. And actually, you know what, because once again, revisiting that point about the friendliness of people there, our bacon was saved on so many occasions that we barely slept in our tent. Honestly. People would look at us and probably take one look at us and be like, are you all right in the head, mate?

[00:12:28] Henry Brydon: Do you wanna come in for a, for a bite to eat and a, and a warm bed for the night? And so that, that happened, you know, most nights to be honest in that part of the world. And, and that's sort of what got us, got us through it. But it was, um, but yeah, that, that, that, that was the highlight of the trip for sure.

[00:12:43] Henry Brydon: And then we sort of continued onwards into Asia and, and then down into more tropical climates. Yeah. Which has its own challenges, but it's, you know, the real test. I think we earned our stripes. 

[00:12:53] Chris Watson: Yeah. 

[00:12:54] Henry Brydon: In the Middle East and Central Asia, I'd say. 

[00:12:56] Arab Spring, Syria, Iraq & shifting world views

[00:12:56] Chris Watson: Did you encounter any geopolitical challenges or anything [00:13:00] like that with visas or just hostilities or anything like that that you had to navigate?

[00:13:04] Henry Brydon: We sort of had to plan around it. We, we were, so as we set off in 2010 and there was definitely some uprisings happening around the Middle East and 

[00:13:12] Chris Watson: that was the Arab Spring was, 

[00:13:13] Henry Brydon: and actually not long after we were 

[00:13:15] Chris Watson: there. Yeah, it was not long after the Arab Spring is what. 

[00:13:17] Henry Brydon: That's right. Yeah. Yeah. It was around, it was around that time we were able to, we had no intentions of going to Syria and, and Iraq, but as we were riding through into Turkey, you know, we went to the embassies and we were just, you know, looking at all the forums and seeing what was going down.

[00:13:30] Henry Brydon: But, and at the time, you know, you could get a two week visa into Syria, so we thought, oh, screw it. Let's, let's, let's go there. And, and I think, you know, then we're like, well, we're really near to Kurdish, Iraq. Let's just cycle across that part of the, the country. And so actually, and at the time, you know, there were obviously places like Afghanistan we were probably gonna steer, steer clear of, but actually in hindsight, we got quite lucky.

[00:13:50] Henry Brydon: You know, we were able to, you know, go to places that, you know, right now, you know, are not possible to, to ride through it. And certainly not, not encouraged. So, [00:14:00] um, no, I think, I think we did all right actually. We were able to plot and we didn't have to like backtrack and get a flight to skip countries.

[00:14:05] Henry Brydon: Yeah. We were able to figure it all out on the road as, as we went. 

[00:14:09] Chris Watson: Being a kinda young, a, a younger man at that point. And, and it's, you know, we don't want to label anything stereotypes or whatever, but from a fear perspective or a hubris perspective, did, did, did you have like any views guarantee that, that were changed by your experiences?

[00:14:25] Chris Watson: 'cause sometimes there is negative connotations with, you know, that part of the world and you know, does fear come into your planning and stuff? But it seems like you've, Iraq for example, embraced that and you actually traveled through it. But how much of your kind of world views might have been changed by some of those experiences?

[00:14:41] Henry Brydon: Yeah. Oh, big time. You know, I think, I think we're just so conditioned, you know, through the media to, you know, consider countries like that as absolute ogo areas. And I think there's an element of truth there. You know, obviously you've got to be clever about the times that you visit, and there's often [00:15:00] pockets of, you know, these countries that you need to need to avoid.

[00:15:03] Henry Brydon: But, you know, I think we've all heard, you know, the saying, don't, don't necessarily, you know, believe what you read. And I think it very much applies to travel through, through that part of the world. I think, I think the thing that you hear about a lot, and you will read about before you go on these sorts of adventures is particularly in that part of the world, is how hospitable people are.

[00:15:22] Henry Brydon: And it's, it's sort of hard and you, and you read stories about people getting invited in and you know, you can hear it multiple times, but you still don't really believe that it's possible because we're so conditioned by what we, you know, our fears and what we read. Whereas you have to see it. But to, you have to experience it to, to believe that.

[00:15:38] Henry Brydon: And, and it's only after going on that sort of experience that of course it's gonna alter the way that you think about, you know, how connected we all are as people. And you know, maybe when you hear news stories having gone through these places, you'll. You know, your opinions have have shifted like dramatically.

[00:15:55] Henry Brydon: And actually what we found out was that these were some of the most lovely, [00:16:00] hospitable, kind, caring, you know, people that we've ever met. And it's only when you come back to your own country that you go, actually, we're all a bit bloody uptight and unfriendly here. I often think like if I saw a guy ride, you know, whoever, someone riding past my house on a bike and they were looking desperate.

[00:16:13] Henry Brydon: I, I mean, I think I, you know, having gone through my experiences, I, I would probably, um, invite 'em in, but many people would just be like, what you doing? Get off my doorstep. You creep. 

[00:16:21] Chris Watson: Yeah, I, I mean, it's, it's so true. I mean, we talk about, and we, we can label these places as bad or NoGo areas or danger, and it's just as, I mean, some of the city centers that we've got in the UK can be, you know, as bad, and we've got this little ivory tower and this little island of the UK that we like to, you know, look down on people A lot it's, or certainly from a media perspective and it's, it's just not on, but what, is there any areas of that entire journey, not necessarily just the Middle East, but reflecting on that, that kind of stand out or sit with you anywhere that, you know, you had really good cultural interactions or experiences?

[00:16:54] Iran, Tehran couch-surfing & Indonesia highlights

[00:16:54] Henry Brydon: Yeah, as I said, like definitely Iran, Kurdistan were places that, [00:17:00] I mean, just, just blew me away. I, I, I remember one. I mean, we, we got into Tehran and we were couch surfing, which is a platform that I don't think is popular as it as it used to be. I think Airbnb 

[00:17:12] Chris Watson: Yeah. Took away, 

[00:17:12] Henry Brydon: yeah. Kind of came in and cannibalized it.

[00:17:14] Henry Brydon: But, uh, but we were couch surfing a bit when we went into cities and we had a couch surfer that fell through when we got into Tehran. Bearing in mind we just ridden like a hundred Ks down these crazy motorways to get into the military on, and our, our ca uh, character ditched us and some guy who's standing next to us, he speak really good English over there.

[00:17:32] Henry Brydon: And, um, you know, he had sort of overheard what we were talking about and said, if you need any help, give us a call. And, um, so we gave, we got his number and we gave him ours. We had like a, a mobile phone, not a smartphone. We sort of did this trip pre smartphones, which, uh, in hindsight I'm pretty glad we did.

[00:17:49] Henry Brydon: But yeah, the guy gave us a call about five minutes later and said, why don't you come and why don't you come and stay at my place? I'm just a, you know, I've got this apartment at, in North Teran. So we sort of rode up into North Teran and he had a bloody [00:18:00] penthouse apartment that looked out over 

[00:18:01] Chris Watson: Wow. 

[00:18:01] Henry Brydon: Over Teran.

[00:18:02] Henry Brydon: And we ended up staying with him for two weeks. He took his paraglider, he's part of this underground paragliding club. He takes all these like rogue parties that were like tightly off limits and illegal, you know, just moments like that. So, so I, I always feel drawn to the Middle East as a, as a, as a place that kind of invited such wonderful, like humility and humanity.

[00:18:21] Chris Watson: Mm-hmm. 

[00:18:22] Henry Brydon: I think somewhere else that really like stood out for me was Indonesia. I loved Indonesia. Really loved it. We went over to, um, Sumatra and, and we, we sort of rode from pretty much, pretty much the top to the bottom in it. It wasn't actually that long after the, the big tuna. So, and this, and it was still ravaged in many ways.

[00:18:41] Henry Brydon: I just remember, I just remember being bloke that people like were friendly, but it was more just one of the most beautiful 

[00:18:48] Chris Watson: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:18:48] Henry Brydon: Places I've ever been like staying up in Lake Tober in the, in the north and you know, staying on an island in the middle of a volcanic crater that's filled with water and you're like, is this, is this really, like, is this real?

[00:18:59] Henry Brydon: This feels like a fairytale [00:19:00] or something. 

[00:19:00] Chris Watson: Yeah, it's a grass, it's Park Lost world kind of feel about it, isn't it? 

[00:19:03] Henry Brydon: It's got to go that kind of vibe 

[00:19:05] Chris Watson: idea. I mean, I haven't actually been, but just look like kinda looking at it. One of my friends kind goes to Indonesia quite, quite a bit. Uh, incredible. 

[00:19:14] Henry Brydon: It is great.

[00:19:15] Arriving in Sydney & meeting Susie

[00:19:15] Chris Watson: Australia did, did you have a plan to like settle and then work or what, what was, what was that like, because it's, it's not like you can just turn the bike round in cycle back. So what was your plan when you got to Australia? 

[00:19:27] Henry Brydon: Well, I'd say we got, I'd say I got maybe like a month or two into the trip and I honestly thought, this is me.

[00:19:34] Henry Brydon: Like I'm just gonna, 

[00:19:35] Chris Watson: mm-hmm. 

[00:19:36] Henry Brydon: We were just like having the most amazing time, you know, that sense of waking up every day, total freedom to, to go where we want, do what we wanna do, sleep where we wanna sleep. It was such a great feeling, and I remember thinking, I think I just wanna be a, like a, a traveling hobo for the rest of my life, basically.

[00:19:54] Henry Brydon: This is just me. This is me made. And so, you know, and of course you're sat on a saddle [00:20:00] for like eight or nine hours a day. Dreaming up the future. And so you're thinking of all the other things that you wanna do and, and like, you know, it's, it's quite a powerful feeling, you know, when you're on the road, you know, especially on that kind of trip, you know, you just, the mind wonders and the imagination kicks in and you're like, wow, okay, so where are we gonna go after Sydney?

[00:20:18] Henry Brydon: You know, initially we'd said Sydney, but like, where are we gonna go after? And so the plan was to basically save some Aussie dollars and then head over to South America. And at the time we'd been reading a lot about pack rafting and, and so the plan was to fly over there and, and maybe get off the saddle for a while and, and pack craft some of the tributaries around and into the Amazon.

[00:20:38] Henry Brydon: And I once to get like absolute delusional optimism because we'd never really spent any time on a river before. But like, yeah, screw it. Let's just Benedict Allen. It was like Roman dial and it was, but that's what I mean. It was like you just sort of have this sense of like, anything's possible. And uh, and yeah, so that was the plan was to save money and then go, and then we, we had plans to go get back on the bikes, ride up to Canada, we're gonna work on the [00:21:00] trains over there, ride across Canada and then over to Africa.

[00:21:02] Henry Brydon: Just, just keep going. And then it was like start adventure camps and, you know, yeah. Start bars over here and Oh, it was, yeah, it was, it was kind of loose. But then I met someone on the first day I got to. Sydney 

[00:21:15] Chris Watson: and the first day, 

[00:21:16] Henry Brydon: and that was not, 

[00:21:16] Chris Watson: wow. 

[00:21:17] Henry Brydon: That was the first day. Wow. Yeah. So we arrived in, my friend had organized a, a bit of a welcome thing.

[00:21:22] Henry Brydon: We were on breakfast TV in Australia, and then we had this big, big party afterwards, and my mate had organized, and it was at Susie's house. It was like her house party, it was at Susie's. And you know, she's upstairs trying to wrestle my two kids to sleep now. So, yeah. And, and that kind of changed things a little bit.

[00:21:38] Henry Brydon: I, I, I'd also say, and not to take anything away from Susie, she did steal my heart, but also. We've been on the road for like two years and it was actually really nice just to stay somewhere and make some friends that, you know, for longer than like, if a couple of days. And, and I dunno if you have, you spent much time in Australia?

[00:21:58] Chris Watson: I've never, I didn't, I've never been to Australia [00:22:00] at all. No. 

[00:22:02] Henry Brydon: A lot of people go and, and don't come back 'cause it is, it's a great place. And, and I, and I, you know, I just loved it. So we just, we stayed and, and then yeah, there was obviously the absolute crash of it all where you kind of realize shit like, you know, I really miss sleeping in the woods every night.

[00:22:15] Henry Brydon: I really miss that sense of like, freedom and possibility, yada yada. But um, but yeah, after working through some, a bit of a mini breakdown, I suppose I got myself back in on the straight and narrow and, and thought more about, okay, well if I'm gonna be in Australia for the foreseeable, how can I use this trip that, you know, had changed my life.

[00:22:35] Lessons from the trip

[00:22:35] Henry Brydon: Absolutely changed my life. It really had, I mean, it given me a. You know, the big lesson I thought I, I took from that whole trip was like, not letting experience get in the way. You know, the whole thing was about, I'm out of my comfort zone from the very start, and I, I mean, literally about a month or two before the trip, I went for a ride with my dad and I got a flat tire.

[00:22:55] Henry Brydon: And I said to dad, do you, do you know how to repair, fix a, a flat tire? [00:23:00] I never, I never fixed a puncture before. And he was, honestly, his, his, the look in his face, he was so horrified. He, he, he really wasn't excited about me sort of heading off into the unknown. I mean, no, he was supported, but he was definitely worried.

[00:23:13] Henry Brydon: But I, but I think, you know, right from the get go, that was me out of my comfort zone and you know, I sort of proved to myself that I can do something that's kind of, that's kind of wild. And, and you, you spend these two years moving through all these wild places and unfamiliar cultures and you realize pretty quickly that the world is like, it's a big place and whatever life throws at you, you can sort of figure it out.

[00:23:36] Henry Brydon: And, and I think it sort of made me less anxious. Yeah. About uncertainty and more comfortable saying kinda yes to things that before I had all the answers. Like that self-belief was really great. So I was like, okay, well I've got this like, renewed sense of like. Agency over myself and what I can do. So, so that was where I kind of got to.

[00:23:55] Chris Watson: Yeah, and I mean, there's a, there's a lot of lessons in that. Because [00:24:00] firstly, well, it's amazing that you met you. You're now, are you married? Is it? Yeah, yeah, we're married. Yeah, you married. So, I mean, it's worked out fantastic. We'll come on to all the great stuff that you're doing now. So it's almost like, you know, you at those points in time, it might feel like it's a sacrifice to give up all these imaginative ideas and chase the world, you know, and, and settle to settle down.

[00:24:18] Chris Watson: But someone, you know, got your heart and it's like, it doesn't put, it, doesn't mean it can never happen again. You can't have adventures and adventures mean something different at different stages of your life with different people as well, which Will, will, will come to. And coincidentally, I had a similar story where I went to move to Canada and came back and then went on a, uh, goodbye weekend to IA and came back ready, it packed my bags and went, and I was convinced to go out on a Sunday night, which I would never go out on a Sunday back home and met my wife who's, and we've been together 25 years and I, and that just put all my Canadian, uh, dreams on hold.

[00:24:52] Chris Watson: And now five years later we're, we're going to Canada on a road trip. So it's still, it's, it's life's full of odd oddities. 

[00:24:59] Henry Brydon: [00:25:00] But just at 25 years to finally do it, mate, 

[00:25:02] Chris Watson: it's, it's, it's much. Yeah, that's 

[00:25:03] Henry Brydon: correct. 

[00:25:04] Chris Watson: But yeah, so, so, so can I, so how, how long were you in Australia for then? 

[00:25:10] Henry Brydon: Yeah, so, so we arrived, uh, Jamie and I arrived in 20, uh, 12, I think it was in the, the march I think it was.

[00:25:21] Henry Brydon: Yeah, March, 2012. And then I'd just moved back to the UK in 2024. Uh, in fact, I'd arrived in Australia a little bit before when we arrived. We sort of basically had zero money left. We, we ended up not making it to East Timor. We sort of made it quite far down. We ran outta money and then we had to get a flight from Bali into Darwin.

[00:25:43] Henry Brydon: And I saw how much a sandwich cost at the airport and I thought, okay, we need to go and get some, make some money. It was like three times our daily budget. You know, our budget was $5 a day. Yeah. For the whole, for the trip. So, you know, we really did it, um, of the smell of an oily rags. A sandwich was like, you know, 10 [00:26:00] Aussie dollars.

[00:26:00] Henry Brydon: It was like, yeah, it's not happening. So, um, so we picked mangoes for a couple months. I worked in a fishing lodge called Dundee on Dundee Beach, which my mate mates found very, very amusing. Then Yeah. And then, yeah. So, so, so it was around sort of the end of 2011, early 2012 that I made there. Yeah. Made it there.

[00:26:17] Chris Watson: So I'm, I'm studying the map in your background. He, yeah. Where is it? Is that somewhere in the uk? 

[00:26:26] Henry Brydon: So where, where I am now? 

[00:26:27] Chris Watson: Yeah. What is the map that on your wall behind you? 

[00:26:30] Henry Brydon: Sorry, the one behind me. Sorry. No, this is the forest of Dean. So, um, is it, 

[00:26:32] Chris Watson: ah, okay. 

[00:26:33] Henry Brydon: That green pl is, um, so the River seven is the one that sort of, 

[00:26:37] Chris Watson: ah, 

[00:26:37] Henry Brydon: works up all the way up to Robury.

[00:26:38] Henry Brydon: Actually, I have plotted out a, an adventure up to my hometown, or from my hometown Robury down to where I live now, which would probably take a, a good couple of weeks, but, but yeah, that's the River seven. And then the green pl is the Forester deem, which is, you know, essentially created as a, as a royal hunting ground a few hundred years ago.

[00:26:54] Henry Brydon: And, and now they've, yeah, it's basically just a little adventure playground on, on my doorstep, which is pretty fun. 

[00:26:59] Chris Watson: [00:27:00] Excellent. Yeah. Yeah. I'll, I'll speak to you about some stuff off Lena, about that. 'cause I, I don't know when this episode will go out and I can't, I, I can't say too much about, about the, some, some something similar that's, so I just wanna pick your brains on 'cause I'm planning something similar.

[00:27:11] Chris Watson: Yeah, that's what kind of, uh, caught my eye, uh, anyway. Cool. I, uh, I digress. So, so you're back in shops share, but actually 

[00:27:19] Founding We Are Explorers

[00:27:19] Chris Watson: rolling back a little bit. So we are explorers. That is the, the next kinda topic I wanted to get into is your brand and in that kind of adventure media business, did you set that up when you were in Australia?

[00:27:32] Henry Brydon: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So, so once I got to Sydney, I got a, uh, sort of an office, kind of an office job I suppose you call it. It was quite interesting, but it was just kind of hard being sat in front of a compu computer and, and then I, I sort of quit that quite quickly and ended up getting into corporate team building and that was, that, that was kind of fun, but I really wanted to.

[00:27:52] Henry Brydon: Do something that was mine and I wanted it to be somewhat in the realm of, you know, what I've been [00:28:00] doing for the last few years with Adventure. So yeah, started Wear Explorers is basically a blog. In fact, I started it, it was, uh, it was called the six o'clock Club. And the idea was, you know, I needed to get out every weekend to kind of get back into the, into the bush and get my fix.

[00:28:14] Henry Brydon: And so I realized there were other people I was meeting that wanted to do the same thing. So at six o'clock every Friday. We would meet at a train station or you know, if we had cars in a car park and we'd get in the car and we'd just go off and we'd just go and explore places within two, two or three hours of, of Sydney.

[00:28:29] Henry Brydon: And there is so much to do within two or three hours of Sydney. It's, it's, it's, it's nuts. You can be from the, the cb from the CBD to, you know, deep bush with certainly feels like deep bush within 45 minutes to an hour from the sea. It's, it's, it's insane. And then once you go further out, there's just so many national parks and, and things to explore from mountains and rivers and coastline and it's amazing.

[00:28:49] Henry Brydon: So I always had all this like, excitement to, to get to know this place. And so lots of other people jumped on these trips and I realized quite quickly that. There's something in this, like there's lots of people that wanna do [00:29:00] more of this sort of stuff at the weekend. I don't particularly wanna become an adventure provider myself, but I certainly love the idea of like getting people stoked and excited about getting outdoors more.

[00:29:09] Henry Brydon: And so I started this blog which was, we Are Explorers and, and that just grew really quite quickly. You know, I found other people who also liked telling stories through, um, editorial, you know, video. And um, and I didn't have any money to pay them, but, you know, everyone jumped on board and, and started contributing to the site and it quickly had this community feel to it in terms of the creators that were put pulling it all together.

[00:29:35] Henry Brydon: It started to get lots of, you know, started to get more and more traffic on the site and we started to get lots of followers on social media and emails and I thought, I need to figure out how to like run it. This is a more of a legit operation. And so I quit my full-time job, uh, doing the corporate team building.

[00:29:51] Henry Brydon: Found out the next week that we were expecting our first child, and I was like, crap, well I really need to make this work because it's not making really any money yet. Uh. [00:30:00] But, um, you know, it's amazing what you can pull out the bag when you're really forced into a corner. Yeah. And, and that's, that, that's sort of the, that was the sort of impetus behind it.

[00:30:08] Henry Brydon: And, and what I'm really proud of is that it's still running today, 10 or 11 years on. We've got a team now who are just epic. There's, I think there's, at the moment there's seven full-time staff and then we've got this massive network of creators. Uh, they're called our, um, our explorer network. And there are around 300 or 400 of them, and they produce all this gold.

[00:30:29] Henry Brydon: And, um, we were able to grow it into like a legit business because, you know, brands and destinations would come to us or we'd go to them and, and we'd work out some really cool ways to get in front of this audience. And it's the biggest adventure publication in, in the country now. Yeah, it's super fun and it's been great to, you know, it's not been easy and there's certainly been some, it's been a rollercoaster, that's for sure.

[00:30:51] Henry Brydon: But also it's been super fun. Yeah, it's been an adventure in its own right and, and it's something I'm really proud of as it's, as it's grown and we do a lot to, to give back to [00:31:00] nature as well. And, you know, we've bought Rainforest and we've planted 

[00:31:03] Chris Watson: Wow. 

[00:31:03] Henry Brydon: A lot of trees and we've done lots of, lots of, uh, replanted cray wheated and off the coast of Sydney.

[00:31:08] Henry Brydon: And yeah, we're trying to use it as a platform that not only gets people excited and, but also, you know, is, is fulfilling the need to kind of look after and protect the places that we love exploring within. And so I'm really proud of that. And, um, and so it's still running today? 

[00:31:22] Chris Watson: Yeah, it's still going well.

[00:31:23] Chris Watson: It's going strong today. Uh, 'cause I've seen, I've seen the stuff that you post on LinkedIn and stuff like that, and it, it's a fantastic platform. I think everything with VR explorers and outside kids, you aesthetic everything about it. The storytelling, all the stuff that goes into it, just, it stands out a mile.

[00:31:38] Chris Watson: It's, it's excellent. It's a fantastic resource. 

[00:31:41] Henry Brydon: Oh, thanks man. 

[00:31:41] Chris Watson: Yeah. It's, uh, appreciate 

[00:31:42] Henry Brydon: that. 

[00:31:44] Chris Watson: Is there, how much did you contribute to that in the early days in terms of, because I, I mean, yeah, I love your writing and we'll come to the newsletter and stuff like that in a minute. Uh, some fantastic stuff in that I wanted to ask you about.

[00:31:55] Chris Watson: But how much did you contribute to that yourself? Did you route on the adventures in and around that [00:32:00] and then start just blogging about it? 

[00:32:02] Henry Brydon: Yeah, that's right. I mean, I was doing initially, you know, I was the, you know, the writer, the editor, the social social media person, you know, the partnerships guy, like doing everything and you know, it, it, it grew to a point where I could get someone in to help me with the editing.

[00:32:19] Henry Brydon: In particular, for the first few years I was very, very much on the tools doing, you know, a lot of the writing. But as I said, we kind of brought this, this crew of creators in and they were really the lifeblood, like the sort of DNA of of the brand. Was that it wasn't just a sort of a henry Brydon.com. It was, it was a, we are explorers.

[00:32:37] Henry Brydon: It's like, you know, no matter who you are, whether you are someone who's really experienced in the outdoors or if you're new to it, if you're a single mom or if you're someone who's like at the tail end and you know, you're just trying to reclaim that adventure time again, it really is this all inclusive place.

[00:32:51] Henry Brydon: And so I wanted all those different voices to come through what I was doing. And it, it's, it sort of got to a point where I was more able to [00:33:00] pick and choose the stuff that I do. Like we got really, I mean the, the guys would hate me, but you know, we had an opportunity. We do a little bit of international stuff.

[00:33:07] Henry Brydon: It's mainly focused on Australia. It's mainly focused on stuff you could do, you know. Within a few hours of your home, but we get the international gig, and I think there was one that came in for, for Peru a couple weeks ago, and I just sent the email around to the team. It's like, that's mine. That one hands off.

[00:33:20] Henry Brydon: But yeah, so I get to pick and choose the stuff now, which is, which is kind of cool. But, um, but yeah, I love writing and as is often the case, when your passion becomes your business, you often step away from the juicy stuff that you got you into it in the first place. I didn't, you know, I didn't set out.

[00:33:37] Henry Brydon: To run. We are explorer is to be like a businessman. 

[00:33:40] Chris Watson: Yeah. 

[00:33:40] Henry Brydon: I set, I set out to, you know, to build a business out of something that I loved. But yeah, that's been a, that's been, had its own challenges, but 

[00:33:48] Chris Watson: Yeah. 

[00:33:48] Henry Brydon: Yeah. Working out. 

[00:33:50] Chris Watson: Yeah. I had, I had, so I had a chat with, uh, a guy called Toon last week. I don if, you know, Toby's kinda in the, in the, the adventure, uh, filmmaking, uh, kinda [00:34:00] world.

[00:34:00] Chris Watson: Something you said there reminded me of that conversation. You've that and that conversation got quite philosophical actually. So it was, you know, if you ever listened to it, you'll, we, we go down all sorts of rabbit holes and mental health and, and stuff like that. But the topic of EK guy, which is a Japanese philosophy maybe, I'm not sure if I'm butchering it, but that's about finding something where you have purpose that you enjoy, that you can give back and you can earn from it.

[00:34:22] Chris Watson: And it, it's this confluence of things and it's, and when I speak to people like yourself that have kinda done that, it's nice and you can feel, and it's, it's warm and it's authentic, which is, which is great. And I think, you know, if you look at that journey, having that big adventure settling and also, you know, full of.

[00:34:37] Chris Watson: Imagination settling down, but still, you know, building this business and, you know, cards stacked against you where your, your, your, your partner getting pregnant and things like that. It's like, and you're still manage to build this. I think it's a, it is a really good example of that. If you follow your passion, but you, you work hard at it, there's, there's a lot of things that people can take from that, and it's never too late to actually start following your passion.

[00:34:57] Chris Watson: Even like, you know what, what I'm doing here, I, I left it for so [00:35:00] long and then started up again and it's, it's starting to really be, being really fulfilling and to see yourself doing that and then branching out into the outside kids thing, which is the next chapter. It's that just continuation it and it just reminds me of that thing you.

[00:35:15] Henry Brydon: That's a really beautiful philosophy and I'd love to say that there was a philosophical intention behind everything that I do. I'm winging it, but um, but um, but yeah. No, that's really cool. And, and once again, actually congrats 'cause you are killing it with the podcast. Yeah. And I saw you, you won an award recently as well, Chris, which, which is pretty cool.

[00:35:34] Henry Brydon: Like to get mentions in like national press 

[00:35:37] Chris Watson: as well, so that, that came out earlier. 

[00:35:38] Henry Brydon: Good time for me. Top on the, on the pod. 

[00:35:40] Chris Watson: I know exactly that came out only the Sunday Times, uh, uh, culture Magazine thing. Well I actually got a physical copy of it sent to me, uh, yesterday, which was, yeah, I was a bit mad. I.

[00:35:50] Henry Brydon: It's so cool, and I think it's a really good example as well. Sorry to go off, off track, but it's like you've been plugging away on this, as you say, for a [00:36:00] long time, and with the break you mentioned in the middle. But you know, to get things like that, like where you, where you really start to see the fruits of your labor in, in that sense.

[00:36:10] Henry Brydon: I'm not saying it's all about the, you know, the, the benefits I'm sure for this, for you go beyond, you know, just like press and awards and stuff like that, but to, to sort of get that. 

[00:36:19] Chris Watson: Yeah, it's, 

[00:36:20] Henry Brydon: you know, it's that, that at this stage is just so cool. Like, 

[00:36:23] Chris Watson: it's Mark. 

[00:36:24] Henry Brydon: Yeah. It's recognition. 

[00:36:25] Chris Watson: Yeah. And no, and thank you Heni, what you said there about like the per trip as well.

[00:36:29] Chris Watson: I, going back to that conversation with Toby, he was giving me some advice offline about, are you considering, because I'm like speaking openly, I, I will want to turn this into a business. It's a passion project and it will always be a passion project. But if it can become something like what you've done with we are explorers where I, I'm doing this and it's monetized or whatever, that would be great.

[00:36:46] Chris Watson: That's, and I, I don't hide that fact. There's like some things in the work, but he said something to me on the podcast about consider this, that, and the other thing. And I, and I hadn't really thought about it like that. And then literally the next day I opened up to an email response and [00:37:00] it was a, a company in Vancouver Island that we're going over to, to see, and they've just invited me and the family to horses on a whale watching tour and going kayaking with, with, with hopefully as a separate tour from me.

[00:37:12] Henry Brydon: Wow. 

[00:37:12] Chris Watson: As long as I interview them over there. And I was like, well, why not? It's just, just these things just start opening up. Like, and it's weird that when people say that, and I had never, I hadn't outreached for that at all. It just, it came in inbound without even asking. So, yeah. And it's, it's stuff that I'm passionate about.

[00:37:28] Chris Watson: So it's, yeah, it is very, I think what we do is, I dunno what you call is media, people are adventurers or all of the above. It's just, it's incredibly rewarding and it's speaking to people that get it, that enjoy it and hopefully anybody else that's listening, watching can pick up on this and just, you know, get outside and get more active and follow your passion with this stuff.

[00:37:47] Chris Watson: 'cause it's, doors will open and it's such a fulfilling existence. 

[00:37:51] Henry Brydon: Yeah, a hundred percent. And you know, I think getting to meet people like yourself and, and, and other people who are just really committed to what they love, [00:38:00] you know, and 

[00:38:00] Chris Watson: yeah. 

[00:38:01] Henry Brydon: It's not just, you know, people behind, you know, doing, you know, the creating, but it's obviously like the athletes and 

[00:38:08] Chris Watson: Yeah.

[00:38:08] Henry Brydon: You know, the conservationists, it's, you know, it's, it's everyone across this whole remit. They're all just like really passionate people and it's really, it's really contagious when you start working and talking to, working with, or talking to these sorts of people, you know, it really 

[00:38:23] Chris Watson: Yeah. 

[00:38:23] Henry Brydon: Shows you that, you know, people, uh, are living these like really passionate, meaningful lives and it really helps you 

[00:38:30] Chris Watson: Yeah.

[00:38:30] Henry Brydon: Question your own and, and improve, and improve the way that you do things yourself. 

[00:38:34] Chris Watson: Yeah. E exactly. I mean, I'm a big advocate for co conservation and protecting wild places and, and everything we can do to, to take, take care of them and not fall into that influencer trap where everyone just wants to, you know.

[00:38:47] Chris Watson: Yeah. Past tourism at the detriment of some of these, these locations, digressing massively. It was almost getting a lot philosophical. Uh, I think I must be the pattern that's taken it down this road. [00:39:00] Anyway, so what I wanted to get to, I've been on for kind of 30, 40 minutes outside kids. Why did you launch outside kids?

[00:39:13] Why he launched Outside Kids

[00:39:13] Henry Brydon: Yeah, so moving back to the UK in 2024, so that 18 months ago. Yeah. I was like, well, what am I gonna do? I guess I knew I was gonna keep running. We are explorers. That's my main, that's my main gig. But of course the time difference is turd. 

[00:39:28] Chris Watson: Yeah. 

[00:39:28] Henry Brydon: And it means, you know, I feel like I'm less involved in, in that business and, and so the natural, the sort of default in my mind was, okay, well I'll just do, we explorers in, in the uk, which I think is, would be a smart in on paper for sure.

[00:39:47] Henry Brydon: Like, I, I actually think, you know, the adventure comes very easily to the Australian way of life because. You know, things are really accessible and the weather's generally pretty good and you know, there's just this whole lifestyle around like being [00:40:00] outdoors. Whereas in the UK it's here, but it's a bit harder to, to tap into.

[00:40:04] Henry Brydon: Things seem to work against you a bit here. So if anything, doing something like we are Explorer, it's like creating a platform that helps people get outdoors. It would, it would slap over here. It would do, it would do really well. But I, I just thought, I dunno if I want to create the same thing again, you know, we Explorers is, is, is a, the outdoors for everyone and the idea of of doing.

[00:40:26] Henry Brydon: Something that's really quite broad, where we talk about everything from hiking to climbing, to paddling, to surfing, like all outdoor sports to everyone. It's a generalist publication in many ways. So I thought I'd rather go a bit niche. So, and, and if I go niche, what is the thing that I understand best, given the stage of life than I'm at right now?

[00:40:45] Henry Brydon: And putting that together with a lot of the data that, that I was getting out of the Australian publication, which is more and more parents want to do more adventurous stuff with their kids, but they dunno where to start. And they're intimidated. The [00:41:00] desire is there because they wanna raise these nature loving kids, but they're not really sure how to do it.

[00:41:04] Henry Brydon: And then I'm like, well, I'm at the stage in my life now where I've got two kids myself. They're in this like beautiful age of six and eight where they're, you know, they're not babies anymore. Um, you know, they're active kids. They're, they can do a lot more. Um, but they're still, you know, they're not too big yet.

[00:41:19] Henry Brydon: You know, they've gotta come with me, whatever I say. And, uh, and so. Yeah, I, I just thought, well, if I'm gonna do it, I'd rather niche down, you know, and go in on, on this. And, and then having come back to, to the UK alongside me being back here is this massive movement around smartphone free childhoods, you know, social media bands, you know, for kids under 16, which obviously Australia's been, you know, quite forward thinking and ahead of the curve there.

[00:41:50] Henry Brydon: And so all these different sort of macro things were happening as well. It just, it just felt like this is the perfect time just to start something. And I, you know, I, I was like, well, I may as well just start using that [00:42:00] same, you know, philosophy that I'd gained from the bike trip. And we are explorers. It was like, well, what's the harm in starting?

[00:42:07] Henry Brydon: You know, I think that might put people off, you know, what are people gonna say? Like, I didn't really know what you're doing. Like, I just didn't, that didn't really sort of, if anything, I felt like I'm probably in quite a good position to do this. You know, I kind of been, I've done a media company before, I, you know, I'm a dad, you know, I love writing and all the rest of it.

[00:42:23] Henry Brydon: So, yeah. So basically started it six months ago and the intention is focused largely on dads, and that's not, moms can absolutely read it too. I think dads interact with their kids in a, in a particular way. And I felt like that was somewhat underserved online and I wanted it to have a tone of voice that really tickled and inspired dads and once again, niching down as much as possible.

[00:42:50] Henry Brydon: So, so yeah, all it is at the moment is a weekly newsletter that goes out on a Wednesday morning at 10. Uh, I'm sometimes scrambling a bit at 10 o'clock, so it might be [00:43:00] like 11 or on Thursday. But, uh, but yeah, trying to really stick to the one article a week. And my intention is to ultimately help dads parents in general do more outdoor stuff with their kids, not hardcore, I mean, can be hardcore Great.

[00:43:14] Henry Brydon: Just more adventure time with their children. Make them feel equipped and confident and excited about doing more of that. And, and that's what it's, yeah. 

[00:43:22] Dads, rough-and-tumble & writing with humour

[00:43:22] Chris Watson: Excellent. It's, uh, and it's fantastic. You touched on there, you know, nicheing down being for dads, and there's something, one of the, the things that struck me, uh, and I'll ask you, so, so how high can you throw your kid?

[00:43:34] Henry Brydon: Well, I really struggled out, mate. There was a period of time that I pride myself on the altitude that I could get. And, and even if we would get some fairly twisted inversions at the apex, I was pretty good at catching. Yeah. Uh, always preferred to do it in a swimming pool where there was a bit of, you know, cushion to the fall.

[00:43:51] Henry Brydon: Yeah. But yeah, I, I'm quite proud of that. But yeah, nowadays it has, it has been a very sad time because. I try and throw my youngest Luna into the air [00:44:00] and, uh, it's miserable. I think my, my fingers nails are still touching her t-shirt. The highest point. 

[00:44:05] Chris Watson: Yeah. 

[00:44:05] Henry Brydon: So, yeah, it's not working anymore, sadly. 

[00:44:07] Chris Watson: I think for context and for people that wondering what I'm going on about, there's a fantastic article about the, and it's talk and it talks about you, you said that about men.

[00:44:15] Chris Watson: I think men and women, mothers and fathers, shall we say, we have different relationships with, with our kids. And it's not stereotypical to say, but typically men can be a little bit the rough and tumble and, you know, the females are much more, eh, muddly and much, maybe more protective. And that doesn't go for everyone, but we'll use the 80 20-year-old there.

[00:44:33] Chris Watson: And I think that that is a, it's a great article. You also use the word rambunctious in there, which I haven't heard for a long time. So it's, it's, it's a fantastic, and it talks through the, was it your, was it your brother or your friend that threw the, the kid help when it 

[00:44:48] Henry Brydon: My brother. Yeah. That's. Yeah. I, I, yeah.

[00:44:52] Henry Brydon: I'm glad that, I'm glad you liked it. I think a lot of the writing, you know, it's tempting with this and I've heard feedback from people [00:45:00] saying, mate, just gimme some, gimme some stuff to do. Like, gimme top five, you know? Yeah. This top fives of that and, and sure, like, I'll, I'll definitely have, make it really easy to, here's some ideas and I'll definitely, you know, put those through.

[00:45:10] Henry Brydon: And, you know, we've, we've done lots of random stuff. Like I say, I've, I've written lots of random stuff about. You know, making parco bracelets or like making black, you know, blackberry pies or, you know, making ripe ladders or obviously building dens and, you know, like, you know, how to stuff is really great.

[00:45:25] Henry Brydon: But I really enjoy the stories that I really enjoy, the articles that have a story at their heart with like, lessons that you can unpack and, and that's what I'm challenging myself to do, is to really think about writing that, you know, is engaging fun to read. And I think we all want a bit more long form content these days, like, like podcasts, like, you know, print magazines and, and or just, you know, long art, long form articles online, because I think we're all getting a bit tired of 

[00:45:49] Announcer: Yeah.

[00:45:49] Henry Brydon: The quick hit social videos. 

[00:45:51] Chris Watson: Yeah. 

[00:45:51] Henry Brydon: And so, yeah, I, I want people to sort of sit back for a couple of minutes at least and, and enjoy a story and maybe take something from it and, um, have, [00:46:00] hopefully a giggle in the, in the process. 

[00:46:01] Chris Watson: Yeah. 

[00:46:01] Henry Brydon: You know, hopefully it's come across. I, I don't take myself too seriously and I don't want my writing to be taken too seriously either.

[00:46:07] Henry Brydon: I think, you know, parenting should be, like, is pretty serious and there's lots of very serious elements to it, but. Uh, the outdoors is a, is an opportunity for us to 

[00:46:16] Chris Watson: Yeah. 

[00:46:16] Henry Brydon: Yeah. Enter that play mode, you know, it's, it is glorified roughhousing. Yeah. It's, it's like, it's, it's an opportunity for, you know, for us to introduce, you know, risk and challenge and it's, you know, curiosity and all the, all the good stuff 

[00:46:29] Chris Watson: it's good for and as it's a fantastic, so, so the writing aside mean, 'cause I, I mean, I, I'll love the article that they're not too long.

[00:46:36] Chris Watson: You, they're typically 5, 7, 6 minutes or, or 5, 6, 7 minutes to, to read. You've got a good, good funny kinda writing style as well. But it does, you know, from the practical how to type things to, to that more gets you thinking a little bit, you know, in terms of like the, the building that connection. And there's probably that.

[00:46:53] Chris Watson: You know, as I said, a bit mother sometimes being a bit guarded and, you know, stop there or don't go there or don't jump in. And [00:47:00] sometimes we might want to push through the boundaries a little bit, a little bit more. And it's like getting that balance from both parents, but seeing it from a, a dad's perspective, it's, it's a, it's a nice, you've got a nice style about it.

[00:47:10] Chris Watson: And I think it's touching on topics that I haven't really seen covered anywhere, anywhere else, really. So I, I think, I think, I think there's certainly something there, but coming to the, maybe the deeper meanings behind some of that like building 

[00:47:21] Henry Brydon: Yeah, 

[00:47:21] Chris Watson: that resiliency in kids as well, you know, and, and what that might foster.

[00:47:26] Good friction: building resilience

[00:47:26] Chris Watson: Like we, we said earlier about the road trip for one thing, you can, you remember that as, as, as an adult now, but these little things starting to build trust and resiliency and, and that through the rough play, rough and tumble, I, I think shouldn't be understated. And it's good that there's a voice now kinda talking about these things.

[00:47:43] Henry Brydon: Yeah, definitely man. Yeah, like I really believe, I think we talked about it in in email, but like this idea of good friction. You know, I think it's so important to create these environments for kids to embrace. Like friction. And you know, I think about [00:48:00] a story when, uh, in the, in the summer, no, it was an Easter jet, who's my son.

[00:48:05] Henry Brydon: We went up, it was really good actually. We went up, we went up to a, a dad's, um, canoe trip on the, the great Glen, um, trail up there. 

[00:48:11] Chris Watson: Great. Wow. Uh, 

[00:48:12] Henry Brydon: the big canoe cane trip. 

[00:48:13] Chris Watson: Yeah. Wow. 

[00:48:14] Henry Brydon: The, the initial plan was to like, let's do the whole thing. Uh, which is often how, uh, my idea start. It's like it's not big and then you realize that okay, let's, let's, let's reign it in.

[00:48:22] Henry Brydon: Uh, there was a couple of dads that came up as well with kids the same age, um, mate to mind. And so we did that. But then we had like three days or four days at the start of the trip, it was a half term to go and do our own thing and we ended up going wild camping pen Ook Bay. It's probably two hours, uh, no sort of maybe an hour's drive from Fort William.

[00:48:40] Henry Brydon: And then you've gotta sort of hike in for three or four hours and, and it's this beautiful, there's a bothy there. Actually, it's not a functioning bothy anymore. I don't think it sort of board it all up, but there's a bay there that's protected from. Wind from most angles. And, and it was just us for like three days and it was a fricking nightmare that trip in so many ways.

[00:48:57] Henry Brydon: Like it was, the weather was playing against us. I remember the day that we [00:49:00] left, it was like torrential rain and you know, the, the smile was wiped off jet's face first thing in the morning when he remembered that he's got a hike back over the mountains to get back to the car. And, you know, waking up and all our stuff's just been blown across the beach and we're sort of trying to find whatever we can find and, you know, just soak to the bone By the time we even started walking.

[00:49:19] Henry Brydon: And now don't get me wrong, like there was, there was some, there was some crosswords between the two of us as we sort of got, got our, got our shit together. But, you know, fair place of jet, like he got into his, into his groove and, and I think once there was the promise of like a, a hot breakfast, uh, back in Fort William, he just found his stride and, and he uh, and he smashed it out and, you know, the event, the weather eventually improved.

[00:49:41] Henry Brydon: And, and, and jet, jet still talks about that like today. And there's been plenty of other moments where like. And it sort of becomes a barometer. So like now when it's raining, when we're camping, he's like, oh, it's raining, but it's not, 

[00:49:55] Announcer: yeah. It's 

[00:49:55] Henry Brydon: not like IC Bay raining, is it? It's like, it's not that bad.

[00:49:58] Henry Brydon: And like, and it's also [00:50:00] like, you know, how far is it back to the car? So the car's just right around the corner, it's ah, great. It's not hiking ever mountains anymore to get, so like these little moments create, I think, really important like lessons and, 

[00:50:11] Chris Watson: yeah. Yeah. 

[00:50:11] Henry Brydon: I think it's the same for adults as well.

[00:50:13] Henry Brydon: Like we all need like, you know, good friction and we've, we've got, we live in an age where everything's so easy now and, and accessible and, and convenient. And, and I think, but meaning, like, meaning life doesn't come from like the convenient stuff. Meaning comes from, you know, the discomfort. It lives in that friction, you know, and that's like, that's the good stuff.

[00:50:30] Henry Brydon: That's the stuff that we remember and, and that form who we become. 

[00:50:35] Shared family memories

[00:50:35] Chris Watson: Could I, I, I mean, it's lovely to hear that, that, I mean, I've similar experiences with my little girl and just her and I, she's an only child, but like going camping and, you know, we had an experience, must have been two years ago now, and it was in the middle of the night.

[00:50:52] Chris Watson: I think I might have told this story before, but we were camping on one of the islands on lock Lomond and it was freezing. That's right. It was light. We were cut. It was just [00:51:00] light. It was colder than it had been forecast. And she had to get up in the middle of the night and we heard a caper Kelly, and they're like almost a threat of extinction up here.

[00:51:08] Chris Watson: There's not many of 'em around. And that the, and it was just, and she kinda talks about that and that experience. 'cause it, it spooked me at night. I was like, what the hell is that nice? And, and I was on my phone like, like trying to figure out that that's what it was. But then it was the next morning. Yeah.

[00:51:20] Chris Watson: Right before like, you know, trying to get the fire on in the beach and stuff. But then having the, the porridge and the porridges get sand in it and stuff and it's just, and we just, and she's still such a young kid and just looking back, love that we got all recorded and stuff and just little snippets.

[00:51:33] Chris Watson: That's cool. And it's just, it's just amazing. 'cause to even think, think about it now, it just kinda, yeah, it just, it is memories you would love to recreate, but at the same time it's equally as special that it was just a, an up. 

[00:51:43] Henry Brydon: That's that. That's it. It. And that's what I was gonna say is like that shared memory is just, you know, because I, you know, without, you know, without sounding like, you know, somber about it.

[00:51:53] Henry Brydon: Like we don't, you know, your daughter's 11. It's, it's an amazing age because, you know, they're [00:52:00] gonna come away with you and hopefully, you know, your daughter's always gonna go, go away with, with you two when you, when you do stuff. And I'm sure, I'm sure you've got a great relationship with them, with her and, and she will.

[00:52:09] Henry Brydon: But there was this, this, this period of time now where, you know, we spend every day near enough with our children. I know they're at school for a lot of it, but you know, there's that really depressing stat as well, which, um, I actually posted something about it today on, on LinkedIn, but, you know, I forget the exact stats, but it's like 90% of the time we spend, you know, with our children is spent by the time that they leave home, essentially.

[00:52:32] Henry Brydon: Yeah. Which is like, sort of 18 and butchering the stat, but it's at the point still carries. It's like, so it's like when you think of it like that, you're like, well Christ, we've gotta make the most of it. And I'm not saying the most of making the most of the time with our children has to be spent, uh, you know, in a tent.

[00:52:46] Henry Brydon: But you know, those. Memories for me anyway. And I, uh, seem to be the, the mo, the strongest memories, the experiences that we, that we have together. And so I'm really intent on like doing as much as I can. [00:53:00] With my kids and, and actually, you know what, as a default of starting outside kids, if at the very least like, sure I'd like it to build into, into something in the future, but I'm not in a rush like it, you know, it'll happen.

[00:53:11] Henry Brydon: But if at the very least I get to be more present and fun and create more memories of my kids, then yeah. I'll take that as, you know, as a fallback. 

[00:53:19] Chris Watson: Exactly. Yeah. E exactly. I, I, I hear someone talk in a podcast about, and I'm can't remember the exact number, but it was like, you do realize you only have six summers left with your children or something like that.

[00:53:32] Chris Watson: And I was like, oh, what? Yeah. And it was like, 

[00:53:34] Henry Brydon: yeah. 

[00:53:35] Chris Watson: I just, it just made me feel like I was grieving and I hadn't even Yeah. And it is like, and that's why you just try to squeeze, uh, in every moment you can. And with me doing all this stuff and, and yourself as well, it's trying to, 'cause I'm doing my own adventures, but sometimes want to bring.

[00:53:50] Chris Watson: The family along. She's getting to that ease now. She's, you know, she's wanting to spend more time with her friends and, and, and I'm having to convince her sometimes. And it is, it's, and it's a bit of a, kinda a [00:54:00] balance. And, and coincidentally I've roped her into a Saturday, going on a reconnaissance mission across the different parts of the, uh, the uplands in, in Scotland, trying to, to map some of 

[00:54:10] Henry Brydon: that.

[00:54:10] Henry Brydon: I think I saw, I saw you share a photo of the map today. Is 

[00:54:13] Chris Watson: that right? Yeah. That, that part, that, that's exactly it. So I'm trying to, uh, try to find all the hazards for that, for that particular trip. And I've had to convince her to take her for lunch and she's only 11 years old to come, come with us. So she's, her habits are changed.

[00:54:26] Chris Watson: She's still very adventurous. But it's, it's what it, it's it's, she's choosy with her time now. 'cause she's got such a good, uh, young, so she's starting to get to that age. She's almost at high school and I'm like, oh, am I starting to lose that a little bit? So I'm trying to, trying to capture as much. 

[00:54:40] Henry Brydon: I reckon you're a cool dad, Chris.

[00:54:41] Henry Brydon: I, I reckon, I reckon you'll, I reckon you'll still have 

[00:54:44] Chris Watson: Yeah. 

[00:54:45] Henry Brydon: Have a join you. Multiple trips. 

[00:54:46] Advice for parents new to the outdoors

[00:54:46] Chris Watson: See, see you kind of flip that out. See, see, for anyone can, most of the, the audience that will be listening or watching to this will be naturally outdoorsy, but without trying to force our narratives or rhetoric or whatever onto people.

[00:54:59] Chris Watson: But [00:55:00] if there was anybody listening that and whether it affects them or maybe they see other people in their circle where their kids maybe not spending enough time 'cause they might not be outdoorsy people. If you get any sort of advice for that, 'cause that friction point's good about instilling that kinda good friction.

[00:55:16] Chris Watson: But from a parents' perspective, that their own friction trying to get outdoors with people. If you get any advice on that as a, you know, to, to try and encourage them to take that first step. 'cause it doesn't need to be a big grand camping adventure or, you know, a canoe trail or something like that. But it's just to almost point people to resources or get them to be engaging in, in that way so that, you know, they can still to build connection.

[00:55:40] Henry Brydon: Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's a good question. I, I think. I think it's very easy to be overwhelmed with anything outdoorsy. Again, I think it's hard to tune into that really clearly because it's something that I'm generally, I'm doing wrong. I'm not the hard, most hardcore adventure out there, but, you know, [00:56:00] I'm quite happy to, to lean in a bit to, you know, adventurous environments and, and try things out.

[00:56:07] Henry Brydon: But for a lot of people it's really intimidating and overwhelming and the feedback I'm getting. Since starting outside Kids is, I think a lot of our audience, a lot of the audience are, you know, people that haven't got a lot of experience doing this. Certainly some, certainly some that, that do, but just don't have time.

[00:56:23] Henry Brydon: And, and they perhaps want to bring that back, you know, they maybe had their, their former adventure selves and, and that identities in somewhat lost and they're trying to figure out how to, how to do that with kids. But for a lot of them, it's like, for a lot of parents reading, they don't have a lot of experience and I think they feel overwhelmed.

[00:56:39] Henry Brydon: And the best advice I always give is to start small. Just start small. Don't, don't try and do anything crazy. And, you know, I'm, I'm not, a lot of the stuff I'm writing is most of the things I'm doing. My son and daughter, like, obviously I live near a forest and I'm pretty lucky that it's there. And if I wanna get into a river or up a hill or in a forest, like it's, it's a few minutes away.

[00:56:59] Henry Brydon: [00:57:00] But most of the stuff I'm doing is over like two or three hours. Really. Like most of it's really nearby. And then of course I want to go and do longer stuff. Yeah. Longer paddles and rides and, and, and, um, and I share some of that too, but I, I'm really trying to show that, you know, if you, if you watch an adventure film at a festival for example, and you're like, oh God, I'd love to go and do a big bike packing trip and, you know, across Canada for example, you're not gonna necessarily just go and not pump out a bike ride across Canada.

[00:57:26] Henry Brydon: You're gonna probably go and get a gravel bike and, and start and do some local trails and it's, and then work up to maybe doing an overnighter and, and work up to, you know, so with kids it's the same thing. Start really small and you can have, the kids are amazing because they have such amazing imaginations.

[00:57:42] Henry Brydon: They, you know, you don't need. You know, you don't need to go to like, some really exotic place for them to feel like, whoa, like blown away. They can, you can find that in, in your backyard. So start really small. Yeah. One of the things I always recommend is, you know, obviously, you know, things like hiking for sure, but one way that you can make hiking really fun is doing due [00:58:00] caching.

[00:58:00] Henry Brydon: You know? Oh, 

[00:58:00] Chris Watson: right. Where, 

[00:58:01] Henry Brydon: you know, and there's this amazing app that I bang on about to everyone I, I see who's like, oh, you've got kids who are bored at home. You know, if I, you know, I, if I had a dollar for every time parents said, oh, my kids are bored, I'd be a very rich man because I'd, I should be rolling in it because every kid says it.

[00:58:16] Henry Brydon: And one way to get them off the couch is by saying, would, do you wanna go on a treasure hunt outside? Uh, yeah. And so that's, that's what it is. And this app is free. You can, there is a premium version that you can pay and it unlocks all of the, the different places. But of the free one, I can guarantee that's all over the world.

[00:58:31] Henry Brydon: But wherever you are, there's probably gonna be one within a few miles and you could spend. Uh, you can spend weeks just picking one or, 'cause some of them take like a day to find, you know, some are, are really diff even when you find the location, they're really hard to find. You know, and, and we do lo if we, if we're struggling, we'll just do something like that.

[00:58:44] Henry Brydon: And that introduces things like navigation, you know, going to new places, hiking and, and finding treasure. I mean, like, who doesn't like finding treasure? So there's that thi there's things that you can start, I think, really small and make it really fun. Don't freak anyone out. And, and then to start to work [00:59:00] up and, and it's okay if you're not necessarily gonna be, you know, going cold swimming straight away.

[00:59:05] Henry Brydon: Like, it's fine. Just, just take your time. 

[00:59:08] Chris Watson: Yeah. I, I think the reframing of that it, you know, it could be a couple of hours. It doesn't need to be a full day or a full weekend. Yeah. It doesn't need to be grand overnight. Yeah, definitely. It doesn't have to be, you know, don't need to be buying loads of equipment and things like that.

[00:59:19] Chris Watson: So I think that's a really important thing because two or three hours to, to, to youngsters all the time in the world, you know, and because they, they're, the brains are still like, you know, it's, yeah. That's a, a fantastic reframing of that, uh, that in jail. C and I've not heard that for years. A completely for, 

[00:59:36] Henry Brydon: yeah.

[00:59:38] Henry Brydon: It's so good. It's so, and it's, yeah, it's literally, it's great for adults alone. We, we did it in Australia, uh, a lot and we, we are doing it quite a lot around, around here as well. But you can also like flip another one we did recently, which was kind of fun, was like a litter, like a litter picking adventure.

[00:59:54] Henry Brydon: And kids love it. Yeah. I mean, lit is like treasure to kids when they're out there trying to find, if you give 'em a bag and [01:00:00] you like fill it up, it's like, I will fill out this bag until it's like bursting and you gimme a second bin bag. You know that, that they love a challenge. And we did it at Luna and I on bikes 'cause there's a road just down the road, just just down from mine.

[01:00:11] Henry Brydon: That is, I mean, it looks like it's sponsored by Stellar Artois. It's, you know, it's covered in, covered in crap. And. And so, you know, we had got fed up of basically saying to each other, oh God, someone's gotta tidy that up. It's like, well actually, why don't I think we should play, tidy it up? And uh, and we only got, we only did about half of the road and we, we'd fill the two bags up, so we need to go back and do more.

[01:00:31] Henry Brydon: I'm, I'm making the foot fortine sound like it's, you know, a, a slum. It's, uh, but for some reason there are plunks out there who, who do throw stuff outta windows. So, but so that was a great one because it sort of combined, you know, you can do it on foot, obviously we did it on a bike 'cause it's quite a long road.

[01:00:47] Henry Brydon: That was fun. You know, obviously there's some really wonderful lessons around, you know, nature protection and, you know, teaching them about single these plastics and, and it, it, [01:01:00] its teaching them, but it's, it's showing them, right. It's not like, it's a really visceral way to say like, you know, this is damaging the plant.

[01:01:04] Henry Brydon: There's, there's a sheep there that you can see a horse there that, you know, squirrels. You can sort of just tell the story in a really, um, you know, immersive way rather than just sort of from a textbook. 

[01:01:15] Chris Watson: Yeah, that's fantastic. Me, the be one have done that like a couple of times. Then it, because we spent a bit of time then at, uh, doing that and Nick and, and the Arrows.

[01:01:23] Chris Watson: It's, uh, it's, it's wonderful. I, I actually, I I seen that you spent some time in an, in a cabin off grid. Is that right? 

[01:01:32] Off-grid cabin & digital detox

[01:01:32] Henry Brydon: Yeah, yeah. We just got back a couple weeks ago from a, a cabin over in, in the Brecken Beacons. That was a, that was fun. Yeah. Susie was away for, for a few days and we, yeah, we just took two kids there and Oh, it was magic.

[01:01:44] Henry Brydon: It was comfortable. Yeah. And, uh, it was just lovely just to have that, that time. They had this, um, really cool device that was, uh, it's called Brick. And you basically download an app and you basically tap this, this physical device looks like a mini brick [01:02:00] and it basically shuts down the apps that you've chosen it to shut down.

[01:02:04] Henry Brydon: So I just wanted to basically not have any social media or, you know, obviously wanted to keep WhatsApp, you know, for any emergencies, but kind of shut down all all apps that were gonna be gonna be distracting. And it was really kind of sad that you needed need to do it, but at the same time it, it kind of, it forces you to kind of really, you know, block out a lot of that noise that tends to distract Yeah, us and focus like a hundred percent on.

[01:02:27] Henry Brydon: On just the weekend and, and enjoying time with the kids in a beautiful place. It was amazing. Yeah, 

[01:02:32] Chris Watson: that's wonderful. That is wonderful. So I can't believe we've been on for over an hour already. What is, is there anything, just on the top, before we kinda consider moving any, uh, the traditions and stuff, uh, is there anything else about outside kids that you want to kinda, 'cause we could talk all day about it, but I'm just thinking like, you know, practical frameworks, anything that, or, you know, we, we did talk about stand small, but is there anything that you'd recommend or, or any more you want to see on outside kids, just in general to get, 

[01:02:59] Henry Brydon: I mean, [01:03:00] apart from.

[01:03:02] Henry Brydon: I mean the, the obvious thing is, um, of course I wanna sp spook outside kids.co uk and get people to, um, if they, if they are a parent or considering being a parent, or maybe were have kids that have left home, um, and want to reconnect to it, or yeah, you have friends that, that are maybe entering that phase.

[01:03:20] Henry Brydon: I would obviously just love, um, people to check it out and, and see what they think and, and hopefully I can bring them something of, of value and uh, and something fun for their week. What else would I say about outside kids? Not really. I feel like we've covered, I feel like we've covered the main, the main points there, Chris.

[01:03:36] Henry Brydon: So I, I think ultimately the call to action with it all and, and the thing I just encourage is, you know, don't be intimidated. And I know a lot, a lot of the listeners, um, here will be quite experienced in the realm of adventure. Um, you know, and it's the ultimate, it's the ultimate classroom. The outdoors.

[01:03:51] Henry Brydon: So, you know, it's the, it's the ultimate way to build a grit and resilience is sometimes I think I'm absolutely nailing it with my kids. And I feel like, you know, they're gaining all [01:04:00] these amazing skills in their arsenal and then other times it's just like, nah, this isn't working. I should just bloody stay at home.

[01:04:05] Henry Brydon: But I think that's just fatherhood. Yeah, that's parenthood, that's just how it is. But 

[01:04:08] Chris Watson: yeah. 

[01:04:10] Henry Brydon: Yeah. 

[01:04:10] Chris Watson: Do you see it e evolving with yourself as you evolve and your relationships evolve with your kids into Nick, the nick season of life, maybe as they are, you know, like teenagers or young adults or maybe even in their twenties.

[01:04:23] Chris Watson: Do you still see looking at how you could, uh, adventure with them and do stuff like that? Is because no doubt, you know, hopefully they, they go on to have kids as well and the family grows and things like that. How, how would have you thought about that? 

[01:04:36] Henry Brydon: Yeah, not really actually. I actually haven't thought about that.

[01:04:38] Henry Brydon: But I think, I think I'm very much in that sort of flow of it now, where we'll see what it, what it becomes. I, I think I'd like, I've got plenty of ideas as to, you know, potential ways it could go beyond just like a media, you know, company and, but at the stage, I think, I'm just not trying to think too far ahead with it.

[01:04:59] Henry Brydon: Yeah. Okay. [01:05:00] And it will just evolve as, as I, 

[01:05:02] Chris Watson: as you evolve, 

[01:05:03] Henry Brydon: as I see fit every, every time. I think, yeah, as I evolve. Yeah. 

[01:05:06] Chris Watson: Excellent. Are you're running trips through our meetups or group adventures or something, or. 

[01:05:11] Upcoming dads & kids camp-out

[01:05:11] Henry Brydon: Yeah, there's something coming up. Uh, there's, there's a camp out I'm gonna do in June, first weekend in June.

[01:05:17] Henry Brydon: I'm gonna, uh, find a, I've got a few options with the Camp Wild crew. They've got some, they've got some potential potential sites that they've recommended. So the idea is to, yeah, come away with a few dads and a few kids and yeah. It's as much about, it's as much about the dads as it is the kids, right?

[01:05:34] Henry Brydon: Yeah. So obviously we want the kids to have a good time and, and so, you know, we'll just have a, a camp out and get some good food going and some fun activities, but it's also about the dads just hanging out and, you know, during the car. Yeah. And, you know, sharing what needs to be shared there as well. It's really important that we kind of, we're looking out for each other and the whole nature of fatherhood and dadd is, is changing.

[01:05:55] Henry Brydon: And I think we're, we're all, we're all carry carrying the remnants of like our own [01:06:00] upbringing and from our own fathers, and I'm wrong. Or great mates of my dad, but they did things very differently back then. And, and I think we're all just trying to figure out this new fatherhood approach. And I think any way to, to do that or just sit around the fire and talk shit, like whatever.

[01:06:15] Chris Watson: Well you, you can still sit around the fire and talk shit and have a few beers, but it's not as, we're still raising capable children and instilling all that sense of adventure and stuff is, is what it's about. 

[01:06:24] Henry Brydon: Yeah, exactly. 

[01:06:25] Chris Watson: Excellent. Excellent. Then this has been, uh, this has been, uh, wonderful. You know, it's probably worth, uh, moving into a closing tradition.

[01:06:35] Pay It Forward: Marcus Skeet

[01:06:35] Chris Watson: There's three on on the show, so pay Forward called Adventure, and then I've got a 10 fire quick round questions that you haven't seen, which I hope you can answer without passing. 'cause if you pass, it doesn't make it much fun. Maybe start with a, a paid forward recommendation. So any worthy causes, projects, charities that you would like to, to talk about and give a platform to.

[01:06:58] Chris Watson: So what would you recommend as a [01:07:00] paid forward suggestion? 

[01:07:01] Henry Brydon: Yeah, there's so many. Gosh. Yeah, I was really blown away by a few people at Kendall where obviously you were at as well. Chris, the one guy really stood out who I hadn't heard about. Uh, Marcus Skeet, the whole, whole boy kid. He, he, um, I dunno, the, the, I haven't, he's just really documentary, like literally it came out yesterday, I think.

[01:07:20] Henry Brydon: Um, he premiered it. But it was about his run that he did. He's the youngest guy that's ever run from cross, uh, the UK top to bottom. And there's a really strong backstory there. I think he'd had major mental health issues that he, I'm sure he's still facing, but when he was 15, he tried to take his own life and he's now 17 and he's turning his life around.

[01:07:44] Henry Brydon: And, uh, he's using adventure as a vehicle to not only change his life, but also raise awareness for youth like mental health. And I just caught the tail end of his talk and I was blown away. [01:08:00] Not only was he was, he just, his story was amazing, but the way he was telling his story, he is like this, like wise old man that's like trapped inside a 17 year old's body.

[01:08:08] Henry Brydon: Super, super humble. Just a really genuine, genuinely lovely guy with a great story to tell and some serious grit as well to be able to put himself through a challenge like that when he wasn't, didn't really have much experience at all. So that was, um, that was amazing. And, and so I think any ability to check out Marcus, uh, the whole boy, he's got a premier, uh, premier of his film has just has documentary about that has just come out.

[01:08:32] Henry Brydon: So I'm sure there'd be lots of ways to support him that way. 

[01:08:34] Chris Watson: Yeah. Excellent. Thank you very much. Mark, did you say Mark the Hull boy? 

[01:08:39] Henry Brydon: Yeah, I'm like, skeet cowboy. Yeah. 

[01:08:40] Chris Watson: Excellent, excellent. Okay. I didn't see that. So that's something I will equally check out. So thank you. So next, uh, I pay it for No, no, I've just done pay it forward, get me the program.

[01:08:50] Call to Adventure: Tasmania & the Franklin River

[01:08:50] Chris Watson: So call to adventure. So a recommendation for an activity or a place or something for, to get people inspired to take action. So what would you see as a call to [01:09:00] adventure? 

[01:09:00] Henry Brydon: Like a physical? 

[01:09:01] Chris Watson: Physical or, well, it could be what means to you really. So it's a typical, it is just to get people, you know, give a recommendation to make something accessible and easy, frictionless to get people out there.

[01:09:11] Chris Watson: It could be out there with the kids. Actually seems it's quite on, on topic, but if for those does, but, so yeah. So just a recommendation for a, an adventure. A call to adventure. 

[01:09:21] Henry Brydon: Yeah. Sick. I'm gonna go off, off topic then. Um. Tasmania in, obviously, uh, in Australia. It's a beautiful island state off the, the south coast is an adventure playground at its very core.

[01:09:34] Henry Brydon: There's an area in the west, which is the wild side of, um, the, the state. And there's a river that kind of travels through, called the Franklin and Roman dial, who is kind of the godfather of pack grafting. I think he went out there and said that it's like the ultimate like river Yeah. That you can paddle in the world.

[01:09:53] Henry Brydon: And, and it was a place that I got to experience myself. Yeah. Unsuccessfully. I should add, we actually, we actually quit [01:10:00] after the first day. 'cause it was, it was too sketchy. Once again, ideas above our station. 

[01:10:05] Chris Watson: Yeah, 

[01:10:05] Henry Brydon: me and my mates. But, but yeah, it was, from what I saw and from what I've seen, it is, I think it's the ultimate adventure like playground.

[01:10:12] Henry Brydon: And I wanna go back and do it again with a bit more skills next time. 

[01:10:14] Chris Watson: Tasmania, Franklin River. Excellent. Brilliant. Uh, so that's pay forward called Adventure. So I've got, uh, to, to round things out in a bit of a, kind of a note. So 10 fire questions. So are you ready? Anyway, Brian. 

[01:10:27] 10 Fire-Round Questions

[01:10:27] Henry Brydon: Hit me up. 

[01:10:27] Chris Watson: So question, uh, one of 10.

[01:10:29] Chris Watson: You can have a dinner party with two guests, dead, dead or alive. Who would they be? 

[01:10:34] Henry Brydon: I'd have to go for someone funny. Uh, bill Bailey, I think he's one of the funniest men alive. And I would go for an adventurer who's got some yarns to spin. I'm reading lots of naval, like British naval books at the moment, and maybe someone like Shackleton or someone like that who can just like, regardless with, with tales from, from the high seas.

[01:10:54] Chris Watson: Can you imagine Shackleton laughing at one of Bill Bailey story? 

[01:10:59] Henry Brydon: It's a hell of a [01:11:00] combo, isn't it? 

[01:11:00] Chris Watson: Yeah. 

[01:11:02] Henry Brydon: I We need to ai that, uh, that image. You just put them at a table. 

[01:11:06] Chris Watson: Oh, excellent. That, that's a good idea actually for, because I, I'm always curious about the two guests and what they would say to each other so that, that could be a little kinda stupid real on Instagram, 

[01:11:15] Henry Brydon: right.

[01:11:17] Chris Watson: Number two, do you have a hidden talent? 

[01:11:19] Henry Brydon: God, one of the things that my kids have got as a toy is a, a Diablo, you know, like a Diablo. It's like a, it's like a, imagine like a two plastic cones that have been joined together, and then you have two sticks connected by a piece of string, and you can basically spin this like thing string.

[01:11:39] Chris Watson: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I know what that is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 

[01:11:42] Henry Brydon: It's like you see like circus shows and stuff like that. I would say I'm way better than average at that. I wouldn't say, I'm like, I'm gonna be joining like the circus anytime soon. Uh, I went, I hadn't literally hadn't done it in ages and the kids brought it out the other day and, uh, I literally like tossed it 

[01:11:59] Announcer: Wow.[01:12:00]

[01:12:00] Henry Brydon: As high as I could possibly was throwing something, and I came straight back down on the string and I was like walking the dog with it, doing all these tricks that I was like, okay. Like I might still have it, but no, I still, I'd say like, pretty average still to be honest. 

[01:12:11] Chris Watson: Say a Glock spiel there. Like they watch this little thing with the kinda like 

[01:12:16] Henry Brydon: Yeah.

[01:12:16] Henry Brydon: The Glock spiel. Yeah. You've reminded me. I need to start learning. 

[01:12:21] Chris Watson: Excellent. Number three, what is the one outdoor habit you'd be most glad that your kids pick up? 

[01:12:26] Henry Brydon: Hmm. Hammocking. 

[01:12:27] Chris Watson: Oh. Of SI 

[01:12:30] Henry Brydon: mean, hammocking changed my life, man. 

[01:12:32] Chris Watson: Yeah. 

[01:12:32] Henry Brydon: Like I, uh, I'm a big fan of sleeping off the ground in a hammock and, and the whole hammock way of life.

[01:12:39] Henry Brydon: I know that's less of a habit. Yeah. But more, more of an activity. But, um, it's one that, uh, yeah, I'd, I'd love, I encourage them to, to take up themselves. 

[01:12:48] Chris Watson: Oh, was that actually, uh, 'cause I was buying stuff an expedition. I was in one of the outdoor stores, uh, with Nina and she begged me to buy her a hammock, but it was just some little, uh, crappy thing that had been on.

[01:12:59] Chris Watson: It [01:13:00] was on, it was on sale. And then we never picked that up against That's a good reminder. 'cause she's, she's really, because we've got a little wooded area just across from the house. We've picked out the, the, the perfect area. She's got it all cleaned out, uh, beneath and stuff like that. 

[01:13:14] Henry Brydon: Oh, right. She's 

[01:13:15] Chris Watson: ready during the last summer actually.

[01:13:16] Chris Watson: But we haven't done it since. But that's, thank you for that. Uh, am number four. If you could relive any moment in your life again for the first time, what would it be? 

[01:13:25] Henry Brydon: Relive any moment. I mean, I'm, I'm definitely drawn to the bike trip. And that sense of like, freedom. There was a a period of that trip where I had some friends that joined me and we rode through Malaysia together, and one of those guys isn't with us anymore, Andy.

[01:13:43] Henry Brydon: And, and I would love to relive that period because that was, that was a really fun part of the trip with Andy. It's not an experience I'd be able to recreate again, because he's not here anymore. So I'd probably say, I'd probably say that. 

[01:13:56] Chris Watson: That's lovely. Excellent. Excellent. Number five, what is [01:14:00] the last music gig that you went to?

[01:14:03] Henry Brydon: Glastonbury. 

[01:14:05] Chris Watson: Excellent. 

[01:14:06] Henry Brydon: Yeah. Uh, obviously lots of gigs at Glastonbury, but, uh, prodigy. Prodigy really stood out. Prodigy. Yeah. I dunno if you've seen that before, but Yeah. 

[01:14:13] Chris Watson: Have, yeah, A long time ago when, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. 

[01:14:16] Henry Brydon: Excellent. Yeah. Okay. 

[01:14:17] Chris Watson: Yeah. Excellent. Uh, number five. Favorite book 

[01:14:20] Henry Brydon: A Dice Man, which is a book I read, I've read a couple of times.

[01:14:25] Henry Brydon: It's, it's, it's loose. Its a really loose book. And so Strap in, it's by Luke Reinhardt, which is his sort of. It's not his actual name. The author that he's, goes by the name Luke Reinhardt. It's, it's very good. Yeah. Yeah. Highly recommended. Weird. Worth it. 

[01:14:37] Chris Watson: Excellent, excellent. Number seven. What scares you?

[01:14:41] Henry Brydon: Scares me. Deep ocean being stranded at sea in a deep ocean at night by myself. Hopefully have that treading water. I, I, I hope that never happens. Yeah. But I've, I've heard stories. Yeah. And it can happen. Yeah. And I've really [01:15:00] hope it doesn't happen to 

[01:15:00] Chris Watson: me. There's a few people have been on this show that have experienced that.

[01:15:03] Chris Watson: Yeah. And it's, I actually capsized in the kayak in, uh, in the Atlantic, which was, it was only five miles from shore, but it was very deep and it was, I was hungover, which is a lesson, don't go out kayaking when you are hungover. 

[01:15:15] Henry Brydon: Yeah. That's always, that's always gonna make it extra spicy. 

[01:15:18] Chris Watson: Yeah. Deep, deep washing.

[01:15:19] Chris Watson: Yeah. I get that. Number eight. What makes you happy? 

[01:15:23] Henry Brydon: It's on theme. Uh, my kids bring me joy. My kids bring me a lot of joy. And I think, uh, you know what, even that, even that trip, there was that trip that I went on with Jet up, up to Scotland, uh, while camping with him, uh, in Easter, every Easter. I remember there was a moment where like he was, he was like trying to find, um, oysters.

[01:15:46] Henry Brydon: The sun was going down, the tempt was pitched, the sand flies weren't too bad. At that moment, I was sat there, the sun going down. I was wild camping with my son in Paradise. I think I had some really nice single Mott whiskey. I remember [01:16:00] thinking, I think this is the happiest I've ever been in my life. It was like everything was just perfect.

[01:16:05] Henry Brydon: A tear rolled down my cheek, and I just remember thinking that is like, hap, I'm ha I'm so happy right now. So I'd probably say that. 

[01:16:14] Chris Watson: Amazing. Amazing. Number nine, what is the best advice that you have ever received? 

[01:16:21] Henry Brydon: I always forget advice. I find I've heard some really good advice over the years, but it goes in one ear and out the other.

[01:16:27] Henry Brydon: My mate, Jamie, has got some really good advice. The guy I did the bike trip with, he, uh, he's like, he's a renegade dude. He's definitely quite out there. He always had really strong, I'd say that, you know, he, he really did change my life, you know, he came along and he gave me the, the confidence as well that, to, to, so I could do it with someone, you know, he had lots of really good nuggets of advice.

[01:16:49] Henry Brydon: He had one piece of advice tattooed on his, his arm while we were on the trip. That was, I think it's a William Blake quote, and it's something like, I'm gonna, I'm butchering it, paraphrase. It's like I [01:17:00] must create a system or be enslaved by another man's, and, which makes total sense for, for Jamie because, you know, he now lives on a side of a mountain in Portugal and he has very much removed himself from society.

[01:17:13] Henry Brydon: I'm probably a bit more of a conformist. Yeah. But. I think that still rings true. So it's sort of, um, we advice, I suppose from William Blake via Jamie, but it is very true. You can apply that to all of us, I think in some way. 

[01:17:25] Chris Watson: Oh, wonderful. Right. Number 10 to finish. Uh, this is less of a question. It's a sentence I want you to finish, so, so finish this sentence, Henry.

[01:17:34] Chris Watson: Anyway, I hope my kids grow up believing that 

[01:17:38] Henry Brydon: they can achieve anything. 

[01:17:39] Chris Watson: Yep. Excellent. Raising very capable children, just enough friction to, to see them off and to our world full of fulfillment. It's, yeah. Wonderful. That's it. That's, uh, that's excellent. That's, uh, 

[01:17:51] Wrap-up & where to find Henry

[01:17:51] Henry Brydon: thanks Chris. Cheers for having me on, mate.

[01:17:52] Chris Watson: Indeed. No, that's been wonderful. Uh, it's been, and I've flown by as well. It's been, yeah, I, I mean I can't, I'm an after my own heart. I can't stress [01:18:00] enough for people to go and check out. Uh, both. We are explorers outside kids as well. I think it's new. There's a lot of great content and it get on the newsletter, you'll have a laugh, but you'll be informed in it.

[01:18:11] Chris Watson: And I think the community angle, you know, I think you've really got something there that, you know, that could go into much more of a community. 'cause for a voice as a father particularly, that's maybe not, I don't really have anywhere else to go and see that kinda stuff that's very targeted at that. So, uh, so, so I really like it and I would highly recommend it.

[01:18:28] Chris Watson: People do go and check that out. And again, to give it a plug, hend, where, where can people find out more about that and everything else that you're doing? 

[01:18:37] Henry Brydon: Great. Yeah. Outside kids.co uk that's the website. You can sign it there. And we Are Explorers is we are explorers.co. Yep. And that's more Australian focused outside kids is for kind of all dads everywhere, but mainly focused on the 

[01:18:49] Chris Watson: uk.

[01:18:50] Chris Watson: Yeah. And there, there is an Australian audience that listened to this surprisingly, uh, enough. 'cause I've done a test on a beat, a test on something recently and there's a few people out in a Australia [01:19:00] that have, uh, signed up for that. So Yeah. So yeah. So, um, yeah, so we'll get all that plugged once this is all suggested and it's live well, people will be listening to this anyway, so it'll be linked in the show notes and all that good stuff.

[01:19:11] Chris Watson: Henry, this has been an absolute pleasure. Hopefully I can bump into you at Kendall or somewhere next time, and, and 

[01:19:16] Henry Brydon: I hope so. I feel like, I feel like our path are gonna, gonna cross again, mate, I'm looking forward to it. And thanks again for, for having me on. It's been a real 

[01:19:23] Chris Watson: No, it's been a pleasure, mate.

[01:19:24] Chris Watson: It's been a pleasure. And with that, I'll bring it to your close. 

[01:19:26] Announcer: Thanks for tuning in to today's episode. For the show notes and further information, please visit adventure diaries.com/podcast. And finally, we hope to have inspired you to take action and plan your next adventure, big or small, because sometimes we all need a little adventure to cleanse that bitter taste of life from the soul.

[01:19:49] Announcer: Until next time, have fun and keep paying it forward.