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Norwood Scott gets by with a hand from his porters in Nepal. Photo by Norwood Scott

Stay safe, stay healthy

Another must of seasoned travelers is travel and health insurance. Get it. The former doesn't cost that much. Most policies can be had for under $100, and they'll cover almost anything you can think of, from the cost incurred because of a missed or canceled flight to buying new luggage when yours is lost or stolen. Be sure to make a list of everything you take, and keep it in a separate place, so you can easily make a claim.

Make sure your health insurance will actually cover you in the place you're going. If it doesn't, you'll want to buy supplemental insurance that will. Check out the International Association for Medical Assistance to Travelers web page at www.iamat.org for ideas.

Consider, too, where you would like your health care to be administered. Not comfortable with the level of care in Katmandu? Make sure you can get flown out to Bangkok if need be.

"I wanted to be transported to Bangkok for the heavy duty medical stuff, if that happened," says Scott, who kayaked several Class V runs while in Nepal. "I got a separate policy that would pay up to $100,000 to fly me back to the nearest major medical facility, and I think I paid less than $100 for it."

Be sure to get all the immunizations you'll need for the corner of the planet you're headed to. Many immunizations need to be administered multiple times over a series of months, so give yourself enough time to take care of this detail. Not sure which diseases are most popular where? Check out the Centers for Disease Control web pages at www.cdc.gov/travel.

If you're going really big, you can also get evacuation and rescue insurance, a nice little extra if you need to be plucked off the ice in Antartica, say, on your trans-polar trek.

"I always have the $50,000 evacuation insurance," says expedition guru Lindgren. "It's really cheap and there's nothing better in the whole world than to know that you can spend 50 G's on a helicopter coming to get your ass out of somewhere."

Think like a local

Now that you're safe, think about others. You'll want to bone up on some cultural aspects of the places your traveling to, as well, if only to avoid misunderstandings.

"Don't touch people on the head in Nepal," says Scott. "It's a big insult."

"Give the police authorities in South America the well-known respect that they deserve or demand," says Stabel, who was greeted upon his arrival at the Quito, Ecuador airport by tear gas and a labor riot. "If they ask you to jump, jump."

Learn at least a little bit of the language, too. "Think of the sentences you use to go grocery shopping to get your needs met here," recommends Stabel. "It's not hard to learn, 'good morning,' 'good bye,' and 'how much does this cost.'"

The fail-safe Stabel likes to practice before he leaves for exotic shores? "Learn this sentence: I don't know your language, but I think it's beautiful and I want to learn," beams Stabel. "You say that to anyone anywhere in the world and they're going to say 'Wow, this guy's cool.' Next thing you know, they're fixing you tea."

Culturally sensitivity can't be overstressed. There are a lot of different cultures and people in the world, and they don't always do things like you do. Which is kinda why you're traveling to their country in the first place, right?

"Tiptoe all the time," says Lindgren. "I never really realized how insignificant I was as an individual until I started to go to Asia and Nepal and India and China and Tibet and witnessed that a human being can live in a hut similar to medieval times and still be as happy as I am, as an individual."

At the same time, don't abandon all that good common sense Mom gave you just to have an international cultural experience. Be nice, but hold your ground. Trust your instincts. Never agree to something that doesn't feel right.

"Be sensitive, smile and be overly nice," recommends Scott. "But also be really firm. When people try to sell you stuff and you don't want it, look them in the eye, say no and walk away. Also, if you have to come down hard on someone who's reneging on an agreement, try to do it in a way that saves them some face."

For instance, when his porters tried to charge him more than the agreed price after bringing his gear to a river in Nepal, Scott wouldn't budge from the deal he struck before. But he did agree to pay for all the meals the porters needed on the way there and back. The difference out of Scott's pocket? Less than five bucks.

In short, be smart and treat your adventure travel vacation as anything but a vacation. This isn't an exercise in pampered indulgence, it's a mission, and you're its leader. You've got to think and act like one.

Sounds like a plan, right? Get rid of it.

Remember how confident and reassured it made you feel to research and plan out the smallest details of your trip? How your pre-trip preparations beat back those demons of fear and self-doubt? Good. Now, chuck it. I'm not talking about your health and travel insurance. Just your plan in general.

Sure, it's great to have an itinerary, especially when you're going someplace you've never been before. You want to make sure you get the most out of your journey. But there's also something to be said for letting your adventure take shape on its own, under the natural circumstances of life on our planet.

"There's nothing more beautiful than the deconstruction of your itinerary," says Stabel. "We planned out everything you could imagine for our around-the-world trip, I mean six months of hard-core research. Within two weeks, we had completely thrown it all out the window, and it was a great thing."

The point is, you don't want to let your plan get in the way of your experience. For instance, Stabel, now an accomplished Class V kayaker, learned how to kayak on a trek through Nepal. He hadn't planned on it, but when the opportunity came up, he jumped at it.

Like all good travel stories, his has a circular logic to it. A resident of Sacramento, Calif., Stabel took a four-day course from an instructor in Nepal who was also a traveling raft guide. Years later, Stabel bumped into his teacher in Coloma, Calif., on the South Fork of the American River, just 20 minutes from where he now lives. The instructor had traveled to California to take a job as a raft guide.

"Now, every time I see that guy, I pour as many drinks down his throat as I can fit in him."

Must be payback for all that tea.

-- By Joe Bousquin; Joe is a kayaker, long-distance hiker, snowboarder, climber and freelance writer who lives in Newcastle, Calif. His next adventure will take him to New Zealand this winter, where he promises to take it easy on the rabbits. You can email him at jbousquin@yahoo.com.