ESCAPE FROM ROUTINE

What happened to randomly pointing on the map, packing the wagon and hitting the road? With endless photos of nature & outdoor adventure, people are fulfilling their thrills from their phones, tablets & computers. It's a convenient tool that should be used for inspiration and planning, but many use the interweb to limit their time away from the desk; replacing actual time in the wild with some trendy app. At Man Made we strive to inspire & prepare you for exploring the great outdoors, whether by foot or on wheels.

Every year I book a handful of trips to plan around. I leave myself open to adding to that list but having something on the schedule keeps my work life out of my real life. Each weekend I'm open to packing the car and driving within 5 hours. Usually I'll do a quick interweb search and I'm out the door. This type of mindset will relieve stress during a tough work week and provide you with something to look forward to. Leave the dirty dishes in the sink and the grass can wait for your return.

Like most of you I live in an area with limited local wilderness. I'm 20 minutes from an airport, 2 plus hours from any significant forest, and surrounded by concrete. However, my heart is on a ridge in the Rockies, overlooking a plush cedar valley, surrounded by glacier lakes. This makes my location especially inconvenient and often downright depressing. That takes me back to the whole emphasis on scheduling ahead of time. Even if you don't have a plane ticket, or an exact destination, you know where your heart is so just put something on the calendar and the rest comes easy. Utilize the ole interweb to monitor cheap plane tickets, featured adventures on MANMADE.CO, and other resources that are beneficial to getting out there. Tell your buddies to do the same so you have the whole peer pressure factor (always a plus). Now for the number one rule, DON'T JUST TALK ABOUT IT.