Blog #4 Jake Wenstrup

One of my favorite websites out there on the the interwebs, other than the ocd-like daily facebook check, is outsideonline.com. I am someone who is really interested in the outdoors and people who push the very edges of human abilities, and outsideonline.com has exactly that. Outsideonline is a collection of articles from authors around the world as they document interesting people, places and things they see in their travels. From base jumping to deep sea diving, outsideonline does a great job of exploring each activity, but also the individual involved and what drives them to do what they do. To me, the most interesting part is what drives a person like say Dean Potter, who free solo climbed (by himself with no ropes) a 3000 ft cliff to put their life on the line to do such amazing feats. Additionally, outsideonline often provides insight into what is going on in the mind of a person like Dean Potter while they are attempting something like a free solo climb.
Other than documenting amazing people doing amazing things, outsideonline.com is a great way to find places I want to put on my bucket list. Outsideonline has a really interesting section on travel and is the quickest way for me to want to leave everything behind and go to some far off country for a while. I think outsideonline.com provides a very open, interesting view on what each author has experienced with a new culture outside the U.S. and does so through an almost journal-like form that allows for a very personal view into international culture. My latest bucket list addition was New Zealand. This article:
http://www.outsideonline.com/adventure-travel/australia-pacific/new-zealand/Take-Me-Home.html
really appealed to me because I look to my own future and see myself caught up in deadlines and living where I don't want to live. Hopefully I'll find time in my own busy future to travel to a place like New Zealand and check it off the bucket list.