What do you hope to achieve from each expedition you go on?

What do you hope to achieve from each expedition you go on?

Benedict Allen (Explorer) gives expert video advice on: Do you get nervous before an expedition?; How long does an expedition last?; How do you decide what expedition to do next? and more...

My objective each time is, I suppose, to come back with knowledge of the place that is more than simply the perceived knowledge. I don't do much background reading, I prepare as best as I can. But essentially it's about going to a place immersing myself in that place and then exposing myself to that place, in other words not just being pampered or protected in the village but just testing myself by going on a mission like head off by myself through the forest through the desert and all my expeditions follow that formula of going to local people and then heading off alone. And then I come back feeling a sense of having coped somehow in that world and therefore being able to communicate that experience isolated from my culture not propped up by the GPS not propped up by satellite phone. But having actually perceived and even thrived in a place that would certainly kill people before I set off.