Claire Fuller is training to be an occupational therapist. She loves wild swimming and getting out onto the North Yorkshire moors for overnight camps. Finding the balance between being a busy working woman and a carefree adventurous soul can be difficult.

I spent a month cycling around Yorkshire, interviewing people along the way about their perspectives on trying to live more adventurously. I'd never interviewed anyone for a podcast before; Claire had never been interviewed.

But she did bake me flapjack and take me on a walk to the birthplace of Captain Cook. So I deemed this opening foray into the world of podcasting to be a success!

I was interested to talk to Claire about learning to commit, about adapting to a new career after many years roaming and dabbling, and the ups and downs of being a busy 27-year-old woman who loves the outdoors and adventure.

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This podcast is brought to you by Komoot.

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You can see my ride’s route on komoot here.

Show Notes

If you enjoy listening to this episode over a cup of coffee and think it might be worth the price, you can buy me a coffee here: www. ko-fi.com/al_humphreys
Keep up to date with future episodes (and my other adventures, projects and books) with my free monthly newsletter: alastairhumphreys.com/more/subscribe
Say hello on Twitter and Instagram: @al_humphreys
Follow Claire on Instagram: soon to be occupational therapist making the most of the UK & Ireland’s natural wonders, wild dipping along the way...
Learning to slow down and choose priorities
Travelling the world made her realise that to be a true traveller she needed to know what was on her doorstep
Hitch-hiking round Ireland as a student pushed her boundaries but showed her so many amazing places

Transcript

Below is the transcription of our conversation. It's done by AI so is perhaps a wee bit ropey here and there. If these transcripts prove sufficiently useful then I will make the effort to clean then up and make them better. Do let me know if you think it's worth my time to do that. (Or, better still, do it for me...!). If you'd like to listen as you read along you can do that here:

https://otter.ai/s/aBVxKYX0RYqonZTQQMFkuw

Alastair Humphreys
Hello. This is the first time I've ever recorded a podcast.
Literally just take it out of the box and press go. And of course I want to start my podcast with a major hard hitting celebrity interview.
So, would you like to introduce yourself?

Claire Fuller
And yeah, my name is Claire. I live in Middlesbrough. And I thought that it would be great to meet Alastair to talk about living adventurously.

Alastair Humphreys
The reason I wanted to meet you is because you're NOT a hard hitting celebrity, which is exactly what I wanted. I want to try and find normal people living interesting lives. And you live two minutes away from where Captain Cook was born. A Great Yorkshire adventurer. And that seemed like a good, good place to start. So what is your what's your day job?

Claire Fuller
My day job is I'm a student, I'm training to be an occupational therapist.

Alastair Humphreys
And you like it?

Claire Fuller
I do. I love it. I love working with people and I love the flexibility and variety that we have for like peaceful therapists, the kind of people we work with.

Alastair Humphreys
Okay, but when when you first got in touch with me, one of the things she said was that you sometimes find it hard to be stuck indoors. So what have you done about being stuck indoors?

Claire Fuller
Yeah, so being a student means lots of time in the library or working in a hospital. And so basically every bit of free time I gotta try and get outdoors. Thanks to the concept of micro adventures I get I try and do the overnight camps when I can find a hill somewhere and company. I love wild swimming so I swim down in the river Tees just down the road whenever possible, not in the bit where there's loads of pollution and industry but some nice bits further down. And in the sea when I can.

Alastair Humphreys
And you were out last night.

Claire Fuller
I was out last night. Yeah, yeah, I camped up by Roseberry Topping with beautiful views between there and Captain Kirk Cook's monument. And the stars. I saw shooting stars. And it was a gorgeous night.

Alastair Humphreys
practising what you preach. So you also told me that you struggle a bit with trying to do too much in life, because life is so amazing. And you want to go here and there and do this and see this and do that. So how do you go about trying to find some sort of balance between work and play, earning money, being with your friends, balance,

Claire Fuller
I find the balance really hard. It's something I'm really working on. But I'm a bit too excited and enthusiastic about life. Lots of my friends and family will tell you that. And yeah, I have a part time job to see me through my studies, I have money. I study a lot of my time. I volunteer. I've obviously got friends I want to see a lot. I've got a boyfriend and my family live far away. And I'm all about adventure. And so basically, there's not enough hours in the day to do what I want to do. And I have to prioritise, which is unfortunate as studying is my priority. But whenever I've got their free time I do try and get out as much as possible and make sure that I go for a swim once a week and that keeps me keeps my head straight

Alastair Humphreys
So how do...

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