The Next Adventure
Laura Bingham on Rwanda, purpose and why exploration should leave something behind.
For some people, an adventure begins with a destination. For Laura Bingham, it usually begins with a reason.
The British explorer has spent much of her adult life choosing journeys that sit somewhere between ambitious and slightly improbable. She sailed across the Atlantic with almost no sailing experience. She crossed South America by bicycle, travelling more than 7,000 kilometres without money. Later, she led an all-female expedition into the Guyanese rainforest to navigate the Essequibo River from source to sea. But behind the distances, the headlines and the inevitable stories of things going wrong, there has often been something else. Purpose.
Laura has long believed that adventure can be used as a vehicle for good: to raise money, draw attention to causes that matter and encourage people to care about places and communities far beyond their own. And now, another adventure is beginning to take shape.
NEXT STOP: RWANDA
Laura is currently planning a new journey to Rwanda as part of a charitable initiative — another expedition where the destination is only one part of the story. The details are still being shaped, but that’s often where an adventure really begins. Long before the flights are booked or bags are packed come the maps spread across tables, conversations, unanswered questions and the slightly daunting process of turning an idea into something real. For Laura, the challenge itself has never been the entire point.
It’s what the challenge can make possible.
ADVENTURE AS A FORCE FOR GOOD
This isn’t new territory for Laura. In 2016, she set out to cross South America by bicycle without money, travelling thousands of kilometres while raising funds and awareness for Operation South America, a small charity supporting vulnerable children and young women in Paraguay. Removing money from the journey meant relying on something else entirely: people. Food, places to sleep, directions and moments of kindness came from the communities she encountered along the way. The result was an expedition that became as much about human connection as physical endurance. It’s an idea that continues to shape the way Laura thinks about exploration today. What if an adventure could create something beyond the experience of the person undertaking it? What if curiosity could lead to connection, and connection could lead to action?
RWANDA, AND WHAT COMES NEXT
Rwanda will be another chapter in that story. A new landscape. New people. New challenges. And an opportunity to use exploration once again in support of something larger. There will undoubtedly be moments that don’t go to plan. With Laura, there usually are. But perhaps that’s part of the point. Exploration asks us to step into places where we don’t know exactly what will happen next. It requires curiosity, adaptability and a willingness to keep moving when the path isn’t quite what we expected. Those are useful qualities far beyond an expedition.
STEP INTO LAURA’S WORLD
Back in Costa Rica, Laura brings that same philosophy to her experience with The Current.
The Explorer’s Table begins in the wild, exploring a protected landscape of forest trails, waterfalls and extraordinary biodiversity, before returning to something altogether more domestic: making sourdough by hand and gathering around a long table for lunch.
Over warm bread and beautiful local food, the stories continue.
Oceans crossed. Continents cycled. Jungles navigated. Wrong turns taken. Lessons learned.
It’s an opportunity not simply to hear about a life of adventure, but to spend time with the person behind it — and perhaps leave feeling a little more curious about where your own next adventure might lead.
Because for Laura, exploration has never really been about how far you go.
It’s about what you choose to do with the journey.