I was thinking about that when I was dropping my 6 year old off at some hobbies earlier - it’s pretty much expected to have learned how to ride a bicycle before starting school, and it massively expands the area you can go to by yourself. When she went to school by bicycle she can easily make a detour via a shop to spend some pocket money before coming home, while by foot that’d be rather time consuming.
Quite a lot of friends from outside of Europe either can’t ride a bicycle, or were learning it as adult after moving here, though.
edit: the high number of replies mentioning “swimming” made me realize that I had that filed as a basic skill pretty much everybody has - probably due to swimming lessons being a mandatory part of school education here.
How to stay safe in the wilderness. We get too many people that aren’t from around here that think you can do a hike late in the afternoon wearing sandals and only bringing a water bottle. People don’t realize that the wilderness is a dangerous place if you aren’t prepared. Weather can change rapidly and you need proper clothing and footwear to account for it. Make sure you have enough time for the hike and bring the essentials just in case something happens and you need to spend a night outdoors.
The death valley Germans comes to mind. The theory from the guy who found their bodies was that they thought area 51 would have patrols/guards like US bases in Germany. They didn’t realize that area 51 has a largely unguarded area as part of its “official territory” because death valley does the guarding for them.
Great long form write-up from the guy who found them: Here
I’m somewhat upset at you for having spent literally 8 hours on that wonderful blog. Thank you and also fuck you for that link. People give warnings for movietrope links, I might recommend the same.
Yeah, while I’m not a big hiker myself, being Swiss I know how prepared you need to be.
Walked around in Taiwan when I came across a hiking trail. 1.5 hours, like 150m verticality only, labelled as easy. Cool, but not enough water (only carried a 2l bottle). Went to a local teahouse and got me 4 more bottles to be safe and went for it. Walked past countless others because I was underprepared, and am glad I did because those could have turned out not so nice if I did go.
I’ve also been caught out by this in other places. I was in Hong Kong and went up to The Peak, which has a 3km path around the top. I thought one water bottle was enough for a flat walk in 35C humid summer heat. It wasn’t and ended up rationing water halfway through and chugging two whole bottles of water when I got back to where I could get water again.
And petting wildlife. Or trying to take selfies with wildlife. Or feeding wildlife.
No, no, and no.
Even a cute lil’ chipmunk is a no-no. Bison, moose, and their sweet huggable calves are serious no-nos.