Erin Bastian is the founder of Evoke Adventure.

ERIN BASTIAN’s love for the outdoors and adventure has led her to start up a company which enables her to share her passion with others. Evoke Adventure aims to provide real and authentic adventures and expeditions which take those who embark on them on a learning curve and life-changing experience.

Here Erin talks more about the company’s ethos and her aims and ambitions for it in the year’s head. To find out you can benefit from the expeditions and adventures she has planned visit www.evokeadventure.com.

What is the idea behind Evoke Adventure and how it was formed?

Evoke adventure was formed because I wanted to create opportunities for people to go out on real expeditions. When I first started going away on expeditions, I had to learn everything the hard way, fight nerves that almost stopped me from trying, and believe that I could, when people said I couldn’t.

What Evoke aims to do is help people jump that hurdle. Teach people what’s involved in expedition life, from camp craft to decision making, build confidence in what they are capable of, while really getting out there and doing it. We don’t want to provide just another package holiday, instead real expeditions.

Evoke Adventure leads people on expeditions and aims to teach them about expedition life.

Tell us who was involved in setting up the organisation and the experience of adventure and qualifications you have?

Evoke Adventure is a company I’ve set up myself. After ten years of travelling and expedition leading, I started to see adventure companies mass producing expeditions, and couldn’t help but feel disappointed. They’ve lost a lot of what makes expeditions so challenging and rewarding.

Setting up Evoke was and is one of my biggest challenges yet. I live and breath for the outdoors, thrive on leading people in remote places, and now I’m having to learn skills such as marketing, website building, emails, lots of emails.

The best bit about building Evoke Adventure, is that I can incorporate my own ethics into the expeditions. Such as keeping teams small, reducing our impact on the environment we explore, and maximising the learning opportunities.

What are some of the courses you offer and to what abilities are they suited?

Evoke has a range of opportunities starting from single overnight wild camps, which lets face it, is where every great adventurer most likely started out. Designed to get you hooked on camping and suitable for any ability.

We also offer training courses from beginner to advanced, as well as bespoke 1:1 coaching. I’m a firm believer that we all start out adventuring some how, an learning new skills is part of the fun.

What are some of the expeditions you have and will lead abroad?

Ooo good question! I’ve got quite a list of expeditions now, but some of my favourites were exploring the remote fjords of Patagonia, trekking amongst the towering Annapurna mountains, cycling around Iceland and circumnavigating many of the Mediterranean islands like Corsica an Sardinia. In fact I’m heading off to Tanzania wth a group this week, snorkelling and looking at conservation on the island of Zanzibar, which I’m really excited about.

One of Evoke’s goals is to run expeditions that are the perfect length to fit within average holiday allowance, usually 10 day trips with a real challenge involved. This years big adventures are circumnavigating the Mediterranean island of Menorca by sea kayak. One of these expeditions is for complete novices who’ve done a little pre trip training with me in Cornwall, and another for kayakers wanting to take their paddling to the next step.

I’m also running a project to raise awareness for plastic pollution in our oceans. I have 18 women who are paddling 300km from coast to coast, in the UK. We are connecting waterways from Bristol to London, clearing up all the plastics we find on route.

Erin is also running a project to raise awareness for plastic pollution in our oceans. There are 18 women involved who are paddling 300km from coast to coast in the UK.

Tell us what Cornwall has to offer in terms of adventure and extreme sports?

Cornwall is not only a stunning place to explore but is has so much to offer. You’ve got the rugged and rough north coast, to the peaceful and calm estuaries of the south. I’ve grown up surfing, sailing and climbing in Cornwall, and it’s the place which first encouraged my love for extreme sports.

What do you have planned for Evoke Adventure in rest of the year and beyond? How much do you want to expand?

Evoke is always going to be a relatively small company, because expeditions should be bespoke and personal. But I do have big dreams!

I want people to explore all the remote wild places which I love so much. In the pipeline for next summer I’m looking at Norway and Iceland for kayaking, whilst also researching a location for an epic SUP adventure.