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You are doomed to be an adventure traveller. So why not relax and enjoy it? If the demographers are right, you will no longer go to Florida for a week on the beach. Instead, your vacation will combine the physical exertion of an Outward Bound course, the spiritual fulfillment of a meeting with the Dali Lama, the sensory salvation of a Tuscan cooking school and the danger of climbing Mount Everest, a challenge that has already claimed 180 lives.

They say that it's not really an adventure unless something goes wrong. And the farther you go off the beaten track, the better your chances for the kind of adventure you'll never forget. And that's what makes you sign on for even more adventure next year.

This is what happened to me 10 years ago. I was a sedentary city guy with absolutely no interest in going anywhere I couldn't get the New York Times the same day it was published. But then I met my girlfriend (now my wife) and, after slogging for three months behind her over 1,600 steep and mountainous kilometres of the Appalachian Trail (basically, from Georgia to Washington, D.C.), the prospect of sitting on a beach, except one with killer turtles digging up the sand under me, was dull and unfulfilling.

Today, I am an adventure travel junkie, just the person to report to you on the fastest-growing segment of the travel market.

Don't think you have to be rich, fit or under 50 to be an adventure traveller. I met a 79-year-old woman from Mississauga, Ont. who just returned from Everest base camp. She lives in a retirement home so that she can save money to go on trips like this.

But let's start with something a little less exotic -- reindeer trekking in Arctic Sweden.

You laugh. Please don't. There were much stranger trips advertised at the International Adventure Travel Show, the great gathering of outfitters and tour companies from the world of adventure travel that have met each year since 1990 in Chicago. But the one that intrigued me most was tucked away in a small booth away from the mainstream (the Eco-Challenges, the Outside Magazines and the region with the largest presence of all -- Mongolia, which clearly sees its position as one of the last frontiers on Earth as something worth capitalizing on).

What could reindeer trekking possibly mean? Was this like cattle herding in Wyoming, but with herds of reindeer? Do you ride on the reindeer? Run behind them? Hitch them to a sled? What? And Arctic Sweden? In winter? Summer? At Christmas with Rudolph? So many different visions were dancing in my head that I had to ask the woman in the booth for clarification.

Lena Conlan is a Swedish American who runs Crossing Latitudes, an adventure company that specializes in kayaking and trekking in Scandinavia.

"You walk beside the reindeer," she said. "Everyone has their own reindeer, and there are eight people maximum on our trips. Some outfitters make you share your reindeer. We don't." What a relief to know I could have my own reindeer.

Especially when I learned the reindeer's job was not to carry me, but carry my bags and gear across the mountain valleys of northern Sweden. This would free me to hike blissfully along with nothing but a day pack and a smile.

I would be close to my reindeer at all times, however. In fact, he would be walking beside me on a tether. Otherwise, it would be tempted (this being his country and all) to wander off just about anywhere, likely back to the herd managed by our Laplander guides or, to be more politically correct, the Saami, who have lived in northern Scandinavia for centuries.

The other good news was that I wouldn't be reindeer trekking in the dark, which is pretty much what it is all the time in Arctic Sweden in the winter, just like it is in Arctic Canada. The trip runs in mid-August, when the sun shines bright for 20 hours a day and never really sets.

Like most adventure trips, this one sounds a lot more strenuous than it is and, as a result, you may miss what could be the adventure of your life because you're afraid it will be the adventure of your death. But I'm willing to bet you sleep in a tent with a nice air mattress, have all your meals cooked for you, and generally hike no more than six hours a day -- traversing the mountains, as opposed to hiking, step by exhausting step, up and down them.

In fact, if you check Lena Conlan's Web site, http://www.crossinglatitudes.com, you'll see that this trip is rated moderate in terms of physical activity -- as, by the way, are the vast majority of group adventure trips, Into Thin Air notwithstanding. Which means if you're in any kind of shape at all, you and your reindeer should have no problem keeping up with each other.

In the words of the Web site: "This trek is for anyone eager to explore the mountains, try some of the best fly fishing offered in Scandinavia and learn about the Saami way of life. Come help us pick a variety of berries and catch fresh Arctic char. No previous trekking experience is required."

It would be hard to imagine a vacation more benign or less dangerous -- certainly compared to sitting on a beach in Florida.

I'm also willing to bet the experience of reindeer trekking in Arctic Sweden is a lot less onerous than the anticipation of it. Nearly all adventure travel companies let you create a custom trip if you can bring together between six and 12 other people that have the same itinerary as one of their standard trips.

My wife and I have been on standard trips, where you find out who your trip mates are when you land at some far-off airport, for the three-hour van ride to the Forbidden River of Bungabunga.

And we've also been on custom trips where we or one of our friends call up some like-minded pals and say: "How about the six of us orca watching in Baja for a week?" One is not better than the other. They're just different, that's all. Except when I say this, I'm mindful of the old Moroccan adage: "Choose your companions before you choose your route."

But I also know that if I get on the phone and say: "How'd you like to go reindeer trekking in Arctic Sweden with us this August?" I will be met with either stunned silence or derisive laughter. In fact, I know I will, because I've already made some of those calls. No one -- not one of the two dozen people I've mentioned this trip to -- has said: "Gee, that sounds intriguing. Tell me more." They don't even say: "Sorry, I'm already going caribou trekking in Arctic America." Or "I went last year. Can't you think of anything new?"

So the next time someone you know calls and tells you that Mongolia has suddenly become the way-cool travel destination, or that "Did you know the average backpacker has changed from being a 24-year-old man to being a 48-year-old woman?" you will not guffaw. You will not hang up. You will say: "Gee, that sounds intriguing. Tell me more."

Because for many of us who have grown tired of the usual resorts and beaches, adventure travel offers us something we all come to crave sooner or later in our lives: authenticity, renewal and unpredictability -- all wrapped up in one nice package, and perhaps with a big bow and a red-nosed reindeer on top.

With this column, Bob Ramsay begins a series on adventure travel. Ramsay, a Toronto writer, is an inveterate traveler who has hiked 1,000 miles of the Appalachian Trail, been to both Everest Base Camps (Nepal and Tibet) and can't understand why anyone would sit on a beach when they can sit on a mountain top.

bob.ramsay@sympatico.ca