It was, as so often with these things, only in the bar that I started to understand. To realise why I love attending the Explore conference at the RGS every year. Its because you are surrounded by others who tell you that you obsession with travel and expeditions is normal – that it is OK – in fact they encourage it.

I had been at the weekend chairing a panel on tropical forest expeditions but had spent much of the weekend chatting over 1001 cups of tea with enthused past and future expeditioners.

Only in the evening did the realisation of the reassuring nature of the event strike me. In most other circles the obsession with expeditions and remote travel is seen as a bit odd, a sign of not having grown up, of not being real life. Yet there, everyone is as passionate as you – and of course as mad. But its a heady mix of enthusiasm and I have left with extremely itchy feet…