In 1973, Richard Bangs founded Sobek Expeditions, the original and now largest adventure travel company in the world, with over a million clients guided since its beginning. And one of its marquee activities was running rivers, especially lining up clients for first descent exploratories all over the world. Sobek pioneered first descents of some eighty rivers around the world, with Bangs personally leading of them—while also earning the dubious, distinction of capsizing on six continents. He’s also organized and led the first trips into North Korea, Libya, Yemen, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, New Guinea, Iran, and even China back in 1978.
Now he has a book about it all, tracing 50 years of adventure travel and how it has evolved through times of war and peace, terrorism, the rise of the internet, the pandemic, and the first virtual expeditions. The Art of Living Dangerously presents true stories, both perilous and awe-inspiring, from the full array of adventure travel, including its rafting and kayaking exploits but also trekking, climbing, sailing, diving, adventure cruising, backcountry skiing, mountaineering, biking, canyoneering, and more. Sobek clients throughout the ages have included Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Mick Jagger, Barry Diller, and Daryl Hannah.
Paddling Life caught up with our hero Bangs for his take on everything from his new book to starting Sobek and the state of international river running and paddling today.
PL: What’s your take on the state of whitewater rafting/kayaking today?
Bangs: A half century of change, evolution, and devolution. When I started as a guide on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon in 1969 (at 18 years old), rafting was a fledgling sport, unknown to all but a few, and deemed dangerous and suitable only for mythopoetics or the unhinged. Just a decade earlier less than 100 people had attempted to raft through the canyon, and the numbers had not increased that much by the time I began. A few years later when I first took rafts to Chile, New Zealand, and others, they were the first whitewater boats in-country. Now, it seems, every navigable stretch of whitewater in the world has rafts and guides and a public eager to thrill and enjoy. It’s wonderful to see a once-niche adventure grow into something that sweeps millions into the wilderness and showcases the merits and wonders of wild waters and the corridors through which they pass.
PL: How has it changed since your earlier days?
Bangs: So much more professional, safe, mindful, and aware. When I began, we pretty much made it up as we went along, and made many mistakes, which allowed those in our wakes to correct and improve. Self-bailing boats did not exist, so we spent needless hours each day scooping out bilges after a run; we used signal mirrors to try and communicate with a passing plane that we needed help when there was an injury (now we use Starlink, Iridium, even cell phones when there is a signal); the rafts were old cotton-neoprene pontoon bridges that popped with the slightest provocation. The experience now is richer, less risky, more informed, and the food is healthier and better. I rafted the Middle Fork this past summer, and the Grand last fall, and they were as I remembered, but better in that there were few worries about things going wrong, the guides were well-steeped in history, geology and storytelling; and the grub so good I put on weight.
PL: How fun was it to write the book?
Bangs: Super fun, as it allowed me to experience so many grand adventures a second time. And when reviewing what once happened it allows diving deeper into meaning and understanding, which are sometimes missed the first time around.
PL: What do you hope readers take away from it?
Bangs: That it is good and right to follow your passion. And that uncertainty can be a friend and a teacher. It will work out in the end, and if it hasn’t worked out, it’s not the end.
PL: If you could take anyone on a river trip, who would it be?
Bangs: From experience, rafting is the great equalizer, and promotes the bonding and understanding of the other when faced with the common goal of getting downriver. I would love to take the pairing of Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky; Ismail Haniyeh and Benjamin Netanyahu; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Matt Gaetz; Simon and Garfunkel. You get the picture, and know how sharing a raft can make a difference.
PL: How is the Stellar project going, and what’s your role there?
Bangs: Steller is now the largest travel storytelling platform, and has partnerships with Bing Travel, Trivago, Expedia and several others. My title is co-founder and Chief Adventure Officer, and of late have been organizing Creator/Influencer campaigns for USAID (Republic of Georgia, Nepal, Sri Lanka), and tourism boards (Ireland, Germany, Australia, Singapore). I love the cutting edge, be it in river running, travel and/or technology, and Steller has scratched that itch, and I hope made a difference.
PL: Where does your curiosity about reaching into all of the nooks and crannies of our planet come from?
Bangs: Was it there even when you were young or has the intensity grown throughout your life? To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, I have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing. I believe it began very young, as my father was an early officer in the newly-formed CIA and he, probably against policy, tried to explain what was happening around the world, especially Iran where The Company organized a coups that displaced its democratically elected leader with the sub-genius Shah, and the reverberations are felt still. I soaked in those early lessons, and tried to puzzle together understanding. It provoked a desire to go and see and color in these points on the map in a sort of quest to piece together the inter-connectedness of all things. It is an unreachable destination, but the journey is ever enlightening, and evokes moments of wonder and awe. If curiosity killed the cat, it was satisfaction that brought it back.
PL: What was your first really adventurous escapade? What did you learn from it?
Bangs: Oh, there were so many in my late teens when I was a river guide on the Colorado through the Grand Canyon. But the madness really took flight when I organized a series of first descents of rivers in Ethiopia. Suddenly we were sailing through a Lost World into uncertainty, with hippos, crocodiles, deadly insects and snakes, unrun rapids and falls, and local peoples who had never witnessed skin as pale as ours. What did I learn? I learned to dance with uncertainty; that getting lost is the first step to finding your way. I learned to unearth meaning and thrills with the mystery, the absurdity, the contradictions, the hostility, but also the generosity our environment offers. Life is about taking the moment without knowing what’s going to happen next. I learned to live in the Questions.
PL: Where have you not gone yet that you’d like to go?
Bangs: The paradox of travel is the more you see, the more you recognize you have yet to see. There are cultures and peoples with whom I have not yet reached a hand, such as Togo & Benin where I am leading a group next March. But, every place I have set foot has infinite stories to tell, histories and science that deserve deeper dives, and dynamic changes worthy of fresh looks and interactions. There is a world in a grain of sand. Every place is a portal to infinity.
PL: Where was one of the most meaningful places you’ve traveled to?
Bangs: The first major expedition I organized was down the Omo River, and it spun the axis of my being to new meridians. A 15’ crocodile bit one of our rafts, a slow-motion scene forever embedded in mind’s eye, and it was a moment of rapturous terror. The primary response was one of exhilaration, the splendid frisson that comes with gliding by the edge. I felt a seam open onto a void whose terrible content was the inevitability of finality, and it raced the blood and evoked feelings of being more alive.
PL: Is there really an “art” to living dangerously or is it more a matter of practice makes perfect?
Bangs: Art is the manifestation of creativity, and creativity takes courage. The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live. There is danger in everything we do, but the greatest danger is to do nothing, and so the art is to move.
PL: Have there been times when you’ve been scared silly?
Bangs: Many, many, but the fear of atrophy is the worst in my life. Albert Camus said, “What Gives Value to Travel is Fear.”
PL: Which of the many ventures you’ve undertaken are you most proud of?
Bangs: Thousands have taken Sobek and MT Sobek trips over the decades, and in almost all cases the traveler who began the adventure returned different than whence he left, and better for it, as you and your book so brilliantly give testament. I am so proud that we have been agents of positive transformation, and that so many of our guests were touched by what they saw, and then raised voices and opened pocketbooks to preserve these wild places when threatened, and several times prevailed, enabling protection as one would a family member. I am also proud of my sons, Walker and Jasper, who have been fortunate to experience the far-away, and who now make efforts to help in personal ways. Of the many initiatives, Walker taught English to Costa Rican villagers so they might find meaningful work in the hospitality sector; Jasper raised funds recently to help Afghanis who need medical attention. They make me proud.
PL: How do you feel about the rapidity with which the world’s wilderness areas are vanishing?
Bangs: One of my many flaws is unrepentant optimism. I am ever hopeful that solutions are at hand, sometimes through technology, others through a change in values and priorities. Prior to the 18th century, wilderness was considered anathema, lairs for demons and monsters, places to be leveled. Beauty was symmetrical, ordered, like a well-designed garden. When travelers on The Grand Tour crossed the alps, they closed the curtains on their carriage so as not to be exposed to the ugliness of raw Nature. All that changed with the Romantic Poets escaping Industrialized London, and feeling the turbulent pleasure, somewhere between fright and admiration, of wild Nature. Thus started the movement to save the wildernesses of the world, and as more and more take adventure trips, and are enthralled with what they find, the constituency increases to save, stave, or bring back the wild. New protections are put in place all the time (I just visited America’s newest National Park, The New River Gorge in West Virginia); millions of trees are being planted by concerned citizens; dams are coming down all over; EVs and solar panels are helping to reduce carbon emissions. In Africa, new conservancies are being gazetted with local communities as stakeholders, reducing the incentives to poach. Things might seem bleak when doom scrolling, but the good efforts by so many, especially the mindful travelers, give reason to be hopeful. I am on the board of CREST (Center for Responsible Travel), and they exist to help divine and design the virtuous future.
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