Atom Araullo is at netizens’ mercy in crowd-sourced travel show ‘Adventure Your Way’

Atom Araullo. Photo by Clarizel Abanilla / INQUIRER.net

Veteran journalist Atom Araullo’s upcoming travel show “Adventure Your Way” is the country’s first and only crowd-sourced program that lays its fate solely on the netizens travel suggestions.

Promising a unique kind of backpack spontaneity, “Adventure Your Way” is actually a reverse transfer of travel information. Instead of featuring a destination’s attractions to the public, it’s the netizens who will introduce new sights and adventures to Atom.

Aired on AXN, Atom is set to start his journeys with a blank bucket list which rapidly becomes populated with a variety of suggestions and tips from the least to the beasts. Among endless suggestions are skydiving, bungee jumping and camping by a cliff edge under the stars.

A certified go-to guy for travels, Atom shared what it feels like to surrender his fate to his smartphone and spoke of the prime advantages of always having one in trips.

“I think travelling with your smartphone is a lot different from travelling without your smartphone which is something we only experience maybe in the past 4 or 5 years. I always bring my smartphone without na even if it doesn’t have any data lalo na abroad ‘pag nagtitipid ka ng konti. But you download certain maps, you try ask people about the best places to go. If you have people that you know from a place and you’re still in touch and say ‘oh can you take me out’ etc. In a way it makes things more spontaneous,” he said at the recently held grand press launch of “Adventure Your Way.”

On the other hand, he said it’s also nice to just go for a complete surrender to nature. There were instances in the past when he leaves his smartphone at the hotel and just get lost.

“I’ve been in some places where I’m really not sure what to do for today, let me just walk around and see what’s in store. It has to be a balance of both,” he added.

As a hardcore journalist, Atom has been all over the country. He had visited places and told stories from the happy, festive or plainly declarative nature to the unfortunate, disastrous and catastrophic ones like his globally recognized life-threatening coverage of typhoon Yolanda in 2013.

But now, he will visit places not as a newscaster, but as a plain traveller led by adventure-seeking netizens.

“Being at the mercy of people on the internet is quite thrilling, again it goes back to the idea that sometimes you don’t know that best thing to do. Kaya nga crowd-sourcing is such a powerful method of getting information not just for the serious stuff but also for the light and fun stuff because you’re relying on the wisdom of the crowd and usually the crowd can regulate itself by telling you or me specifically what are the choices and then I can make that choice.”

The public is encouraged to share their bucket lists by commenting on “Adventure Your Way’s” social media pages on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram using the hashtag #AdventureGoals.

On its first episode set to premiere on February 8 at 8 pm, Atom explores the island of Cebu and decides whether to go river trekking or interbuilding ziplining. Also, find out the other activities suggested to him by his online friends and see what he discovers./jpv