You Inter-Railed Europe or backpacked Peru, or lived in Moscow/Sydney/Paris for a few months after uni. You tell a funny story about how you once ran out of pesetas and had to sleep in a railway station/sandpit/cave. But now you have a mortgage, a husband/wife and kids/pets/credit cards. You go to a very nice cottage in Provence/ Tuscany/Devon each summer, and you go skiing in Val in the winter. The rest of the time, you sit in traffic jams, tut at noisy iPods, shout at cold callers and go about the business of getting older.

Well, join the club. It’s called the Midlife Crisis Club. Anytime soon, the monotony of a perfectly normal, even pleasant, existence will become too much and you’ll be flipping out. You’ll buy a car you’re too old for, run off with someone too young for you, maybe even throw a brick through the neighbour’s window.

But flipping out won’t achieve anything (unless your neighbour’s had it coming for years). Why not go on a midlife-crisis-busting adventure instead? Book two or three weeks off work and get out there. Do something crazy, tough, explorerish, maybe even pioneering. Remind yourself what it’s like to travel properly. Prove you’ve still got what it takes without ever needing to test-drive a Harley-Davidson.

These eight trips are a challenge, the most challenging, in fact, that you can do without specialist training. Some will be physically exhausting, or mentally gruelling, or both. But whether it’s the ascent of Mont Blanc, the 400km Andean bike ride, the Himalayan rafting expedition or the 17-day Antarctic ski sojourn, each promises to stave off the “What am I doing with my life?” episode — for another year at least.

BIKE TO MACHU PICCHU

You’re not going to blow the cobwebs away by walking the Inca Trail. Your granny could do that. With her Zimmer frame. No, you have to bike it. KE Adventure Travel (01768 773966, www.keadventure.com) offers a 16-day Andean mountain-bike trip, zigzagging far above and then far below all the backpackers doing the standard walk from Cuzco to Machu Picchu. It starts and ends in the same place, but in the 11 days of challenging biking, you will cover 400km of terrain, 70% of it off-road, including a day-long descent from 3,800 metres right down into the Amazon basin. For the sheer range of landscapes and ecosystems you’ll be ticking off, this is the ultimate biking adventure. The next trips leave on August 5 and September 16, and cost from £2,055, including accommodation, most meals, guides, transfers and all flights.

DRIVE FROM MANHATTAN TO HOLLYWOOD

With any luck, your midlife crisis is just a passing phase, so there’s no point in buying an embarrassingly red sports car in the middle of it. You’ll have recovered before you can say penis extension. Instead, hire an embarrassingly red sports car and drive it across the States. Kuoni (01306 747008, www.kuoni.co.uk) can arrange a prestige fly-drive in a Chrysler Sebring — while they can’t guarantee a red one, it will be suitably pointy and suitably convertible for this, the ultimate road trip. After a night at the deluxe Essex House hotel in New York, set off west, with the air blowing through your rapidly thinning hair, on a 15-day drive through Washington, Philadelphia, Las Vegas, Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon and San Francisco, treating yourself to a night at the Regent Beverly Wilshire at the end. It costs £894pp, based on two sharing, for 15 days’ flashy car hire, two nights’ accommodation (your home is wherever you lay your hat en route) and flights into New York and out of Los Angeles. The drop-off charge is $500 (£265).

SUMMIT MONT BLANC

To complete the Haute Route from Chamonix to Zermatt, one of the world’s long-distance treks, is impressive. To climb Mont Blanc at the end of it makes you a true adventurer. Although you’ll need to get in shape before you go, you don’t need any previous high-altitude trekking experience. Stamina is the key — you will be walking between six and eight hours a day on rough ground, traversing high plateaux, glaciers and scree slopes, and sleeping in high mountain huts. So, you now have a reason to work out at the gym.

The trek takes nine days, with a further two to three for the roped ascent of the 4,810-metre Monster Blanc. There will be blisters, aching legs, possibly immense fatigue, but it will all be worth it for this unforgettable Alpine traverse. Mountain Tracks (020 8877 5773, www.mountaintracks.co.uk) has three summer departures. Each costs £995, plus £545 for the Mont Blanc extension, including all guiding, accommodation and most meals, but not flights. Fly to Geneva with EasyJet (www.easyjet.com) or British Airways (0870 850 9850, www.ba.com). Or try Exodus (0870 240 5550, www.exodus.co.uk).

IT’S A JUNGLE OUT THERE

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