Now an experienced adventurer and TV broadcaster, Mark Beaumont started younger than most - cycling across Scotland at the tender age of just 12. A decade later, he smashed the record for an 18,000 mile bike race around the world in 78 days and 14 hours!

To put that into perspective, it's just shy of an insane average of 230 miles per day!

It's great to talk to you Mark. Can you tell us how you first got into the adventure scene?

In the 20 years since cycling around Scotland I've gone from very amateur summer adventures to it becoming a full time job, travelling to well over 100 countries and creating a series of documentaries for the BBC.

Growing up I never knew you could make a career out of expeditions, but filming, writing and events have allowed me to do this - and it is important to me because I get to take on my dreams and share them with millions of people.

I find the adventure community in the UK is very supportive, and each person has their own focus and story so there isn't direct competition like there would be with adventure sports. I am still best known as an endurance cyclist, but have dabbled in lots of sports over the years including ocean rowing, mountaineering, ultra-running and swimming.

Having a lifestyle career is not something that I take for granted and it's so important to keep working hard to make the next adventure worth talking about, rather than sitting back and revelling in past successes.

It's inspiring to see a career forged out of a passion. What tips do you have for people interested in doing what you do?

In order to make a living from adventures, you need to also become a story teller. The access we all have to do this in today's world is amazing, through social media, self-publishing books and filming directly for Vimeo and YouTube.

If you build an audience with an interest in what you get up to in the great outdoors, then you can attract sponsors and start to make your way as a professional adventurer.

The hardest part is getting to the start of your adventure, and actually having the conviction to see your dreams become a reality.

Given you've been doing it for some time, what has been your most life changing adventure so far?

I was first inspired to go on an adventure at the age of 11, when I read in the local newspaper, the Dundee Courier, about a guy who had cycled from John O'Groats to Lands End - I just wish I had kept the cutting and knew who he was. But the expedition that has caused the most profound change in my life was not a success story - it was quite the opposite.

In early 2012 I was attempting to break the World Record for rowing across the Atlantic. After 28 days, my team capsized and we fought for our lives for 14 hours before being rescued. We so nearly didn't survive and we lost everything out there, so the expedition was a disaster. However it proved massively important in my career to figure out what was important and what I wanted to do next.

Growth through adversity then. Has that changed how you plan your adventures at all?

Ideas come to me very regularly, and some stick around. Eventually I dig out the paper maps (or order new ones if it's a part of the world I haven't been to before) and start the fun part of route setting. Then comes the hardest part which is writing a project plan and finding sponsors.

But before all that, you need to have figured out the what, why and how much.

There is also often a link between one expedition and the next, so the seed of an idea will already be sown before I finish an expedition. However, it normally takes a couple of months back home before I can think seriously about planning the next journey.

What about a little closer to home? What does the Great British outdoors mean to you?

Having travelled so much I can come back home and say honestly that we have one of the best climates to be outside, involved in sports and adventure. For a small island, on the edge of the Atlantic, we have such a diversity of landscapes, endless rivers, rugged mountains and in a good year, properly defined seasons!

I love living and training in rural Scotland, where we still have the right to roam. And true wilderness too, where you can go for days without seeing anyone.

Do you have any suggestions which might set people on the road to living more adventurously?

Open water swimming in Britain's lochs and lakes is something that I would well recommend. It takes some safety planning, either with a support boat or kayak, and takes a bit of psyching up because of the cold, but the experience of fresh water swimming is like nothing else.

I have swum quite a few lakes across Scotland and the Lake District in particular and once you are in, your wetsuit warms you up and it is a wonderful experience. There is nothing else like open water swimming to make you feel alive!

So the Lake District and Scotland are contenders, but where is your absolute favourite place in the UK?

The Applecross Peninsula in Wester Ross has to be one of my favourite places in the UK. The incredible Bealach Na Ba is Britain's best road climbs on a bike, and the whole area has a staggering coastline that looks over to the Cuillin Ridge on Skye. Inland, there are fantastic mountain bike tracks crossing to Sheildaig.

I have spent weeks on holiday up there and have taken clients back for cycling trips - recently cycling the coastline as part of a non-stop, 512 mile, 38 hour route around the Scotland's north coast.

Thinking back, what's the best piece of advice you were given that has helped you on your way?

Straight after university someone advised me to stop worrying about keeping up with my friends, and doing what they did. To have the confidence to take the time to go off and explore the world and pursue my own interests.

That sounds ridiculously obvious now, but as a graduate I was fiercely competitive and wanted to get the best job and beat the world. It was important to be told by someone I really respected to relax, take my time and make career decisions for my own reasons - not because they would make the most money or be seen as the right thing by my peers.

It was a lesson about making your own definition of success, rather than worrying about being judged by others.

Sage advice. Are there any other important lessons that your adventures have taught you?

That people are the same the world over. Some of the most welcoming and interesting people I have met in places like Sudan and Iran, countries with international sanctions and that receive a good degree of negative press.

The more you travel, the more you see similarities instead of differences in people - which is a very life assuring experience.

Who would you choose as an ideal travel companion?

She doesn't know it yet but I cannot wait to explore the world with my daughter, Harriet. She's only little and we have so much fun exploring the Perthshire countryside already - but when she is a bit older we will climb hills, ride our bikes and go camping. My wife is great fun to travel with, but is a slightly more reluctant adventurer and enjoys a few more home comforts.

I am hoping Harriet will follow in her dad's footsteps!

Those memories are what life is all about! What other memories can you share?

I have spent about a year of my life living in a tent, so had my fair share of good and bad camp moments. The worse nights spent outdoors are normally when you can't put the tent up, for example sleeping in a bus stop in Patagonia to get out of high winds, or sleeping under a road in Iran.

My tent would have blown away if I hadn't been in it whilst camping in the Nullarbor of Australia, and losing my tent in two meters of snow at 14,000 feet on Mount McKinley is something I won't forget either!

My favourite nights outside include sleeping under the stars in the Atacama Desert, northern Chile, and camping in the forests of the Yukon, tying food up trees away from grizzly bears. Another favourite is camping anywhere in the Arctic, where it never gets dark in the summer months. The Lofoton Isles of Norway are particularly spectacular, with mountains climbing straight out of the sea.

An epic note to finish on. Thanks for stopping by Mark!

For updates on his next adventure, you can follow Mark on Twitter and Facebook or via his excellent website.