When it comes to adventure travel, I like it not too wild.

And I'm not alone.

Sure, there are lots of hardcore types who set off on their own on the most physically challenging trip or culturally offbeat trip they can devise, from shooting river rapids in Ethiopia to trekking deep into New Guinea's jungle.

Not me. I feel challenged enough in my daily life. So when I want some far-flung adventure on a trip, I often look for an adventure-tour company that will handle many of the logistics and hassles that come with traveling off the beaten track, especially in developing countries.

An adventure tour can cost more than traveling independently. But, with a tour leader arranging everything from trekking permits to train and hotel reservations, I'm free to see and enjoy where I am. And especially for single people or single parents like me, it's also comforting to have some built-in companionship — and a safety net.

Purists may shy away from tours. But today's small-group adventure tours — one of the fastest-growing segments of the travel business — are far from the whiz-through-Europe bus tours of a generation ago. Sometimes including as few as a half-dozen people but usually around 12 to 16, adventure tours focus on outdoors and cultural activities, from hiking in Argentina to bicycling in Italy or visiting craft villages in Mexico or remote ruins in Cambodia. And you aren't always stuck with the group: Some tours build in free time almost daily so travelers can go off on their own.

There are bare-bones adventure tours, aimed at budget and young-at-heart travelers. London-based Intrepid Travel, for instance, has a two-week trip in China for about $1,100. Some are ultra deluxe: Seattle's Zegrahm Expeditions has a three-week private-plane tour of African game parks and cultural sites for a jaw-dropping price of about $25,000 per person.

Adventure travel has grown so big and diverse, in style and price, that it's hard to figure its economic impact. But the Travel Industry Association of America has estimated that about 10 percent of Americans have taken an adventure-travel trip, and that it's growing by about 10 percent a year.

The Seattle area, thanks to its outdoors ethos and high-tech affluence, has become an adventure-travel center with a growing number of tour companies and travelers, both independent adventurers and tour-goers.

Among local tour operators are REI Adventures, which offers hundreds of worldwide trips each year, from kayaking trips in Alaska to mountain climbing in Nepal. Small Seattle companies, such as Adventure Associates or Crooked Trails, offer a smattering of eco-tours annually, stressing trips that respect and give back to the people and places they visit.

Now a Seattle-based industry group, the Adventure Travel Trade Association, is trying to promote and organize adventure-tour companies nationwide; it's hosting a conference in Seattle in October.

Mountain highs

In recent years I've taken adventure tours in India, Thailand and Japan, and they've taken me places where I wouldn't have gotten on my own. And when daily life gets too crazy, I fall back on peaceful images from those trips.

In northern India, in what was once the Buddhist mountain kingdom of Sikkim, I went on a small-group trek in the Himalayas. By trekking standards, our group took baby steps — a three-day hike with a top altitude of about 14,000 feet. But for me, it was a life highpoint, physically and emotionally.

Waking before dawn in a high-country meadow, we hiked to a rocky ridge — the snow line was still more than a thousand feet above — to watch the sun rise on the Himalayan peaks. The mighty 28,169-foot Kangchenjunga, the third highest mountain in the world, soared above us, twice our elevation.

As sunlight turned the snowy peaks rose-gold, Wangyal Tobden, our Sikkimese guide, crouched low, chanting Buddhist prayers. It was the only sound in the vast wilderness.

The rest of the group soon headed back for a morning cup of tea to the stone shelter where we'd slept. But somehow energized by the thin air and pure light, I followed Tobden on a three-hour ramble through the high-country meadows. We walked past shepherds' huts and tumbling streams in grassy meadows as the sun warmed our faces. Tobden's prayers changed to lilting songs as we walked.

Tobden knew this high country intimately. Without him as a tour leader, I would never have gotten so far, to a place that gave me a morning of mountain-high beauty and memories for a lifetime.

Kristin Jackson's commentaries run occasionally in Travel: 206-464-2271 or kjackson@seattletimes.com