The Explorer's Gene

Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map

By: Alex Hutchinson

Narrated by: Michael David Axtell

New York Times-bestselling author of Endure Alex Hutchinson returns with a fresh, provocative investigation into how exploration, uncertainty, and risk shape our behavior and help us find meaning.

Off the beaten path, following unmarked trails, we are wired to explore. More than just a need to get outside, the search for the unknown is a primal urge that has shaped the history of our species and continues to mold our behavior in ways we are only beginning to understand. In fact, the latest neuroscience suggests that exploration in any form—whether it’s trying a new restaurant, changing careers, or deciding to run a marathon—is an essential ingredient of human life. Exploration, it turns out, isn’t merely a hobby—it’s our story.

In this much-anticipated follow-up to his New York Times bestseller Endure, Alex Hutchinson refutes the myth that, in our fully mapped digital world, the age of exploration is dead. Instead, the itch to discover new things persists in all of us, expressed not just on the slopes of Everest but in the ways we work, play, and live. From paddling the lost rivers of the northern Canadian wilderness to the ocean-spanning voyages of the Polynesians to the search for next-generation quantum computers, The Explorer’s Gene combines riveting stories of exploration with cutting-edge insights from behavioral psychology and neuroscience, making a powerful case that our lives are better—more productive, more meaningful, and more fun—when we break our habits and chart a new path.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2025 Alex Hutchinson (P)2025 HarperCollins Publishers

Explore More!

Loved the research and reporting that went into this book. Hutchinson is a master at weaving amazing story telling with science. This book is very different than his previous work, Endure, but just as interesting and well written.

Useful topic, but boring

I like the topic because Ive never heard it covered before. But the content was incredibly boring. Id rather read cliff notes.

A good reminder to keep looking

This didn’t quite reach the height of Alex’s first book Endure but it still gave plenty. Seeking new things have its value just as long as it doesn’t overtake everything else.

Life Changing

Alex Hutchinson's Endure helped me understand how I could run long and how the body and the mind work together to accomplish great things. but The Explorer's Gene has changed my life. I now have tools to view my life decisions. it's not as though I was searching for tools and I didn't ever consider that all of the decisions I'd made both personally and professionally and in the running sphere could be seen through just a couple of filters. The Explorer's Gene does just that. I wasn't looking for more confidence but I feel it. I wasn't looking for greater insight but I got it. I haven't been so aware for a long time, and I spend plenty of time In meditation and thinking and being in service. But this is something completely different. When we can review our decisions knowing that we may operate from a fundamental set of filters and tool sets that we did not choose but perhaps we adopted them, or clung to them, or they emerged through childhood with us, we can feel so much power in and for ourselves. That's what this book has done for me.Listen to the audiobook and buy the hard back and pull out your highlighters and enjoy. You may learn about you.