In the recreational and sports world, it isn’t so much what you know as where you know. There are places you only have to visit to raise your game several notches before you’re called upon to perform.

You may be a student skydiver with ten jumps under his parachute, but if you’ve spent some time at the drop zone in Eloy, Arizona the other jumpers at the grass airstrip in Saskatchewan will assume that you’re a sky god and welcome you aboard their dilapidated Cessna 172; eager to learn from you.

Same with golf. No matter that you’re burdened with a twenty-nine handicap. Flash your Augusta green fee receipt and you’re the next Tiger Woods. If you want to add instant credibility to your game, these are a few of the hot tickets:

Running:

For real cred you’ll have to have run the Boston Marathon, problem being that just to make the field you’ll have to embrace major lifestyle changes and trust me, it isn’t worth it. The Chicago Marathon is your next best bet, especially if you claim to be improving your starting position for when you boldly go to Leonard Nimoy’s home town.

Scuba diving:

The Blue Hole. Pack your regulator and your fins and head for Belize, where even if you never leave the Barefoot Bar you’ll bring home stories gleaned over drinks adorned with umbrellas in the company of people who actually hold a PADI rating.

Flying:

Even if you’ve never heard of Amelia Earhart and think that a Dutch roll is a bun from the Netherlands, a trip to the annual Experimental Aircraft Association fly-in at Whitman Field in Oshkosh, Wisconsin will cause your reputation to soar.

Surfing:

Get to Bells Beach in Australia. Receive bonus points for recalling the final scene in Point Break and knowing that Kelly Slater and Eddie Vedder are board buddies. And for knowing that the scene set at Bells was actually filmed in Oregon.

Motorcycling:

A no-brainer: the Isle of Man. The $30 million a year MotoGP guys have contracts that forbid them from even thinking about racing there owing to stonework that lines the course and farm animals that wander across it. At the Isle, you can be witness to an average of two or three deaths a year and you can also ride the track flat out, the goal being to average the “ton” over a 35 mile distance. A ton is 100 mph. When you tell your story, neglect to mention that you’re talking kilometres.

Climbing:

El Capitan, California. It’s no problem if the only carabiner you’ve ever clipped was to an anchor set in concrete on a 20-foot indoor climbing wall in Nowhere, Nebraska. If you’ve roped in on a route the legendary Dan Osman free-climbed, you’re well on our way to being the man who Nose.

Chess:

Chess?! Why not? We all occasionally fall into the company of those who have never heard of Travis Pastrana and could care less about making double backflips on a motorcycle. Some souls are more impressed by a well-placed pawn than a well-shot puck. You won’t be qualified to actually play, of course, but simply shaking hands with Magnus Carlson will have everyone anticipating your next move.

The downside to this easily-gained instant credibility is that once you’re in the room you’ve chosen and laid claim to, you have to find your way out of it alive. The fact that you’re assumed to be a member of Eloy’s airborne elite, talking fifteen-point dives with Arizona Airspeed and burning trailers in the desert at New Years won’t make up for bombing that eight-way formation on the next load.

There comes a time when you just can’t fake it and where you actually have to deliver the goods in order to bask in the light of admiration and awe.

The trick is to have an itinerary that allows time to talk the talk but has you running off to a meeting before you have to walk the walk.