Cartoon Bilbo Baggins leaping with a scroll and text 'I'm going on an adventure!'

I'm Going On An Adventure!

2012catchphraseclassic

Published August 31, 2026

"I'm Going On An Adventure!" is Bilbo Baggins' excited shout from Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012), delivered as he sprints out of Hobbiton to join Gandalf's quest. The line jumped from theater screens to social feeds within months, becoming shorthand for announcing any new undertaking online.

lord of the rings movie quote memes catchphrase memes gif memes 2012 memes

Overview

The phrase works as both a caption and a hashtag, usually pinned to travel photos, first-day-of-work selfies, or any post where someone wants to frame a small departure as a big personal quest3. Image macros pair a still of Martin Freeman mid-sprint through the Shire with punchlines about mundane errands, giving trips to the grocery store the weight of a journey to Erebor7.

A short animated GIF of the same running shot became the most common vehicle for the joke, because the physical urgency of Bilbo bolting past his farmer neighbor plays better in motion than as a frozen image6. Later riffs pushed the format into Lord of the Rings crossover macros, stitching the line onto other characters or splicing Freeman's shout into unrelated videos as a stock reaction3.

Origin & Background

Platform
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (film) / Facebook and MemeGenerator (viral spread)
Date
2012

The line is said by Bilbo Baggins, played by Martin Freeman, early in Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the first prequel to the Lord of the Rings trilogy1. In the scene, the normally reclusive hobbit sprints through Hobbiton clutching the contract to reclaim Erebor from Smaug, and yells the phrase at a startled farmer who asks where he is off to in such a hurry2.

The moment was visible online well before the film opened in December 2012, appearing in a promotional trailer that went up in September 2012 and gave the phrase its first stretch of exposure outside cinemas3.

How It Spread

A Facebook fan page dedicated to the quote went up on December 7, 2012, days before the film's premiere, but the account was abandoned almost immediately3. On December 16, MemeGenerator hosted a template titled "Biblo," built around a still of Freeman shouting the line, which gave users a one-click way to drop their own captions over the frame4.

A second Facebook page launched on January 5, 2013 and spent the following weeks posting Lord of the Rings image macros using the phrase3. Momentum shifted to GIF and macro sites over the spring: an animated GIF cut from the trailer was added to the We Know GIFs library on March 16, 20136. From there the line turned up in galleries on Meme Center, Gifrific, DIYLOL and deviantART, alongside Tumblr posts tagged with the quote7.

How to Use This Meme

The typical use is a caption or hashtag over a photo of yourself starting something new, from a flight to a first day at a job. For the GIF version, people commonly drop the Bilbo running clip into chats or replies as a reaction to any announcement of plans, especially when the plans are trivial and the tone is ironic.

Frequently Asked Questions