Skip to content
  • Home
  • Meet me
  • The blog
  • Destinations
    • Europe
    • Middle East
    • North America
    • South America
    • New Zealand
    • Australia
    • Africa
    • Asia
  • Moving abroad
  • New Zealand
  • Spain
  • Blogging
    • Start Blogging
  • Photography
  • Contribute

A normal girl living her biggest, messiest dreams.

Get to know me

As seen on

These are my unfiltered adventures, musings and stories.
I talk about birds, coffee and overcoming personal fears too much.

60
ish countries
7
continents
10
odd years
Find me on or or I'll email you!

My recent adventures

30 photos to inspire you to visit the Scottish Isles

Exploring Scotland by ship completely blew me away!

read more

5 tips for embracing mindful travel

There’s nothing more beautiful while traveling than just living in the moment

read more

8 ways Antarctica might unexpectedly change your life

Nothing puts things into perspective quite like the last continent

read more
More adventures from the blog

My favorite stories

All the mean, nasty and godawful hateful things people say to me online

Guys, why do people troll on the internet? Why are blogger hate comments ...
read more

Solo and single in the most romantic place in the world

How glossy and polished is the travel industry today? Well, I suppose it's ...
read more

A broken robot: the face of a burnout

My whole life I’ve always been told that my face reads like an ...
read more
More inspirational stories

Where I screwed up big time

That one time I crashed a scooter in Bali

A week ago I found myself upside down in a ditch full of ...
read more

Getting Naked in Istanbul

**Warning this post borders on the TMI, but I thought it was too ...
read more

This might be my funniest story of all time

Guys, the funniest thing happened to me the other day. Now, I know I ...
read more
More confessions
World Map
Roads through Iceland
Iceland
New Zealand Road Trip Part 1
New Zealand Road Trip Part 2
Australia
Spain
Canada
Finland

Dream about being a travel blogger?

How to start a travel blog

Get Started

How to get paid to travel

Get Started

Join me on Instagram @YoungAdventuress

youngadventuress

Mother of plants @node.nz and author of “Houseplants & Design” 🪴 Friend of kākāpō, the girl with the whales 🐳 currently exploring the Arctic ❄️

Liz Carlson☀️Young Adventuress
In the high Arctic, life revolves around the sea i In the high Arctic, life revolves around the sea ice and waters. Before spending months up here this summer with @adventure.canada, I had always connected sea ice with polar bears; after all, polar bears are marine mammals and depend on the sea ice to hunt seals. They’ve become the symbol for climate change: no sea ice = no polar bears. . While this is true, what’s far more important are the Inuit people of the Arctic. Over 150,000 Inuit call these places home, and their lives and culture are intrinsically connected to the sea ice. It’s how you travel and hunt, where you find supplies and food. The sea ice is the highway in winter connecting remote communities. It’s a critical infrastructure, and it’s disappearing. Climate change is causing the Arctic to warm 2.5 times faster than the everywhere else. . Inuit have traditional knowledge of the sea ice passed down through generations. In Inuktut, the importance of ice is highlighted by the dozens of different words that exist to define things such as sea ice form, type, location and age. Once predictable sea ice patterns are now uncertain with direct impacts on their way of life. Old hunting grounds are now inaccessible and people are falling through the ice more than ever. And yes polar bears have always been part of this world, coexisting but also as a part of a subsistence-based life, for food and for products. . My Inuit friends have said they’ve seen more polar bears now than ever before, with more encounters and more destruction of their properties. Scientists say that polar bears are spending more time on land because of diminishing sea ice. This is world where people have to carry rifles all of the time, and where traditional knowledge of the environment has long been dismissed. It’s a very privileged position for us to sit back from afar and say “oh but save the polar bears,” when we have *literally* no idea about what it’s really like for those who live in the Arctic and what they’re facing from choices we have made. Personally, as much as I love bears and conservation, now when I think of sea ice and climate change in the Arctic, I think of the people first. I hope you do too.
I’ve dreamed of seeing the northern lights ever I’ve dreamed of seeing the northern lights ever since I read His Dark Materials as a pre-teen. Yet on every trip I’ve taken to the north over the years, they’ve eluded me. Clouds, midnight sun, sleeping through them, or just no lights, the aurora has remained elusive. But my wish finally came true this week in Greenland with @adventure.canada 💚 While I’ve seen the southern lights twinkle on the horizon in New Zealand, it was nothing compared to the vast ribbons of light dancing across the skies for hours. So bright, ethereal, and mesmerizing, we crowded the top decks in wonder night after night. Sometimes I feel like I’ve lost my childlike sense of wonder, but as I hopped up and down on the balls of my feet beneath glowing green skies, I couldn’t have been more giddy.
Greenland’s got my seal of approval 🦭🤟 @ad Greenland’s got my seal of approval 🦭🤟 @adventure.canada
“Death or the west coast of Greenland,” the in “Death or the west coast of Greenland,” the indomitable polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen said could have been the motto of his 1888 expedition, the first crossing of interior Greenland. He later would call it the “scheme of a lunatic,” which I feel could be applied to most polar expeditions of the time. While it’s much easier now to access the world’s biggest island, Greenland in many ways still holds the myth and wonder that captivated so many explorers over the centuries. No roads connect the communities, and it still holds the top honor for least populated nation on earth. Wild, ancient, poignant and profound, Greenland has definitely carved out a corner of my heart 💚 @adventure.canada
Boop 🐻‍❄️ baby bear with lunch all over h Boop 🐻‍❄️ baby bear with lunch all over his face @adventure.canada
Load More... Follow on Instagram

Who is Young Adventuress?

Hi, I'm Liz, and I got my first taste for traveling when I was 16 years old. On my own, 12 years and 50 something countries later, my wanderlust has only grown and the list of countries I want to visit longer. After living in Spain for the past few years and returning home for a stint, I then quit my job and moved to New Zealand and I've been here ever since. Follow my misadventures as I wander, eat, and photograph my way around the world

Get Inspired

  • 5 tips for embracing mindful travel
  • 8 ways Antarctica might unexpectedly change your life
  • A new polar chapter begins
  • Whanganui is for art and design lovers

Featured Stories

  • My big issue with fear and travel
  • The best hate I got in 2015
  • The Story of the Kākāpō + Giveaway
  • Why Experience Still Matters

Search

© 2023 Youngadventuress.com | Legal | Privacy Policy | Site by Performance Foundry

css.php

Emails Suck. Mine Don't.