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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

Why I keep going back to Punakaiki

“The sea always filled her with longing, though for what she was never sure”

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Sleeping in Doubtful Sound is good for the soul

“He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature”

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Returning to the southern seaside in Riverton

From magical forest gardens to epic surfing, Riverton has it all

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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 ...
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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 ...
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A broken robot: the face of a burnout

My whole life I’ve always been told that my face reads like an ...
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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 ...
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Getting Naked in Istanbul

**Warning this post borders on the TMI, but I thought it was too ...
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This might be my funniest story of all time

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

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Join me on Instagram @YoungAdventuress

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Mother of plants @node.nz 🌿 Friend of kākāpō, the girl with the whales 🐳 Author of “Houseplants & Design” out now ⬇️

Liz Carlson☀️Young Adventuress
Absolutely frothing on the feedback from my book H Absolutely frothing on the feedback from my book Houseplants & Design. My soul sings when I get tagged in your posts and read your heartfelt replies. I can’t really express what it means to me. It’s really frightening putting something like this out in the world, beyond my own communities, to exist (and hopefully thrive) on its own. Like sending your kid to college. Right? 🤣🤣 anyways keep the kindness coming! Thank you all! Link in my bio to shop worldwide (Boom Depository does free global shipping, no idea how since freight has tripled) so take advantage of our terrible NZD exchange rate!
One of my favorite creatures in New Zealand is ver One of my favorite creatures in New Zealand is very much the underdog - the New Zealand fur seal / kekeno. Very much the puppy dogs of the sea, I feel like seals sometimes get overshadowed by showier species. I love fur seals for 3 main reasons: . 1. They’re hilarious; I could watch them play, snooze, and swim for hours. I’ve been chased by many teen male sales while working down in the subantarctic islands 2. They’re reliable wildlife - I’ve never been to Fiordland on a @real.newzealand boat trip and not seen a fur seal 3. They have an EPIC conservation story . Hunted for their skins almost to extinction during the whaling and sealing age here in New Zealand, their population dwindled down from the millions. Sealing gangs would be dropped off on remote coastlines where they would kill thousands of seals for a few months before being picked up (not always). Being a history nerd, I’ve read many stories and diaries from the time of the sealers, and let me just say, IT SUCKED. . Eventually sealing was outlawed at the end of the 19th century here, mostly because there weren’t many left and sealers had moved on to other industries. Eventually they became fully protected in 1975 under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and for the most part their colonies are increasing bar for long line fishing and trawling.
We had what felt like the first super hot summer d We had what felt like the first super hot summer day this week in Wanaka. Waking through the supermarket in the late afternoon, it seemed like half the people there were barefoot and sunburned. Nothing beats New Zealand in the summer. I’m already planning my next seaside escapes. Can’t wait for more days of salty hair, tan skin, beach bbqs and long summer nights with friends and @zedencider 🍏
The color palette of @visitesperance has to be see The color palette of @visitesperance has to be seen to be believed. The turquoise ocean smashes against the whitest beaches in Australia. The red earthy roads stand in contrast to lush green native bush. And everything is covered in wildflowers. To me, Esperance almost felt like a place I’ve read about in a fairytale or whimsical novel. How could this be real? And yet it is.
*warning - triggering post* . Exactly 1 year ago, *warning - triggering post* . Exactly 1 year ago, my life unexpectedly crumbled into pieces with the split from my partner. I had moved my whole life to Lyttelton, created @node.nz and had just landed a book deal - my dreams had all come true. But in an instant, my world imploded, and I couldn’t see anything beyond the painful debris cutting me into a million pieces over and over and over again. . Always a loner, I had risked everything to follow love and build a different, a shared life. I had put all my money into my businesses. How would I run NODE? How would I ever create again? I couldn’t go back to the US to see my family because of the border closure, and I had no idea how I would finish writing my book. I couldn’t see how I could live up to the life I had built. I felt I failed in every way, and I couldn’t see out of the abyss. I’ve been at rock bottom before and wasn’t expecting to be there again. . To me, this sudden jump from joy to despair felt catastrophic. I’m a very optimistic and hopeful person, and it wasn’t the failure of my relationship that broke me, rather the shattering of my reality. A week later, I returned to Lyttelton to move my things out of my home and into a 3x3 storage unit. On the long drive from Wanaka back late at night, my only company on the road were big trucks. Crushed by the weight of a future I didn’t want, through my tears, I thought this could all be over so easily. The pain could be gone instantly. With a timely jerk of my right hand on the steering wheel, my problems would evaporate. The urge to sink into oblivion was overwhelming. Shocked at myself, I pulled over in the middle of the night, crawled out of my car, and sank to my knees sobbing. . I don’t know how long I stayed there in the dirt, but somehow I got up and made it to the city. The next day moving out was even more hellish than I could have imagined. Then the next day I began to look for a therapist. And the day after that I started writing. A year later I’m holding my book in my hands and I can’t stop smiling. There’s always hope even if you can’t always see it.
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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

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  • So I just wrote a book about houseplants and happiness
  • There’s always hope

Featured Stories

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  • The best hate I got in 2015
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