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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

How Switzerland is leading the way for women in the outdoors

We need more female role models in the mountains

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New Zealand’s quirkiest museum is full of mystery (and bones)

Curiosity killed the cat. Or did it?

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The best street art in Dunedin, New Zealand

“Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable” Banksy

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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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Mother of plants @node.nz 🌿 Nature frother & #birdnerd 🐧 Friend of kākāpō and the girl with the whales 🐳 It’s all in my blog ⬇️

Liz Carlson☀️Young Adventuress
“It's not the mountains we conquer but ourselves “It's not the mountains we conquer but ourselves,” Kiwi icon Sir Edmund Hillary once spoke about Everest, a totally unrelatable experience to many of us, that yet, somehow, is also totally relatable. . As someone who climbs (much smaller) mountains, this phrase resonates with me on a million levels. I go to nature to challenge myself, to find strength and build resilience, and in many ways, to feel so completely human in a world that has become much less human. Inspiration comes to me from my friends, and from people who seem real and relatable, tackling the difficult and finding triumph. I’m especially inspired by women doing hard things. . Let’s be honest here, the great stories of alpinism and mountaineering are dominated by men. But truth be told, women have been kicking ass on the mountains for hundreds of years, all while wearing wool skirts and getting no recognition for it. @myswitzerland is aiming to change that by creating NEW female mountaineering role models. . As part of their initiative to inspire women in the outdoors, Switzerland has launched the COOLEST project - 100% Women Peak Challenge, where all 48 of Switzerland’s 4,000 meter high mountains will be climbed by women’s-only teams from now til October - and you can join in too (excuse me while I figure out how I can get myself over to Europe for this). . Let’s get more women on top of mountains! . #peakchallenge #inlovewithswitzerland #switzerland #myswitzerland #zermatt #matterhorn
Sometimes I feel like I’ve tip-toed into a life Sometimes I feel like I’ve tip-toed into a life that isn’t mine. If I make a noise or any sudden movement, heads will turn and see me, and this fragile joy might shatter back into the reality I knew for so long. Lonely. Tired. Impatient. Angry. Waiting for “that happy life” and when would it be my turn. Am I a fraud? . Decades whizzed by as I waited. I kept myself busy; that was the easy part. Sitting still is hard. I hated routine. I craved routine. Work consumed me as I tried to grow. Only when the entire world paused did I finally learn to sit down and breathe. I’m still learning. Perhaps my biggest lesson is a big fat cliche - that happiness isn’t the destination, you don’t wait for it to arrive like your old commuter train you regularly missed. Happiness is here, all around you. It’s a choice we all make. Do you press through the fog of despair, or melancholy, or endless busyness and grab it with your teeth? Or do you wait and see if it will appear? . Even now that fog appears, I have to remind myself that fog always burns away. That happy life you’re glimpsing is yours. Take it and make the most of it; you deserve it, and anyone who says otherwise can get fucked ✌🏻 #mondaymusings
Being in nature makes me feel alive. Overcoming ha Being in nature makes me feel alive. Overcoming hardship, challenging myself physically, and arriving somewhere by my own two feet is an empowering feeling. As a kid, all my memories are from being outside, walking through forests and hanging out beneath willow trees. As a teen, I forgot the therapy of nature until I traveled abroad to Europe at 19. That year I visited Switzerland for the first time, spending a weekend in Interlaken seeking adventure. For the first time I gazed upon a glacier, I was hooked. . You don’t need me to tell you that nature empowers women. We’ve all seen the Instagram photos. The past decade has been a veritable revolution for women in the outdoors, and I.am.here.for.it 👏👏 . I’m so stoked to see that @myswitzerland, the place that ignited my passion for big mountains when I was 19, has created hundreds of tourism offerings created BY women FOR women. With the shared goal of bringing women together and experiencing nature, you shouldn’t be surprised this was something I could get behind. The majority of offers are for outdoor adventures and experiences led by female guides. Ka-boom, let’s keep smashing those glass ceilings and sharing the power of women in nature - we’re unstoppable. #myswitzerland . #inlovewithswitzerland #switzerland #jungfrau #interlaken
A little series from the @westcoastnewzealand and A little series from the @westcoastnewzealand and running into a pair of whio (blue duck and pronounced “fee- oh”) in Karamea at dusk. Less than 3000 whio roam New Zealand’s rivers these days, they’re far rarer than the iconic kiwi. Gracing our 10 dollar note, they are watchful and proud, hanging out in fast flowing River rapids. They always give me an aloof, almost cat-like indifference to us people. After all, they’ve been here far longer than us. Unafraid, I’ve been able to sit close and observe than many times in the wild, and I always keep my eyes open in areas where I know they dwell. It would be so easy to miss their beauty. Perhaps this is their downfall once humans brought mammalian predators here. Stoats are the greatest danger and without serious predator control, 90% of whio nests will fail. You don’t need to be a genius to know that stats like that = imminent extinction. Let’s work hard to keep our precious taonga (treasure) species alive. Look for whio around the Kahurangi National Park and Karamea on the West Coast. With open eyes you might see them too ❤️ . #whio #westcoast #westcoastnz #karamea #kahurangi #newzealand #nzmustdo
Our kind of weekends here on the South Island ❄️ it’s never been a better time to visit @foxglacierguidingnz - have you been? . @westcoastnewzealand #foxglacier #westcoastnz #nzmustdo #newzealand
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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

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