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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

A stunning sunset at the Muriwai Gannet Colony

Just be warned, you might get pooped on.

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So you’ve just been let go – unemployed in times of global pandemic

It hurts less when we are all fired at the same time, right?

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How Netflix’s Tiger King reveals just how messed up wildlife tourism has become

There are more captive tigers in the US than there are in the wild

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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
Iceland
New Zealand Road Trip Part 1
New Zealand Road Trip Part 2
Australia
Spain
Canada
Finland

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youngadventuress

American in New Zealand. Cynical but kind. Nature frother & #birdnerd. Friend of kākāpō and the girl with the whales 🐳 it’s all on my blog ⬇️

Liz Carlson☀️Young Adventuress
❤️GIVEAWAY OPEN FOR ANYONE IN NEW ZEALAND❤️ . While we are on lockdown at home for at least a few more weeks, it’s never been better to get your own backyard trapping set up and rolling. Introduced predators aren’t taking a break during a pandemic, and they have a devastating effect on our previous native species. New Zealand has one of the highest extinction rates in the world, with 25 million native birds killed by introduced predators ever year. While we can’t go out, at least we can look after our own backyards. . To inspire you’re own conservation journey, I’m giving away my extra @goodnaturenz A24 rat and stoat trap with Chirp 🤗 to get you started on your own conservation project at home! . For a chance to win, follow these steps below: . 1. Be sure you’re following me @youngadventuress and @goodnaturenz 2. Like this post 3. Comment below and tag a friend sharing your favorite native NZ bird . ***open to anyone currently living in NZ. I’ll pick a winner on Friday and organize the most responsible way to get this trap to you. DM with questions*** . #birdnerd #giveaway #nzmustdo #newzealand #goodnature #savethebirds #conservation
Hands up if you’ve been laid off/let go/stood do Hands up if you’ve been laid off/let go/stood down/furloughed or just plain fired since the pandemic started 🙌🏻. You are not alone! I’m right there with you! . One of my last bit of work was just canceled, and now I’m a free woman! With a mountain of debt, no solid work for the foreseeable future, the travel industry up in flames, my passive income all but evaporated and bills still coming in hot, to say I’m shitting my pants is a bit of an understatement. . But you know what? We’re all in this together. Globally, we are collectively fucked. Now is the time to look to each other for support and guidance. Instead of crawling up each other and kicking others down to reach success (or the last 18 pack of toilet roll) why don’t we use this forced time to really work on what matters, like family, food, love, health and joy. I’ve got my good days and bad days but I’m bloody determined to look on the bright side. It’s time to get creative again. . Hopefully we will come out the other side and create a system that really looks after each other instead of who can profit off of who the most. Be kind and kia kaha as we say in New Zealand (stay strong) ✌🏻 . #wildandfree #unemployed #freelancer #newzealand #covid_19 #corona #pandemic #coronavirus
“When our senses become muffled, we no longer fe “When our senses become muffled, we no longer feel fully alive...if you have a comfortable connection with your inner sensations...you will feel in charge of your body, your feelings, and your self.” Bessel van der Kolk . I just finished devouring The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by @bessel_van (recommended by @legalnomads) and it blew me away. Not the kind of book I generally gravitate towards, over the past few years as I’ve done a lot of work on myself, I’ve become really interested in the impact of stress and trauma on the body. . I’ve felt myself falling apart in a lot of different ways with heath all of which I could see was related to stress and trauma that I kept pretending was fine. And as things like my chronic migraines got worse and worse finally culminating with me having a heart attack from the heavy medication, it was a giant wake up call that there is more work to be done in the mind than can be done with slapping a bandaid on the pain with more drugs. . We all have our own stories going back to birth that make us victims in one way or another. But having the courage/encouragement/support to face it is quite rare I believe. I still can’t really face what happened to me when I found the pilot whales stranding in New Zealand a year ago. I still jerk awake at night with flashes of memories of those horrible two days, the sounds still trigger me into a panic. I am still numb from the pain of it. I know it’s a memory I will have to face to move on but the thought of digging into it in any meaningful way makes me freak the fuck out and run away. I’m sure we all have something similar that haunts our psyches. . Anyways, this is definitely the most captivating read I’ve dug into in a while, and should be essential reading for those like me interested in the stress - brain - body connections. . What have you read recently that made you really dig deep and question things? . #quarantine #lockdown2020 #covid_19 #reading #booknerd #readmorebooks
Deep into Tiger King on Netflix and what a dreadfu Deep into Tiger King on Netflix and what a dreadful yet unmissable look at the worst (or unluckiest?) of humanity in rural America. I can’t look away. I’m enthralled yet horrified. The plot twists, the surprises, holy shit! . Gun-loving gay cowboys with mullets. The cults. The polygamy. The loss of limbs and teeth. Inbred tigers, ligers, and illegal lemurs. Dynamite and guns lovingly adorned with pink camo. Accidental suicide and haphazard murder plots. Flower crowns. So much leopard print. Failed grassroots governor elections. Expired Walmart meat pizzas. Hillbillies and their homemade country music videos featuring fat tigers. Missing husbands. Meth and sequins. Florida. I can’t even. . But what makes me sad about the train wreck human drama of this docu-series is that the stars, the tigers, are all but forgotten. There are more captive tigers in the US than in the wild? How is breeding tigers in your redneck backyard still allowed? How are these “pretend” sanctuaries still allowed? How is Carole Baskin not in jail for murder / fraud / animal abuse? How can I feel compassion for these horrible people who put baby tigers in suitcases and carry guns around like candy? . Please Netflix, stop streaming this outside of America, it’s not a good look for us. And for the love of god please never take a selfie with a baby endangered animal at one of these places! Wild animals belong in the wild. Also, I think I’m going crazy. Send me something sane to binge please 🙏🏻 . #tigerking #lions #bigcats #captivetigers #safari
ENOUGH. No more Instagram lives. Make. It. Stop. 😭 #quarantine #covid19 #wereallinthistogether #saynotoinstagramlive #donotlike
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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 you’ve just been let go – unemployed in times of global pandemic
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Featured Stories

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