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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

The worst part of being an adult

Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you’ll […]

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Searching for the elusive white heron in Ōkārito

Honestly, this has to be one of the most beautiful birds I’ve ever seen!

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6 experiences you can only have on the Otago Peninsula

Where else can you walk with penguins and sleep in a castle on the same day?

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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
Something I find interesting is that growing up in Something I find interesting is that growing up in the States, it felt like everyone had a therapist and everyone was on Zoloft, but mental health is a totally different conversation here in NZ, especially the South Island, land of chin up, shut up and she’ll be right. For over twenty years I’ve dipped my toes in and out of therapy, and I’m super excited to finally be starting it again. We all have shit we need to work through, and I’m looking forward to spending this time working on myself. I think my early teenage years can only be described as a hot mess, and as I’ve grown up, I reckon I’m just a high functioning hot mess who needs some help from time to time. Oh, and I’m still on Zoloft, they just call it Sertraline here in New Zealand. No shame! . But maybe the biggest lesson I’m learning is that I love being a bit of a mess. It’s who I am. But I don’t love my insomnia, depression or anxiety when they begin to interfere with my life. One of the biggest things I’ve been working on is learning to be kind to myself and giving myself grace. We do often are our own worst critics, and I frequently find myself interrupting myself in my head as I attempt to go down well-worn negative thought paths “we don’t play that game anymore, Liz.” . A shrink once told me to imagine the hard things I say to myself now, would I say those things to five year old me? Um nope. I would probably be in jail if I did. I can be very perceptive and mean. Even now when I know I’m not being my best self, when I have bad days, or I underperform, instead of beating myself up, I try to be kind. It’s weird, I know. But honestly what good does it do to be mean to yourself? 2022 will be a year of kindness for me, perhaps the start of a lifetime of it. Stranger things have happened!
“You don’t have to continually improve yoursel “You don’t have to continually improve yourself to love yourself. Love is not something you only deserve if you reach a goal. The world is a world of pressure but don’t let it squeeze your self-compassion. You were born worthy of love and you remain worthy of love. Be kind to yourself” @mattzhaig
Who knew I would get so excited to hear that birds Who knew I would get so excited to hear that birds are mating? 🤣 . This summer is a breeding season for my favorite rare bird, the kākāpō. This is a BIG DEAL for a couple of reasons. Firstly, there are only 201 kākāpō left in the world, only in New Zealand, and only on special predator-free offshore islands. They also only breed every few years when there is a rimu mast (lots of berries for them). There’s also not very much genetic diversity within the kākāpō population because they came so close to extinction aka inbreeding has led to fertility issues. Most birds came from Rakiura (Stewart Island) and only a handful from Fiordland, so us kākāpō nerds get *really* excited to hear that birds with Fiordland genes have mated. Fingers crossed for viable eggs and healthy poofy chicks (official scientific description) . This summer is already kicking off with a bang (pun intended) as the kākāpō are mating and starting to nest down on Whenua Hou and Anchor. What I would give to hear their iconic mating booms echoing through the bush at night? We are so so lucky to have such skilled rangers, vets, and scientists to give hope to a species that would have disappeared decades ago. Hopefully one day we can all hear their booms again @kakapo_recovery @docgovtnz
Hashtag influencer in a bath 🛁 am I doing it ri Hashtag influencer in a bath 🛁 am I doing it right? 🤣 @canopycampingescapes
L⭐️O⭐️S⭐️T . I moved to Lyttelton for L⭐️O⭐️S⭐️T . I moved to Lyttelton for love, not a lesson. . Growing up basically an only child, I never lived with my siblings. My imagination kept me company, and I very much existed in my own little world. Moving abroad in my twenties taught me to be social and creating my blog revealed the power of community to me. While still deeply introverted, by the time I hit my 30’s I felt like I had really grown into the kind of person I wanted to be. Only when I was completely content with myself did love find me, and I was opened to a future of sharing in every way. . My heart opened, but it wasn’t enough, and now I find myself walking alone again, just when I thought I had finally been picked for the kickball team. Btw, I fucking hated kickball as a kid. So now as the days trickle by, I find myself feeling lost. What do I do? Where do I go? What is this new future? Do I leave Lyttelton and go back to Wanaka? Do I travel and throw myself into projects? Do I stay in Lyttelton and be strong and fierce? . Alone again after taking a gigantic leap of faith into a shared future, I don’t feel like I can go back to who I was before. But I don’t know where the path forward is. If I was lost in the bush, I know I am supposed to stay put and wait to be rescued. But I’m not in the bush, and I know the only person who can rescue me is myself. This uncertainty after what I thought was total certainty is disconcerting, annoying, and frankly, quite painful. As someone who has always been solitary and shy, to finally open up and allow someone in only to be heartbroken, is just so. damn. hard. It really feels like a betrayal in the deepest sense. . While I don’t have clarity or gratitude at the moment, I can see a future where I do. Maybe. I can also see a future where I turn into a surly bitter hermit hiding yelling at kids to get off my lawn. The path towards hope is probably one of the hardest I’ll be undertaking this year. But perhaps it’s exactly what I need in order to get myself out of the forest and back into the sunlight.
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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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