LOUISE ARNER BOYD

Louise Arner Boyd was born in 1887 in San Rafael, California. When she was a young girl, her mother, father, and her brothers died, jostling her to decide that rather than staying inside and settling down with a husband, she embarked on an expedition to Greenland.

She documented the explorations extensively, and used photography to showcase these areas that had rarely been seen before. She became the first woman to fly over the North Pole privately, topping this all off with sailing through the Arctic, crossing the Pole and circling it, before dying at an old age in 1972.

HELEN THAYER

Helen Thayer has to be one of the coolest explorers ever – with her extensive exploration history beginning in 1944 (aged nine) where she scaled her first 8,000 foot peak with her parents. She spent three decades as an award-winning discus thrower, before moving onto becoming the first woman to solo the North Pole, both walking and skiing. She took a black husky called Charlie on this big expedition, who officially joined her family when she arrived home from this expedition from hell. Even when things were tough, she was never unhappy – not even in the snow storm that nearly ruined her, blinding her for weeks and destroying her body and food and water rations. She went back with her husband Bill in 1992 and they became the first married couple to make the trek.

The couple walked 600 miles across the Yukon in 1994, and 1400 miles of the Sahara desert just two years later. On her 60th birthday, she went on a solo expedition to the Antarctic. She is still thriving today, although the expeditions are less frequent than they were before.

FANNY BULLOCK WORKMAN

Possibly one of the most famous Victorian era female explorers, Fanny Workman was born in 1859, and went on to do some incredible things. She held a ‘votes for women’ flag on the bright surface of a remote Asian glacier, having climbed the 20,000 feet to the top. She then broke the record for climbing higher than any other woman at 22,815 feet, and she held the record for an incredible 28 years.

She identified a new route across uncharted snowfields to the ice mass of the Kalberg Glacier, and wrote books about these trips and her expeditions from the Atlas to the Sahara, which she cycled.

CATHERINE DESTIUELLE

Catherine is now 59 years old, and is still out here doing epic things. In 1992 she became the first woman to complete a solo ascent of the Eiger’s north face – all 20,470 feet – in a record-breaking 17 hours. Despite facing horrendous injuries and ailments, she never stopped going. She carried on climbing after breaking her back and leg and fracturing her pelvis, and is not the sort of person to back down when things get tough. She is quoted as once saying, ‘in mountain climbing, there’s the real adventure.’

Catherine’s spirit of not backing down in the face of difficulties is worth learning. If you also have a goal you want to achieve, you can try to use Custom Challenge Coins as a motivation to motivate yourself to move forward.

You can design the challenge you want to complete, Catherine’s deeds, favorite mottos, and even the time you want to achieve your goal.

Put the challenge coin that represents your determination in a place where you can see it at any time. Whenever you want to give up, you can think of Catherine’s experience and her spirit of never giving up, which will make you full of motivation again.

FLORENCE BAKER

Florence was born in 1841, and when she was a young girl underwent the severe trauma of her whole family being massacred. A man called Samuel Baker rescued her when she was later put up at a slave auction, and the two fell in love. Sam bought her with a whole pound of ostrich feathers, and once they became official, the two lovers travelled to Africa to pinpoint the source of the Nile. On this trip, they ran into the John Speke (no joke) – after Sam had been rejected from David Livingston’s famous expedition.

The pair often found themselves in incredibly dangerous scenarios, but Florence was quick-witted and was able to talk them out of them. For example, when they found themselves in a tricky situation with King Kamrasi, she stood up ‘with the countenance of Medusa’ and made a grand speech in flawless Arabic – and Kamrasi was so impressed with her character that he let her go. Together with Samuel, she then found the shore of Luta N’Zige, which they called Albert Lake, after the royal lovers Victoria and Albert.

MIRABAI

Mirabai was a 16th century poet and wanderer who had been married against her will to a prince of Chittor, near Udaipur. She was famed for her talents in singing, writing, and spiritual studies, but her family still felt as though she brought dishonour to the family by not behaving in the way that a lady should. They tried to poison and drown her but she survived both, escaping to travel widely across northern India to Vrindavan, and eventually to Dwarka in Gujarat, where she disappeared under mysterious circumstances at age 50. Nowadays, she is a celebrated Bhakti saint, and is well-known in Indian culture for the incomparable beauty of the poems and bhajans she composed and sang in devotion to her beloved god, Krishna.

ARLENE BURNS

‘I wanted to go somewhere where I didn’t know anything or anybody in order to learn who I was. I wanted to put myself in the unknown to see if I would sink or swim… And what I found was how little I knew, and how curious I was to learn more.’

Arlene was born in 1960, and has done some incredible things during her time on earth. She has scaled remote Russian volcanoes, navigated forbidden Tibetan rivers, galloped across Mongolia astride a half-wild horse, and even trained Meryl Streep for a role in the River Wild. Her stories are amazing and I highly suggest that you research her further, as I couldn’t possibly begin to go into depth about even a third of the cool things she’s experienced. Oh, and she was the first woman to work as a white water guide in New Zealand.

IDA PFEIFFER

Ida Pfeiffer became an explorer merely out of spite, marrying a lone widower in order to escape the confines of her home. She became the breadwinner before travelling through Asia, the holy land, Egypt, and Italy, staying with tribes in Borneo and Brazil – after being told numerous times that as a female she simply would not be able to do it.

She became an icon for women of the era as steamships and railways began to offer her free travel, and the Austrian government granted her 150 florins to continue her travels. In some ways, she was the first ever travel writer to truly finesse the system.

Ida survived headhunters and cannibals, along with endless ailments, but died after contracting tropical fever – which never would have happened had the Queen of Madagascar not been threatened by her and subsequently thrown her in prison, but alas.

YVA MOMATIUK

Growing up in war-torn Warsaw, Yva would escape each summer to be foothills of the Tatra Mountains. When she was old enough, she moved to NYC and became an architect, before tiring of that and becoming a ranch-hand in Wyoming (goals). She met John Eastcott at the Grand Tetons and said later, ‘We had felt a growing conviction that, had we continued our city-bound lives, the proverbial four walls of apartments, schools and offices would surely kill in us what we cherish the most: the sense of discovery.’

They spent five years together in the Canadian Arctic on assignment for National Geographic, and documented their time living with the Inuits. Yva is still alive and doing cool things, and has earned her title as one of the most interesting female explorers.

DIAN FOSSEY

Who doesn’t know Dian Fossey? She was born in 1932, and when her parents divorced, her dad disappeared from her life forever. Like Yva, she also worked as a ranch-hand, but this time in Montana. She studied pre-veterinary studies against her stepdad‘s wishes, but switched to occupational therapy when she didn’t get the grades. She had always wanted to go to Africa, and when the lust became too strong, she decided to up and leave.

Dian met the one and only Dr Louis Leaky, who furthered her interest in gorillas. His attention had been drawn to her articles and photographs of gorillas from her Africa trip, and suggested that she went back to study with him. He told her to have her appendix removed so she could join, to prove her loyalty – which she did. When she found out it was just a test she merely shrugged it off and got her plane tickets.

She mirrored the gorillas’ behaviour so well that a very shy gorilla called Peanuts overcame its anxiety and touched her hand – possibly the first encounter ever between a wild gorilla and a human. Because of her work saving gorillas in areas that depended on their deaths, orders were issued to shoot this problematic Westerner on site. She was hauled off by soldiers to a detention centre for ‘her own safety,’ but used stealth, her smarts, and a bribe to escape.

She was a fierce threat to poachers, black marketers, and exploiter-despoilers, and received many threats along with this order. She died by an unknown assailant splitting her skull, and the mystery has never been solved.

My favourite movie about Dian has to be Gorillas in the Mist – go on, watch it. Tell me it isn’t wonderful.

ISABELLA BIRD BISHOP

Isabella is probably one of the most well-known female explorers, whose journey began as a child when she accompanied her reverend father on rough country lanes as he made his parish rounds. Her health problems (namely regarding her feet and spine) should have kept her sedentary – but at the age 22 she single-handedly stopped an assassination attempt against a Cabinet member. Things only spiralled from there.

The family doctor suggested a long trip to the sea when medication couldn’t stop her depression and listlessness, and from that, she managed to worm her way into a seven-month voyage. This started her career as an author as she told tales of her trip in the novel, the Englishwoman in America. 

She explored the Sandwich Islands on horseback (after her ship nearly capsized on the way there) after the majority of her family members died. She escaped an unwieldy admirer by going off to Japan, but on the journey back was told her much-loved sister Hennie was ill. When she died, Isabella decided to marry her admirer, who also died. She ceased travel – at least until she left for Asia where she travelled China upon a Sedan chair.

In North America she rode, climbed, and camped with ‘Mountain Jim’ Nugent. He was a legendary figure of the raw-mannered and violent West, and her time sharing his ‘breezy mountain recklessness’ helped form her most popular book, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains.

She was the first woman to address the Royal Geographical Society at one of the London meetings, and met with endless members of royalty. Nicknamed the ‘Stormy Petrel,’ it is said that Isabella ‘would have probably have accounted her journey a failure’ had she not faced any difficulties or issues along the way.

Her last words were, ‘Oh, what a shouting there will be!’

DERVLA MURPHY

Not to brag, but I have been emailing Dervla for a couple weeks and interviewing her about her adventures, and she is such an effortlessly cool woman. When she undertook her greatest cycling journey, she said, ‘If someone enjoys cycling and wishes to go to India, the obvious thing is to cycle there.’ She’s a very straight-forward woman with a solid head on her shoulders, and I can only admire her more for it.

‘I presented myself to the Afghan embassy… Only to be told that under no circumstances would they grant a visa to a woman who intended cycling alone through Afghanistan. Apparently, six years ago, a lone Swedish woman was carved up into small pieces, and since [then] solitary female travellers have been banned… It looks as though I’m beaten… However, I have a few schemes to be tried tomorrow.’

Dervla spent her womanhood trapped, taking care of her dying parents, and when she was suddenly freed from her duty, she left. She carried only the essentials with her, such as a .25 automatic pistol which she used to fight off wolves and rapists. She’s known for her genial stoicism, ironic intelligence, and temperamental inclination to always wonder ‘what’s all the fuss about?’ And there’s a movie out about her, titled Who is Dervla Murphy?

FREYA STARK

Dame Freya Madeline Stark worked in Italy as a nurse during WW1, and despite having zero education, had a deep interest in Arabian culture (which she put down to 1001 Arabian Nights). After the war, she travelled to London to study Oriental History, before leaving to travel extensively across Baghdad, Iran, and the Arabian deserts – visiting things that no Westerner had ever visited before.

When the second world war hit, she was already stationed in the Middle East, and since she was there amidst it all decided to work in Cairo for the British Ministry of Information. She continued to travel across Europe and Asia after the war and wrote several world-altering travel books such as Baghdad Sketches, The Valleys of the Assassins and several volumes of memoirs. In 1972, she was made Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

AMELIA EARHART

Everyone knows Amelia Earhart, but I can’t help but mention her here, too. Her story began when she was working as a nurses’ aid in Toronto in World War I, where she met a group of young militarily pilots. She fell in love with the glamour of the job, and decided then that that was what she wanted to do with her life.

On her expeditions across the planet, she never let inconveniences get in the way of a good old adventure. Even when her wings were iced and there was flames erupting from her engine and the gas reserves were leaking – which all occurred on her first transatlantic flight – she didn’t stop.

Amelia was the first woman to solo the continental US roundtrip, the first person to solo the Pacific, the first woman to fly across the Atlantic, and she broke the women’s nonstop  transcontinental speed limit not once, but twice. Her plane disappeared near Howland Island on her most daring voyage, and she was never seen again.

There’s a super cool movie about Amelia called The Final Flight, which offers an insight to her final journey.

SHANNON LUCID

Shannon had a really tough start to life, spending six months of her life in an internment camp before she’d even reached the age of one. She had always dreamed of going to space and was furious that the first seven Apollo astronauts were all men, so decided to go out and get her PhD and a Pilot’s License – and yet after all of this, she still couldn’t get any kind of flying job. She once said in an interview, ‘they weren’t hiring females, period.’

After years upon years of hard work, she was finally accepted into the space program. She decided to learn Russian in order to be able to converse with her fellow astronauts, and spent everyday living ‘every scientist’s dream.’ She has spent more hours in space than any other American to date.

President Clinton referred to her as a ‘determined visionary’ and presented her with the Congressional Space Medal of Honour. Nowadays, she’s still out here, breaking records and doing incredible things.

HARRIET CHALMERS ADAMS

Harriet even dressed like an explorer should, with the hard hat and the khaki-coloured jackets and the stoic expressions. At the age of two, she went on her first expedition, accompanying her father to the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Six years later, she explored the Pacific coast on horseback, all the way from California to Yosemite to the Canadian Rockies. And then, when she was just 14 years old, she again accompanied her father on a year-long ramble from Oregon to Mexico. She went on to say that ‘the adventure and romance of exploration are full compensation to some of us for discomfort, hardship, and stranger.’

As she grew older and began to undertake her own adventures, she experienced incredible hardship. She survived a Bolivian earthquake, sheltered amongst a pack of llamas during a blizzard, survived a close encounter with a vampire bats, boa constrictors, and alligators, and was the first woman to travel from Amazon river to Cayenne. Even when she broke her back, she didn’t stop travelling. Harriet traded rum for a baby grison in Paraguay, and she travelled with her until she ate poisoned toucan stew.

Harriet wrote articles on her adventures for National Geographic, and became fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, and French. The NYT wrote that she ‘reached 20 frontiers previously unknown to white women.’

SYLVIA A. EARLE

I haven’t mentioned any deep-sea explorers yet, but hold your horses because Sylvia is one of the coolest ocean adventurers of all time. After years of studying, she became a marine biologist, and on a project sponsored by the US Navy, lived underwater for two weeks. She was incredibly dedicated to protecting the ocean and its wildlife, she was named by Time Magazine as the first Hero for the Planet in 1998.

Sylvia set the woman’s record for a World Solo Dive Depth, and became the first female chief scientist of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Even today, she’s still out and about, doing her bit for the ocean that she loves so much.

GERTRUDE BELL

Once described as the ‘most powerful woman in the British Empire,’ Gertrude is considered to be even more influential than the Welsh explorer T. E. Lawrence. Not only did Gertrude help to form the modern state of Iraq, but she was also an archaeologist, spy, and diplomat all across the Middle East. She travelled extensively through Greater Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and Arabia, and helped to support the Hashemite dynasties in what is today Jordan.

T. Lawrence was said to have been ‘intimidated’ by meeting a woman who was ‘his intellectual equal’ and who ‘spoke better Arabic than him.’ Due to her extensive knowledge and contacts, Gertrude served as a mediator between the Arab government in Iraq and the British officials, and explored, mapped, and became highly influential to British imperial policy-making.

Rightfully so, there are a bunch of movies about Gertrude, such as Queen of the Desert and Letters from Baghdad. Both movies are epic, and things that you should definitely watch.

NELLIE BLY

There’s actually a bunch of movies that have been released that were inspired by Nellie’s story, such as 10 Days in a Madhouse and Escaping the Madhouse. In case you can’t tell from these names, one of her most popular writings include when she pretended to be ill to sneak into an asylum so that she could document the horrors that went on inside, so that she could ultimately expose them. Not only that, but she was the first woman to travel the world in 72 days, inspired by Jules Verne’s book (let’s just ignore Aloha Wanderwell). Legend.

AIMÉE CROCKER

Aimée was born in 1864 and was known for her collection of husbands, lovers, adopted children, buddhas, pearls tattoos, and snakes. She travelled extensively and survived headhunters in Borneo, a poisoning in Hong Kong, a murder attempt by knife-throwing servants in Shanghai, and lived for a whole 10 years in ‘the Orient.’ She published several memoirs about her journeys, and her talent for writing is no surprise when you consider her friendship with the one, the only, Oscar Wilde. My favourite fact about Aimée, however, has to be that King Kalakaua of Hawaii was so enchanted with her that he gave her a whole mother-freaking island and the title Princess Palal-Kalani, which translates to ‘bliss of heaven’. Such a legend.

ISABEL EBERHARDT

Isabel was high-key kinda hot, and despite the fact that she is slightly too old for me (she was born in 1877), I admire her an incredible amount. She was born to a Prussian aristocrat and an ex-priest turned anarchist, and at the ripe old age of 20 decided to convert to Islam and dress as a man. She adopted the name Si Mahmoud Saadi, and is said to have ‘drank more than a Légionnaire, smoked more kif than a hashish addict, and made love for the act of making love.’ She was super cool.

She travelled across North Africa alone and survived an assassination attempt by the French administration after witnessing the execution of an Arab prisoner, and is quoted as once saying, ‘now more than ever do I realise that I will never be content with a sedentary life, that I will always be haunted with thoughts of a sun-drenched elsewhere.’ There’s even a movie about her called Isabel Eberhardt, and is the best movie you will see this year.

JEANNE BARET

I’m going to go ahead and assume that you’ve probably heard of Jeanne Baret, the female explorer who dressed as a man so that the French Navy would allow her onboard a ship. Along with being the first woman to circumnavigate the globe, she is also recognised as being the first person to discover a strange new flowering vine adorned with bright pink and purple flower – which she called Bougainvillea after her commander. After sailing across the Strait of Magellan at the tip of South America, the Étoile reached Tahiti in 1767. She was discovered by her crew-mates and subjected to horrendous abuse – and yet despite that, lived until the impressive age of 67.

All of these women have shaped the world in one way or another – even if their roles do get severely glossed over in the history books. I think that they’re all super cool, and the fact that they completely went against the ideas and conventions of their time is truly inspirational.

It might be a little obvious which ones are my favourite – but tell me, which ones are yours? Do you know of any other influential female explorers that, low and behold, I have missed out, in this nearly 4,000 word post? Let me know in the comments below!

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One of my favourite bloggers when I first entered the game was Adventurous Kate – I loved her energy, her travels, and her writing. If it weren’t for her continuously producing inspirational travel content, then I’m certain that Wandering Everywhere wouldn’t be even close to where it is today.

A couple months ago, I was finally able to interview the wonderful Adventurous Kate – and here’s what she said.

Firstly, what was the main motivation behind you quitting your job at the age of 26 and travelling across Southeast Asia? Have you always wanted to stray from the 9-to-5 life?

Women’s empowerment is a big theme on your blog. How did your family and friends react to you breaking the news that you would be travelling solo, and did it turn out to be as unsafe as everyone said?

From the outside, it looks like you live the dream life. What’s it really like to build and sustain a blog, and subsequently travel the world?

How did you originally monetise your site? How do you maintain it now?

Why exactly did you decide to settle down in NYC instead of travelling the globe nonstop forever?

What country would you recommend for female solo travellers?

What would you say to other females who ache to travel but believe they don’t have the confidence/ opportunity to?

This September, I began walking along the river Danube, with the hope that I might just become the first person to walk its entirety from source to sea. For some reason, no one had tried to walk all 2,850km of the river before, so I thought that I may as well attempt it myself. 

When I later told my spicy little Spanish friend, Inés González Miguéns, about the trip, she ended up booking a last-minute flight out to Germany and joining me for a grand two weeks. That was until Vienna, where she slinked off to a back alley hostel in Slovakia to lead bar crawls and get foot tattoos.

To date, I’ve covered 550 miles out of a (suspected) total 1,770, with the last major city stop being in Vienna, Austria. The Danube flows through more countries than any other in the world, so I still have Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, and Ukraine to look forward to. If they’ll have us, that is.

So far, we’ve slept in nunneries, communes, Mc Mansions, farmer’s sheds, luxury apartments, forest floors, “man caves”, and old bank buildings. We’ve stayed with spiritual healers, MLM pushers, cult leaders, Michelin star chefs, homophobes (oops), tea masters, and one guy who tried to molest us in the night. Every evening, we stay with a new stranger, relying on their kindness for food and a place to rest our heads, and have met some truly incredible people along the way (apart from that last guy, who ended up calling us “unworthy” for rejecting his advances).

Each night is completely new and a little crazy, and I’m absolutely loving it.

One question that we’ve been asked a lot along the way is, what’s the motivation for doing something like this? Apart from the temptation of international fame or elevated success within the adventure industry (neither which, unsurprisingly, have happened… yet), there were a couple other reasons to set out on a journey like this.

Doing it for the girls and the gays

Firstly, one of the biggest motivations for undertaking this expedition was to break down stereotypes for female and LGBTQ+ travellers.

I’ve always been told that travelling as a woman is dangerous, and that we simply aren’t made for this sort of thing – and yet, here I am, doing something that was previously deemed impossible. I don’t know if you’ve noticed the straight white ‘heroic’ male archetype that seems to plague the travel isles at Waterstones and the interviews on Good Morning Britain, but frankly, it’s started to grate on me. The industry is completely over-saturated with people like this, and as such, those who don’t quite fit that criteria face incredible prejudices when undertaking similar expeditions.

And so, I hope that by doing a walk like this, I will be able to challenge the stereotypes and expectations for queer female travellers in the industry, breaking down whatever walls that have been put up to stop us from doing exactly what we’re meant to be doing.

So far, this journey has been empowering unlike anything else I have ever experienced. Amongst the fairytale beauty of the Black Forest, the quaintness of European villages, and the wilderness of the continent’s many great forests, I can’t help but think, holy fry, I’m really doing it. Being able to roam the earth freely in a way that my female ancestors could not makes me feel both honoured and empowered.

And frankly, that’s enough motivation for me.

Doing it for the crohnies

Or at least, it should be, in theory.

But then there’s also the fact that I have Crohn’s Disease.

On average, I aim to cover around 35km a day, burning no less than 3,000 calories in any 24-hour period. This would presumably be quite difficult for an able-bodied person, but for someone that suffers with Crohn’s disease and everything that comes with it, it often feels pretty much impossible.

I was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease in 2014, and since then, have constantly been battling against an autoimmune response that aims for nothing other than shutting down my whole body. I get blepharitis, psoriasis, and all of the blood, sh*t, and tears that come along with not having a single functioning intestine. It is, quite frankly, the most horrendous thing to ever happen to me, and I still battle with it daily.

Still, I knew that I wanted to do something big, and there was no way in hell that I was letting this illness get in the way. So I bulk ordered my medication, bought endless digestion tablets, and told my doctor that I was about to do something incredibly reckless and it would be great if he could remain contactable, and booked my flight.

Luckily, we haven’t been camping as much as I expected we would (in fact, after the first night we camped and woke up covered in parasites, we sent the tent home to never be used again), so I’ve had steady(ish) access to people’s homes, and the stability of a bed and toilet each night. Regardless, the seven hours minimum of walking each day leaves a lot of room for error, and it’s been especially challenging to keep it all under control.

Regardless, I am constantly impressed that my body even has the strength to do something like this. Who knew that my diseased, withering, pathetic human shell could walk 550 miles in a month and still be ready to function the next morning? Now, I truly realise just how strong I am and how much potential my body has, and want to shout to the world about it. This is a massive difference to when I was first diagnosed and wanted to keep it all under wraps, too ashamed to tell anyone about it, and I’m proud of just how far I’ve come.

With the finish line looking to be in eastern Romania in late December, I’m super excited to see how cultures, languages, and landscapes change along the way. And of course, I am honoured to do so as a female LGBTQ+ traveller with Crohn’s disease, with my head thoroughly stuck in the clouds.

Doing it to save the river

Doing it, quite simply, for the vibes

But of course, there are endless reasons at the heart of why I wanted to do a trip like this. When people ask, I sometimes just skip all of the above and go off on something else: I read a lot of Levison Wood, I have nothing better to do, I want to be known for doing things that no one else has done, I like rivers, I wanted to explore Europe, I thought that it would be a great way of sampling each town’s version of dumplings. Whatever the reason, though, no one seems to be satisfied… So quite simply, I am doing this whole darn thing for the vibes.

Of course, I will let you all know how we get on over the next few months. To stay up to date with the expedition, you can always follow my Instagram at Wandering_Everywhere or sign up to the newsletter (subscription box is at the bottom of the page).

UPDATE: We finally finished the walk on the 14th September 2022, more or less a year after we started. Stay tuned for the next adventure!

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Even reflecting back on my time with Karen, my fight or flight instinct is triggered. She is still alive in my nightmares, and every now and then, I get flashbacks to something horrendous she said and sweat forms on the back of my neck. I had never met anybody so triggering before, and I pray to God that I never do again.

After briefly talking on the phone before our arrival to pass her selection process, we turned up at the country house expecting a very high-maintenance, graceful, Cheltenham-educated woman – presumably with long flowing blonde hair, puffy injected lips, and a flawless manicure. What we didn’t expect was a very rotund woman waddling over with a ‘HELLO DARLINGS I AM KAREN GOLDEN CRYSTAL JUNIOR!!’, naked except for an oversized white t-shirt that did nothing to hide her dark, bulbous nipples.

My girlfriend and I said our hello’s to the stranger, who pulled us both into a hug and softly kissed the top of our heads. ‘Grand tour?’ she asked, pushing us towards the kitchen before we’d even had the time to grab our things.

On arrival to the kitchen, Karen gestured dramatically at the white, high-ceilinged room, where her four cats were manically dribbling on the kitchen island next to a grand prosciutto board for lunch, licking up their food straight from the counter.

‘This is my haven!’ she declared, pointing past sticky fly traps that hung down from the ceiling and covered us all in dying insects. She turned away from the hoards of British royalty memorabilia that stood proudly in a glass cabinet, and asked us how the journey was.

‘A little difficult, because of the Covid restrictions, but–‘

She cut me off. ‘Anyway!’ She leant forward on the kitchen island, half-naked body thankfully obscured by the counter. ‘Thank God you don’t have a Welsh accent, that would have been disgusting! All I’m a taffy this, and llchchlch that, I can never understand a single thing those people say. I always pretend I’m Italian so that they stop talking to me!’

Considering I had only been on the property for about six minutes, I felt shocked, and was lowkey tamping. Considering that so many of my ancestors had been bullied into submission by English imperialists to surrender their mother tongue, and even more ancestors had been brutally attacked because of their accents, I felt my skin prick up. But, we all act strange under nerves, and perhaps the poor woman was merely anxious to have two foreign strangers wander into her home? I could only hope.

With an eager attempt to lighten his wife’s abrasive remarks, Karen’s husband stepped in with glasses of wine for us all.

‘My name is Antonio,’ he said softly, smiling at my girlfriend and I. ‘Born and raised in Rome, it was my dream to retire to the beautiful Italian countryside with a beautiful woman by my side. I have always wanted my own cabin.’

His smile beamed, lighting up the room. His skin was a dark bronze colour, with light hazel eyes and a thick, greying beard. He looked not too unlike Paul Hollywood, and I liked him immediately. Unfortunately, before he could continue with his story, Karen interrupted.

‘He means he has always wanted a house, a CASA, in Italy. Not a cabin! I have been trying my best to teach him English, but I fear his brain is a lot smaller than his big skull!’ She laughed to herself and knocked back her glass of wine, Antonio looking at the ground.

The rest of the day felt more than just mildly uncomfortable, as I informed Karen that I have Crohn’s Disease and as such cannot consume dairy, and she stated ‘I know other people that supposedly have that too, although none of them seem to be honest, and I HATE dishonesty’ – and continued to add a tin of cream to Andrea’s homemade carbonara. When I ate it out of politeness, despite the stomach upset, she continued to talk about her seething hatred for liars.

As the sun began to set, we had a short Italian dinner, before Karen retreated to the living room to curl up in a wine-induced slumber, Antonio reading a novel in Latin at her feet. My girlfriend and I decided to tackle the thousands of dishes in the kitchen sink, eager to leave a positive impression on our gracious hosts. Surrounded by cats and engravings of young Queen Elizabeth and Margaret Thatcher, we spent the next hour cleaning the kitchen from top to bottom. By the end of it, we were pretty spent – but ready to start the hard work tomorrow.

After a difficult night sleeping in a very hot bedroom, where fresh fox pelts glared at us from Karen’s spare wardrobe, we woke up at seven a.m. to start the day. We sat downstairs in the kitchen sipping tea when Karen came in, one giant knot of hair twisted up in the back of her head.

‘Good mooorning girls!’ She sung, wearing the same shirt from yesterday, still without pants.

‘Good morning!’ We both called back.

‘God, last night was heavy, huh?’ She said, before looking around at her newly immaculate kitchen. ‘We all really had a hard night of cleaning!’

Confused at her lack of acknowledgement, we continued sipping our teas. Karen looked at my girlfriend, at me, at our hands, which were laying on top of one another on the counter.

‘Where exactly did you two meet?’ She asked, suspicious.

‘In a cave in mid-Wales,’ I answered, taffy accent and all.

Karen frowned, the corner of her lips caving down into her chin. ‘I would really appreciate it if you two were honest with me. About whether or not you have Crohn’s Disease, or coronavirus, or AIDs.‘ She burrowed her eyebrows. ‘And also–‘

Antonio walked into the kitchen, gleaming smile and all. ‘Good morning ladies, how are we all?’

‘Good,’ we all said in unison.

‘Today I would like you two to paint the outside wall, if that’s alright?’

The next few hours were spent in the shade-free hot Italian sun, painting the outside walls of the farmhouse a gleaming shade of white. Cora and I were drenched in sweat, with the liquid running down our arms, dripping into our eyes, making deep welts of liquid in the band of our shorts, so we grabbed a bottle of water and sat at the outside dining table, recovering the lost fluids.

Karen came out with a breezy ‘afternoon, dolls!’ wearing a thin white shirt with yellow lemons printed on it, barely covering her torso and showing off her bright pink swim thongs.

‘Good afternoon,’ we chimed back, the sweat on our bodies cooling in the shade.

‘All finished are we?’ She asked, walking up to the wall and looking at it.

‘Yeah, two coats on each section.’

She held up a finger to the painted walls, suddenly dragging her finger down the middle of it.

‘That’s weird,’ she said. ‘Because my finger is dry. It doesn’t even look a different colour.’

‘You can see the newest area that we painted, it’s a brighter white but it dries to this duller cream colour,’ Emily replied.

‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, I will paint it myself.’

And with that, she grabbed a (wet, quite obviously used) roller and began plastering another layer of paint onto the wall. Personally, I had never had someone run their finger over my paintwork in disbelief before, so that was definitely a new one.

Cora and I continued to sip our water, exhausted.

We watched her paint in the scruffiest way possible, slathering paint all over the ground and ignoring the neat edges we’d pored over. After ten minutes, the wall was once again wet with paint.

‘There,’ she said. ‘We’ll leave it to dry and come back to it later. In the meanwhile, how about we go on a trip, to see real Italy?’

Karen had covered up in tight purple booty shorts and a thin white shirt (those areola stared me straight in the face), with toxic pink lipstick engraved in her teeth and a thick knot of hair still standing in the back of her head. Whilst it was a welcome change to finally see her wearing trousers, this overall look was terrifying. When we had met her in the garden, all dressed up, she exclaimed loudly ‘I couldn’t possibly go out without dressing! I have a reputation around here for being a classy British lady – and who would I be for letting them down?!’

She had driven us and Antonio to the local town, which was a warm, bustling area, filled with delicious-smelling patisseries, quaint bars, and gorgeously manicured dogs. All of the signs were, obviously, written in Italian, and when I tried to use my limited knowledge of the language to translate the name of a lovely little tea shop, Karen stated, ‘oh, don’t bother, dear! These aren’t very intelligent people, apart from dear Antonio none of them can even speak English!’

We had run into several of Antonio’s friends, all tanned, moustached men with big hands and twinkling eyes. Some of them joked with us, off-handedly inviting us to local parties, and offering us a glass or two of whatever they were drinking. Sat at a bar with an olive-skinned young local, Karen grabbed the arm of another passerby.

‘Hello, dear!’ She exclaimed. ‘It is me, and these two lovely English ladies, out for afternoon aperitivos!’

The man stared at her for a second, before recognising her.

‘Where is Antonio?’ he asked.

When Karen explained that he was in the bathroom, probably talking to another Italian, he slipped out from her grasp and sped off.

‘They all know me around here,’ she announced to us.

‘It’s just like that in Swansea when I go out and run into a million other family members,’ I replied, making light conversation.

She stared me in the eyes, exaggerated a yawn, and went ‘Anyway, when my girl was young…’

We had only been with Karen for two days, and yet everything she said seemed made to anger and belittle us. That following evening, she spent half an hour asking questions such as ‘What’s the point in Wales, anyway? The language is dead, why bother keeping it alive?’ and ‘How on earth can the Welsh even consider themselves to have a culture?’

The next few days were especially difficult, as temperatures soared and Cora and I worked outside for six, eight hours a day. I don’t want to say that it was unbearable living around Karen, but it was difficult.

We once went on a walk as a group to a local house, made from beautiful old stone which had blackened slightly over the years.

‘This, girls, is the place that time forgot! Can you believe that some people are still forced to live in dirty little shacks like this?’

She announced several times that the place was a disgusting, run-down area, until the neighbour walked outside and Antonio begged her to quieten. When she went, ‘imagine living here, so ugly, so decrepit!’ Antonio shouted ‘hush!’ at her, and she threw an actual tantrum for the next ten minutes, complete with head banging against the table we sat down at until sedated with a glass of wine.

One week into the trip, and Cora and I were close to losing it. For the whole day, Karen would make snide comments about Cora and I (and everything we stood for, Wales, the working class, and Italians – especially Italians), she would shut down Antonio whenever he attempted to tell us fun stories, she would belittle every other local we happened to run into. We had visited Lombardy to experience the beautiful region, but instead we were left babysitting a very short Satan.

After one particularly exhausting afternoon, where Karen 1) said that ‘people here are civilised, not those predators from Egypt and Morocco!’, 2) had a very patronising conversation in which she told a warehouse worker step-by-step how they should be doing their job, 3) bragged about smashing up the house when she gets angry, 4) kicked a dying pigeon and laughed at it suffering for the rest of the day, 5) made uncomfortable, suggestive comments about the concept of homosexuality, and finally 6) rolled her eyes at me when I cut open my hand washing her plates and retracted my hand in pain, we decided that we absolutely had to find another place to live and work.

But just before we could tell Karen, she read our messages on our phone and told us, in no uncertain terms, that we were no longer welcome in her house and had to leave within the next 24 hours.

It was both a relief, and the worst thing that could have happened. We were situated, quite literally, in the middle of nowhere – with no back-up plans, no local contacts that could save us, and very little idea of where we could possibly go next with so little warning. We spent the whole evening staying awake, trying to figure out where the hell we could go next, and in the morning the next day, Karen threw open the door of our bedroom.

‘I see you have both decided that you won’t be working this morning?’

As it happened, despite the fact that we would be leaving in only a few mere hours, Karen had expected us to get up again at 7am (somehow finding enough time to sleep and find another host family to stay with*) to get back to work. Thankfully, Antonio had other plans.

‘The next train leaves in thirty minutes, so you should both be going.’ As we grabbed our bags to leave, he handed us each a small book, a gift for our work. ‘I am sorry it had to end like this,’ he said, and smiled sadly.

When we went out to the car, Karen called after us, ‘you’re welcome to stay for a couple days if you’re ever back in the area!’ (After kicking us out in the midst of a pandemic, in the middle of nowhere, with zero travel options available). She winced as she hugged me goodbye, but then pulled Cora in for a long, hard hug, until Cora writhed out of it and Karen planted two wet kisses on her forehead.

In the car, looking back at the house which was now a greying shade of cream, with newly-dug trenches by the swimming pool (by us), exposed brick wall which had the old plaster removed (by us), dilapidated brickwork which had been polished to perfection (by us), we felt proud of the work we had done – even if the boss had been the worst possible person to work for.

Antonio waved at us with a smile, and Karen’s bulbous nipples glared out at us from her shirt. As the gate closed behind us, I relaxed into the leather seat, knowing that I would never see her whiney little face again.

Thank f*ck for that.

* Which we did! We had somehow found a woman in Piemonte to stay with, and as it happened, she turned out to be the most wonderful person we had ever met. Our time in Italy ended on a positive note, thanks to Luisa.

The UK is predicted to be around three weeks behind Italy in terms of severity, and only two weeks behind France – which is probably why the British government has only just announced that we should all be staying indoors.

Due to the fact that I have Crohn’s Disease, an autoimmune disease, I have had to self-isolate for the past four days as the Coronavirus has made its way to the county of Ceredigion. My immune system simply would not be able to fight against a virus like this taking root inside my body, so I have had to cut off pretty much all social interactions for now. Every single one of my social events for the next few months have been cancelled, so it’s a pretty weird time to be a third year university student. At this point, it’s unlikely we will be getting a graduation ceremony.

I am staying at my girlfriend’s house for the time being, as it is has a large sun window overlooking the ocean, less people coming in and out, and is fully stocked with all of my food. I will be laying low for the next few weeks, monitoring the situation across the country and trying to shield myself from the Coronavirus.

This self-isolation has meant that I have had a lot of time to really focus on things I’ve been putting off. I’m reading a bunch of travel books that I hadn’t found the time to read, writing articles for local magazines (since all of my NWR cultural correspondent duties have been cancelled for the meanwhile), cooking an unholy amount of pasta, watching Love is Blind (I’m disgusted, too) on Netflix, and trying to finalise publishing the first issue of a new local magazine. I’ve been doing yoga and painting-by-numbers, and spending time with the love of my life. At this point, there really is nothing left to do but breathe and stay calm.

Personally, I’m trying to focus on the positive news in the world – such as wildlife returning to cities that have been ruined by humans, little acts of kindness that people are doing for one another, and the fact that air pollution in China has dropped by 30%. The world seems to be healing, even if humans are not.

I had only decided to write this post about 40 minutes ago, as many of you were asking about how it was affecting myself and my country. There has only been a handful of cases in Wales at this moment, but that number is expected to grow for the next month or so. So far, there has only been one local fatality.

Ultimately, the answer to the earlier question is that travel bloggers are staying home with their families during the quarantine, eating food, watching movies, scribbling notes, listening and learning. I feel as though this is a truly strange time in history, and we should really be spending our time trying to do whatever good we can, in whichever ways we can.

I hope that you are all keeping safe, and are feeling well during this pandemic. I love you all endlessly.

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Reza is absolutely one of my favourite explorers, having pushed every single one of his limits and still carrying on his adventures.  In his journey from Nordkapp to Cape Town, he cycled through countries such as Dagestan and Egypt (despite endless warnings not to – I both adore and relate to that!), contracting food poisoning, malaria, and heat stroke, and yet still completing his journey – AND being able to raise over £70,000 for children in Madagascar. Oh, and he was also briefly kidnapped.

Primarily, I would first like to know if this is where your teenage self thought you’d end up?

Yes, for sure. One day my dad gave me a series of book called The Adventures of Tintin. As a kid, I explored the world with Tintin, to the moon and back, to the heart of the Congo, deep into  Arabia and China. Those books really sparked my imagination to the world of exploration. At that age, all I wanted was to travel the world and be like Tintin. But obviously being an explorer is not normally something you are advised to do when you meet your career advisor at school, and I really didn’t know how to make a living out of it. Then somehow life got in the way and my passion took a back seat. I went from being a professional basketball player to extreme skier and mountain biker, and I even made it in the corporate world. But you can’t skip what you’re made for. Those seeds that were planted in you when you were a kid cannot be underestimated.

What is your most memorable experience on the road?

This is such a difficult question. Perhaps arriving at the town of Djenne in Mali during the annual plastering of the mosque is something that I will never, ever forget. It was one of the most remarkable experiences of my life. Djenne is the mud capital of the world and in the centre of it is the grand mosque of Djenne – one of the sacred wonders of the world. People from all over Mali come to Djenne to give their mosque a new skin and prepare it for the rainy season ahead. The townsfolk took us into their homes, treated us like their families and shared this incredible experience with us. We partied for three days in Djenne in the muddy festival – an explosion of Malian music, dance, colours, movement and, of course, mud. It was like the Glastonbury festival in Mali.

What is the hardest aspect of cycling such great distances?

You need to keep yourself motivated because it can sometimes gets really daunting. Being a long-distance cyclist means you have to be a student of pain. You need to know how to manage pain and accumulated fatigue. You go through so many different emotions and you have some incredible times: like feeling the euphoria of finishing the day and seeing the gorgeous sunset from your bike having cycled 150 miles; and there are times that you feel terrible and constantly question why are you doing this. It’s like life, isn’t it?

How did you manage to secure the sponsors and exposure for your Kapp to Cape journey?

It took me a long while to build enough of a profile to enable me to get my first sponsorship. Before Kapp to Cape, I cycled the Annapurna Circuit and set the Guinness World Record for cycling the Sahara Desert. Both were done during my holidays using my savings. They certainly gave me credibility to ask for sponsorship. I always suggest not to approach sponsors unless you have something you can give in return. Sponsors don’t necessarily want to turn people down, they are just inundated by the number of people approaching them. They give money in return for exposure, which is fair. Save up, start small, build credibility and an audience, and then approach them.

The expedition was supported by the Scientific Exploration Society and Reza would like to thank sponsors Sun Chlorella, Craghoppers, Lestoff, Wildling, Tentsile, BodyMe and Eagle Creek.

Have you got any advice for someone looking to become a full-time explorer?

There is no set career path in becoming an explorer, however there is a common characteristic that explorers share and that is entrepreneurship. Explorers make connections. An explorer is a networker who brings together others who will join an expedition – teams, sponsors and audiences – for the work of the expedition. He or she is a persuader, fundraiser, networker, recruiter, leader and curator. Alternatively, you can develop an expertise in something so you can join a team, for example, you could be a photographer, filmmaker, diver, mountaineer, etc. Whichever path you decide to choose, dedication and hard work should be part of your existence because it’s not an easy path, though it is a very rewarding one.

Which experience would you say you have learnt the most from?

Failing. I was leading a team in the Amazon, making a TV series called Transamazonica. I had so much responsibility on my shoulders: I was a producer and co-presenter. We were filming in very difficult conditions for an extended period of time. The local team was extremely difficult to deal with and made our lives very complicated. Our cameraman, who was a very difficult person, was constantly arguing with them and sometimes the arguments got very heated. I constantly had to mediate. At some point things got a bit too much and I lost it. I feel I let everyone down and as a leader I should have handled the situation much better and not let it get to that stage.

What would your answer be to people that say that everywhere has already been explored?

They are right. At least on the surface of the Earth, people have been everywhere. But that is not the definition of a 21^st century explorer. According to the Cambridge dictionary, explorers are people who travel to places that no one has ever been to see what is there. This is so out of date and not relevant to today. Explorers are storytellers, but not just chest-beating, flag-planting adventurers. Explorers create stories which change others’ understanding of the world. That’s what it means to be a 21^st century explorer. It’s about documentation. Whether it is a feat of endurance or looking at certain areas of the world from a different angle, it’s about what you do with that piece of information and how you contribute to other people’s knowledge.

How likely is it that a woman could do what you do, cycling such great distances through questionable lands?

Very likely. Start small and build up from there. It’s all about gaining experience.

Who would you say your favourite travel writer is?

Tim Butcher and Paul Theroux. Hard to chose between them.

Lastly, would you be able to tell me a little about your next big adventure?

I have just finished a TV series called The World’s Most Dangerous Borders. This was the first season, which was based in Africa. I was offered to do the second season, which is happening in Asia. It’s about documenting the lives of people who live in conflicted border areas.

Reza Pakravan is one of my biggest influences – I have learnt so much about what it takes to become a modern-day adventurer from him, and I hope he has helped inspire you guys also.

Have you guys got any questions for him, or now feel ready to take on your own adventure? Let me know in the comments below!

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Wood was the first person to walk the length of the Nile – a journey which took nine months to complete. He has also undertaken similarly challenging expeditions, such as walking the Himalayas, walking the Yucatan Peninsula, and trekking across the mighty Caucasus mountains. His most recent, and arguably most dangerous trip, was a full 5,000 mile circumnavigation of the Arabian Peninsula, travelling from Syria all the way though to Lebanon. Throughout the course of the trip, he came under fire from ISIS fighters and witnessed the liberation of Sharqat – engendering great friendships as he does so.

I, like many others, admire Wood for his bravery and passion for exploration. When the chance to interview him came along, I wanted nothing more than to pick his brain and try to figure out what makes him tick – and he did not disappoint.

To begin with, how did you manage to turn your love of travel into a viable career?

Hard work and determination. I always knew I wanted to travel the world, but I never really thought about making a career out of it. I did know that I wanted to be an author. It was Ernest Hemingway who taught me to write about what I know… and I know how to travel, so once I’d left the army, I knew I had to do something remarkable in the travelling world in order to write about it. So I walked the Nile, and that kickstarted this insane career! I truly believe that if you are passionate about something and serious about making it your livelihood, then it can be done.

Is there one memorable experience from your expeditions which stands out amongst the rest?

It’s impossible to pick just one memory, it’s a bit like asking me to name my favourite country, which I can’t answer either. Wherever I go I’m overwhelmed by the warmth of the people I meet, and their hospitality. On my journey walking the length of the Nile, I was most surprised by Sudan. In every settlement we passed through, the locals invited us in for tea, dinner, and a place to stay. It got to the point where we were having to avoid villages because it was slowing us down. But this didn’t stop them. One man decided that if we weren’t going to stay in his house, he would bring his home to us, and turned up in the desert with a mattress on his head – imagine that!

Is this where you thought you would be 20 years ago?

At 17 I hadn’t yet thought about what the future would hold. Like most boys that age, I was living in the moment, excited about my gap year and my time at university. I knew I was going to go into the army, but I hadn’t thought much beyond that. If I hadn’t broken my leg in 2004, I could still well be in the army full time!

Is there any other career you could have seen yourself going into?

I’ve always loved writing, and spend a lot of my time writing books and articles for various publications, so I may well have ended up a journalist. My parents were both teachers so I could have gone down that route…

When walking for months on end over long stretches of land, how were you able to keep yourself entertained?

I tried to concentrate on appreciating the environment I was in, taking it all in with my eyes, ears, and nose. But at times I would need some distraction, be that music or an audiobook.

Which experience have you learnt the most from?

Probably when I nearly died in the car accident in Nepal whilst walking the Himalayas. It’s the closest I’ve ever been to death, and I feel very fortunate that I (in fact all five of us) survived. Ever since then, I’ve learnt not to take things for granted, to savour experiences and special moments with friends and family. I still believe in risk-taking, but some risks are just ignorant.

What would your answer be to people who say everywhere has already been explored?

Technically that’s not true. We’ve only just begun to explore the deepest oceans, and we haven’t even touched outer space; there’s still a lot more to explore.

Do you think that it would be possible for a woman to do what you do, or would it be too difficult to travel freely between certain countries?

I do believe it would be possible for anyone to do what I do, given they have the right attitude and approach to travelling. It didn’t really matter that I was a man, it was my training in the army and my work for Secret Compass that equipped me with the necessary skills for my journeys. A woman can get that same training, and with the right guide should be able to move as freely as they want, within reason. The important thing for anyone is that they’re aware of the risks involved in this sort of travelling.

I read that you have travelled to over 90 countries, right? Have you ever been to Wales?

Over 100 now! And yes, I’ve been to Wales many times. As a child, we used to spend our summer holidays in Pembrokeshire. Some of my happiest childhood memories are from there.

Now that Arabia is being aired and you’ve wrapped up another adventure, what’s next?

I have a few projects in the pipeline. I’m currently away filming for something that will be aired early 2020, and I’m working on a couple of books…

Finally, is there any advice you’d give to wannabe explorers and travel writers?

Like I said at the outset, if you really want something, you’re passionate and serious about it, then the only thing stopping you is yourself! So if you want to explore the world and write about it, then go get it!

Levison Wood is hands down one of the coolest people that I have ever spoken to, and after interviewing him I’m only further convinced that he’s a pretty decent guy to have influence your ambitions.

What do you guys think? Do you guys have any questions for him? Let me know in the comments below!

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For those of y’all who don’t know, I’m the worst when it comes to flying. Not because I still have a debilitating fear, but because my main coping mechanism is to ask questions and thoroughly understand everything that is going on around me. This sounds like a great anti-fear technique, but recently, I was sat in an airport departure lounge and was asking about what would happen if the plane got hijacked, and who takes over if the pilot got shot? A woman shaking out of her skin ended up approaching me and begging me to stop nattering about Final Destination-esque scenarios, because she has agonising aviophobia and what I was saying put her on the verge of throwing up. It turns out that there are actually a bunch of ways to deal with a fear of flying, and what may work for some may send others into full panic mode. Regardless, I’ve mentioned some of the best ways to deal with a fear of flying, and how I personally overcame mine.

Mine began with a dodgy trip to Cyprus, where at the last minute the tour operator changed the route for a refuelling stop in a deeply problematic area of the world with a rickety old plane company I’d never heard of before, and I felt so uneasy about the trip that I ended up at 3am in the deep dark part of the internet reading up on statistics and biased ideas that scared the living shit out of me. Then, of course, there was my trip to Poland where the plane actually dropped out of the sky during a world-class storm. Needless to say, my fear of flying escalated exponentially since then. Considering I want to travel for a living I knew that I had to overcome my phobia, and so I spent a long time working on it so that it would be manageable enough to fly with – and yesterday I booked a spontaneous four-hour flight to Adeje for a week. Now, I actually feel pretty excited about my flight – and here’s how I did it;

ESTABLISH EXACTLY WHAT IT IS THAT SCARES YOU

LEARN ABOUT TURBULENCE

AVOID COMMON MISBELIEFS ABOUT OVERCOMING YOUR FEAR

Some people suggest drinking, but that will dehydrate you more than you will already be with the change in pressure and make you feel worse when you land. It’s also not a good long-term solution. Others suggest taking sleeping pills or distracting yourself with whale song (or just conking out and laying back on some silk pillows), but neither really fix the problem. You’ve got to get to the route of your fear and work up from there, and by taking yourself mentally out of the situation you’re still going to face the same problem each time you think about flying. Don’t get caught up in your aviophobia – after all, it’s illogical, and would be much more productive if you were that meticulous about trying to stop your smoking habit or weaning down on red meats.

SAY HELLO TO THE PILOT!

One of the stewards may ask the pilot if you are able to see the cockpit and meet the pilot themselves before you take off if you ask them nicely. Meeting the person controlling the plane and seeing the controls themselves helps minimise the anxiety that comes with the unknown, and should put you more at ease. Also, in regards to the pilots, they go through such rigorous training and invest so much time and effort (and money – it costs like £160,000 just for the official training, not counting anything before or after that) into their careers that they’re deeply passionate and educated about the aircraft they fly and will always put your safety first. A lifetime of dedication and preparation means that they’re pretty trusted with your life in their hands – and, according to an aeroplane engineer I spoke to, the pilot and co-pilot have to have different meals on the plane should the food make them ill, which should help with minor food fears.

PUT YOURSELF IN THE FRONT SEAT

Whilst this isn’t how I personally overcame my aviophobia, some people suggest that you could take flying lessons or at least try out a simulator. This will demystify the idea of flying, and help you understand the sheer amount of preparation and planning that goes into making a plane fly.

CHANGE YOUR FLIGHT ACCORDINGLY

Whilst looking at flights, you can read up on the information about which plane you will be on, and can choose a flight with a bigger plane (less turbulence), get a seat at the front (less of a bumpy ride), and pick a more direct route (less take offs and landings). By going through some extra measures, you can make sure that you will feel more comfortable and secure on your trip. Also preplan by arriving at the airport early, booking an aisle seat so that you can’t see the 35,000 feet drop to the ground from the window, or get an upgrade by the emergency exit so that you feel less trapped.

FLY FIRST CLASS

Whilst I may still get a small amount of anxiety every now and then when I fly, I know for sure that if someone offered me a first class flight right now I would hop out of my dressing gown and jump straight on the plane. Believe me, it’s a lot harder to be frightened sipping champagne and lounging in some crisp white sheets watching a good film.

WORK ON RELAXING

If your shoulders feel tight, give them a rub. Spend time working moisteriser into the fatty part of your palms. Use a plastic fork to scratch that one spot on your back that you can never reach. Massage your scalp and play with your hair. You may look slightly unhinged, but at least it’s better than doing a Kristen Wiig in Bridesmaids and standing in the middle of the aisle shouting “There is something they’re not telling us!”

LEARN HOW A PLANE WORKS

The dangers we once had years ago, such as crashing into an incoming plane (the vertical deviation of any plane is less than the height of the tail so that’s rendered moot) or an engine exploding, are now pretty much diminished.  I interviewed an aeroplane engineer at Heathrow who told me that both twin engined and aircraft with four engines can both run on just one engine without problem – and even then, aircraft can glide for around 100 miles if the engines fail at 30,000ft, landing safely on ground of floating on water. The very seat you sit in can withstand 16 times the force of gravity, along with being self-extinguishing and fire retardant. One of the biggest facts for me is that for every hour in the air, at least 11 hours had been spent on maintenance of that particular plane prior.  An eight hour flight? Nearly 90 hours of prep. As a fun fact though, every centimetre of slack you have in the seatbelt will propel you six times as far forward if the plane jolts, so make sure you use it properly and keep it tightened.

PREPARE YOURSELF, BUT DON’T BE IRRATIONAL

Learn everything you can about what to do in an emergency so that that aspect isn’t dauntingly scary and you feel more prepared – however, that can be taken a tad too far. For example, a couple of flights ago I was sat there counting and working out how far away the emergency exit was and how to get there with my eyes closed. It irritated the person next to me to no end, and it didn’t do me any favours either. I’ve found that it’s best to understand how to react to negative situations, but once you have that information, calm down and take it in your stride. Congrats, you’re prepared – but don’t obsess.

REALISE IT’S ALL IN YOUR MIND

Understand that if you’re nervous about flying whilst on the ground, then it’s not actually flying that you’re focusing on, but more the anxiety that the idea causes. Remind yourself that whilst flying, you are safe and well and going to a lovely country (unless it’s to England, in which case, consolations). And then, like the famous step in Alcoholics Anonymous, acceptance is one of the last stages of your recovery from fear. Accept that you can’t control the situation and that you’re in good hands, and you should start feeling a lot better.

AND FINALLY, FACE YOUR FEAR!

Just think, flying is actually the safest part of your journey, and the safest mode of transportation by far (cars, trains, boats – none have had as much time and monetary investment as that of the aviation industry to keep it’s passengers safe). You’re more likely to die on your walk into the plane, as your likeliness of dying in a plane crash is one in 20 million (over ten times better than in the 1960’s, as the stats get better every day). At the end of all this, if you’re still absolutely terrified – why not be mega dramatic like me and take a minimum of three flights a day until you’ve overcome it all? (If you think I’m joking – I’m really not, I actually did this)