Hello, welcome to my blog. I’m Julie, a polar bear in human form.
I’m a travel blogger, tentative YouTuber, adventurer, paddler, language fan, Girlguiding volunteer and professional researcher. I spend a lot of time in the frozen north, mostly in Iceland but also in Norway and Finland. I love Iceland in all its seasons – I love the snow and the Northern Lights in the winter and I love that I can drive and camp around the country in my tiny yellow tent, stopping off at volcanoes and hot springs in the summer. I usually travel solo and my adventures have ranged from jumping off mountains to kayaking frozen lagoons, although I’m not averse to something a bit calmer, like a city break or a glamping weekend (as long as I have a hot tub. I love a hot tub).
By day I’m a researcher and analyst, dealing in 51 specific countries I’ve never actually been to. Yes, I have a full-time job. I travel on my salary and my annual leave allowance. I work from home permanently now. My job has been remote since 2017 anyway but now I have my own home office in the old spare room instead of working from a coworking space or from my desk at my previous job. I don’t have an official title, my boss isn’t really into formalities like that but he’s sometimes introduced me to new people as “heads up the research section”. That mostly means I am the research section but at the beginning of 2024, we acquired a second researcher so now I’m a manager! We’re a small company.
By night I’m a Brownie leader, a Ranger leader, a leadership mentor, an archery instructor, a fencing coach and a paddlesport assistant. I love getting to fill our programme up with exciting and adventurous activities and introducing my girls to everything from shooting to kayaking. I genuinely think the world would be a better place if more people did some volunteering and I particularly recommend Girlguiding because you can make so much difference to girls and young women and also personally because I’ve got so much out of it myself.
I live in a nebulous part of the south-west I refer to as Wessex, where buses only run six times a day and we haven’t had trains since Dr Beeching’s day. I’m near the Jurassic Coast so sometimes I’ll walk bits of the South West Coast Path and a few years ago I decided it was time to start making use of the sea by trying out learning to pilot various watercraft. The one I’ve particularly taken to is the kayak and I’m a paddlesport assistant at my local Girlguiding boathouse. I have a background in languages and every now and then, I decide it’s time to start a short-lived love affair with a new one – the latest is Finnish. There’s so much more in and around the field of travel than just going to places.
A few extracts from my travel & adventure CV:
- BA (Hons) French & Spanish (2007)
- RYA Levels 1 & 2 (Dinghies) (2016)
- Archery GB Instructor Award (2016)
- British Fencing Core Coach (2018)
- Girlguiding TACs in-house bushcraft training (2019)
- University of Oslo Introduction to Norwegian (2019)
- British Canoeing Discover & Explore Awards (2021)
- British Canoeing Paddlesport Safety & Rescue (2023)
- Traverse Creator Awards – Best Responsible Piece shortlist (2024)
Yikes Juliet, such a huge effort to redo a whole blog – I’m sorry you felt you had to do that.
Good luck with all your future travels and blogging.
It’s not as bad as it sounds – I exported it lock stock and barrel from the old account and imported it into the new one, so that was fine, and then because people only read the new stuff and not the old stuff, I can just repost the old stuff so I don’t even have to write much at the moment. It’s not so bad.
That doesn’t sound too bad and it could be a nice opportunity to make some edits to past work. I know I like to do that if I get the chance.
Hi Juliet,
I’m glad to have found your blog, it is great. I read several articles on your blog and I think it is useful for the tourists.
Let me introduce myself, My name is Sam, a HongKonger who love travel. Two months ago, I had created a attractions based travel site which aims to connect the bloggers and the tourists. Bloggers can share their articles, photos or comments and let tourists find the useful travel information more easily, just like an index of blogs and attractions. I know you write a lots of articles about different attractions and i believe you will write more in the future, so I would like to invite you to join our community and share your articles and photos to let the tourists can read your travel story. Hope you will join us to share the travel information with each other =)
Look for your reply, hope you all the best!
http://www.travelersfootprint.com/
Sam
I am glad that people speak many languages. I have no degree of any languages, but it does not prevent me make my blogs in four languages. 🙂
Hi! Happy to have found your blog! I love the layout, the style the content…everything! I’ve read some of your posts and I can’t wait to read more! I’m a travel lover too so I’m definitely looking forward to following you 🙂
Lisa | http://www.fromdreamtoplan.net/
Greetings fellow Guider Heading to Pax Lodge in a few weeks and was searching for info about the challenges when i stumbled across your blog.
Greetings! Have fun! They have several challenges so you can pick the one that suits your tastes and itinerary best – and they’re really nice people.
Hi Juliet!
I’m a fellow Rebel who accidentally found your blog when looking for Rebels who are also Polar Bears – except in this case it’s the Polar Bear Winter Wild Swimming Challenge I was thinking of!
Given your name and everything, and that you’ve got your Wild Swimming Rebel Badge, I thought I’d drop you the link in case you fancied taking part!
Entries have been extended for this year until this Sunday!
Hi Juliet,
I loved the pictures of Wells. I visited the cathedral today, for the first time in … probably 40 years … ouch. I was wondering if I could use your picture of Hugh Sugar’s arms, from the vicars street? I am doing some work on heraldry for a journal and I was interested in the fact Hugh seems to have various coats of arms, with an H or with his Doctor of Civil Law cap. Is that OK?
Yours,
Tim