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I Am A Polar Bear

Travel, adventure & wellness with plenty of snow

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Category: Camping

Rebel Summer Camp 2025: Sunday & Monday | iamapolarbear.com

Rebel Summer Camp 2025: Sunday & Monday

September 15, 2025

Part two of Rebel Summer Camp! If you don’t know what it is, go back and read the first part because I’m picking up on Sunday morning with no further explanation. Sunday started with a hike down past the gladiator duel, through the woods, under the road and through a bit more woods until we … More Rebel Summer Camp 2025: Sunday & Monday

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Rebel Summer Camp 2025: Friday & Saturday | iamapolarbear.com

Rebel Summer Camp 2025: Friday & Saturday

September 11, 2025

Rebel Summer Camp is always such a big thing that it deserves two posts – you just can’t get the whole thing in one. So this is Friday and Saturday. I dithered over going to camp this year, since it’s three or four hours away up the M5 and M6 but eventually I decided I’m … More Rebel Summer Camp 2025: Friday & Saturday

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Back to Basics Guide camp was definitely type 2 fun | iamapolarbear.com

Back to Basics Guide camp was definitely type 2 fun

June 9, 2025

There are some camps that go down in legend, to be talked over ten or twenty years later. The one with the storm that knocked the Ranger tent over so that they were scared to go and alert the leaders and everyone ended up getting sent home for two days so we could clean up … More Back to Basics Guide camp was definitely type 2 fun

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My latest camping disaster | iamapolarbear.com

My latest camping disaster

May 15, 2025

I like to go camping. That is, I think I like to go camping. The reality is that for one reason or another – or several reasons – I never really actually sleep in a tent. But I like to get away from my life for the weekend without feeling like I need to explore, … More My latest camping disaster

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Rebel Summer Camp part 2 | iamapolarbear.com

Rebel Summer Camp part 2: Sunday and Monday

October 14, 2024

In part 1, I told you what the Rebel Badge Club is and what Rebel Summer Camp is all about so if you don’t know, you can go and read that. In the meantime, I’m jumping straight into part 2, Sunday and Monday. Greta 2’s first scheduled activity at 9.30am was board games. I’m not … More Rebel Summer Camp part 2: Sunday and Monday

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Rebel Summer Camp part 1 | iamapolarbear.com

Rebel Summer Camp part 1: Friday and Saturday

October 10, 2024

Let’s talk about the other big exciting thing I did this summer: I went to Rebel Summer Camp 2024! I didn’t go last year; it was a lot of money and I had doubts about whether a single person can put on an event of that scale. For context, it’s about the same price as … More Rebel Summer Camp part 1: Friday and Saturday

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Camping on Brownsea Island (again) | iamapolarbear.com

Camping on Brownsea Island (again)

June 3, 2024

At first, camping on Brownsea Island seems dreamy and idyllic – your very own island, free of tourists for the evening, and more astonishingly, free of Scout camps! But then you realise there’s an infestation of hornets within the campsite and then thunder rumbles over and you realise you’re on an island a mile and … More Camping on Brownsea Island (again)

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A horse invaded my tent: camping in the New Forest | iamapolarbear.com

A horse invaded my tent: camping in the New Forest

May 2, 2024

It’s been a really long winter. Summer is due any day and we still haven’t had spring. I began to feel a bit stir-crazy – I have a new (to me; I rescued it) tent that I really wanted to try out and the year was flying by and I still hadnt planned any camping … More A horse invaded my tent: camping in the New Forest

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Sparkle & Ice 2023: the biggest one | iamapolarbear.com

Sparkle & Ice 2023: the biggest one

December 8, 2023

I love Sparkle & Ice. I haven’t missed a single year, not even 2021, when it was cancelled because of some killer mutant virus. I took a mix of Guides & Rangers in 2017, just Rangers in 2019 and 2020, volunteered in 2018 and 2022 and I’m taking my new Rangers this year. However, this … More Sparkle & Ice 2023: the biggest one

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Winter camping tips (for Sparkle & Ice) | iamapolarbear.com

Winter camping tips (for Sparkle & Ice)

November 16, 2023

With Sparkle & Ice 2023 only about ten days away now, it’s either a bit tight for time with advice or it’s perfect timing because you’re just reaching last-minute panic. I know at least one local leader has read my previous Sparkle posts and maybe I can become the authority on how to survive Girlguiding’s … More Winter camping tips (for Sparkle & Ice)

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Who am I?
I'm Julie, a travel, adventure and wellness blogger. I love Iceland, I love jumping into hot water and I do love a bit of snow.

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While I’m doing Iceland’s spectacular blue water, I’m also going to do Iceland’s orange majesty - the time I hiked out to Meradalir to see the second Reykjanes eruption back in 2022. It’s still one of my favourite things I’ve ever done. Seeing a real life volcano is incredible - I think the highly intelligent thing I said on my first glimpse was “it’s so red and hot!” and I’d love to see another but it hasn’t worked out since (and if it never does, at least I saw this one!) ♨️ Which is the best geothermal lagoon / pool / tourist-oriented experience in Iceland? As a student I visited Chateau de Chillon and somehow managed to believe that Lord Byron wrote a famous poem about his time as a prisoner - well, he was “mad, bad and dangerous to know”. Of course he’d spent time in a Swiss dungeon. But of course, he hadn’t. He’d visited a castle while on holiday, written a poem about an actual prisoner and turned the place into one of Switzerland’s biggest tourist attractions. And I do mean big - there are 48 rooms detailing its history from Savoy to today via Bern and Lausanne, as a defensive structure, a luxury lakeside residence and yes, a tourist attraction. I was at the station in Lausanne, thinking about the old days when I lived here with my “triplets” 20 years ago and then five minutes later, one of them messaged me. This selfie, by the way, is one I took to send to her down by the lake, hence the awkward wave. Because it’s 2026, I’m calling this Switzerland in analogue instead of on film. This is the result of taking my film camera with me and actually getting through a full roll (last year, I managed 24 photos between May and December and carried that thing around far more often than I actually used it). It’s a mixed bag in which you only get to see the better ones. The blog from Thursday also features the film photos, plus a few of the nearly-terrible ones, in case there aren’t enough brown grainy pictures right here. #analogue #analog #35mmfilm This one was on the blog almost before I got back to Switzerland but it’s time it went on Instagram too. I went snowshoeing! It was in the dark, following a trail of lanterns through a snowstorm and finished up in a mountain restaurant with traditional fondue or rösti before taking the cogwheel train back down to the lake. I love cathedrals and I especially love Gothic cathedrals, so Lausanne’s was the first thing to do when I arrived. I went there as a student and didn’t appreciate it. I thought the couple of photos I took then were a bit dark but it turns out Lausanne’s 13th century cathedral really is a bit dark. It’s very beautiful and has some amazing stained glass (including some hiding right up high in the crossing!) and my only complaint is that it’s far too hot. Cathedrals tend to be cool, cold places, especially when there's a snowstorm raging outside but this one has big heating vents keeping the place at approximately sauna temperature. It took a while to decide where in Switzerland I was going to go but it was really the Hotel Swiss Chocolate in Lausanne that swayed me to Lac Leman. 🍫 This was on the blog yesterday but it gets an Instagram post too - I went to a Swiss chocolate factory and did a chocolate workshop! The actual chocolate work was very easy but I really enjoyed the little lesson on tempering chocolate while our creations set enough to take them home.

About Julie

I’m a blogger, adventurer, lover of hot water, amateur paddler and polar bear who wilts in hot weather.

Time (by day, I’m a researcher) and funds keep me within Europe and I make regular trips up to the north, especially to Iceland. I like the occasional adventure across Europe by train and I’m starting to make use of my weekends for 48-hour adventures.

This isn’t my only creative outlet – I’ve written two travelogues with a third and fourth being (not to much) written simultaneously right now.

Blog at WordPress.com.
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