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I Am A Polar Bear

Travel, adventure & wellness with plenty of snow

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Category: Land

Camping for Beginners: Camp cooking | iamapolarbear.com

Camping for Beginners: Camp cooking

May 6, 2021

I’ve covered everything I know about tents and now it’s time to think about what you’re going to eat. Welcome to Camp Cooking for Beginners! What should I cook on? You’re spoiled for choice on that these days. Let me give you a rundown of your main options. Others exist but these four are the … More Camping for Beginners: Camp cooking

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A Single Map: walking with cows | iamapolarbear.com

A Single Map: walking with cows

April 29, 2021

I haven’t done A Single Map in a while – well, not on the blog. I’ve done walks on my map most weeks in real life. We met a lot of cows on this most recent walk! We were using the Sturminster Newton walks again – the last of the five long ones – but … More A Single Map: walking with cows

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Camping for Beginners: how to repair a tent | iamapolarbear.com

Camping for Beginners: How to repair a tent

April 26, 2021

As I write this, I’m lying in the porch of my tent in the garden, having spent the morning making repairs and while I’m doing the Outdoors 101 and Camping for Beginners series, it seemed it would be a good idea to do a post on how to repair a tent. You’ve bought it, you’ve … More Camping for Beginners: How to repair a tent

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Camping for Beginners: how to pitch a tent | iamapolarbear.com

Camping for Beginners: How to pitch a tent

April 22, 2021

I meant to do this last year but apparently I never did: a beginner’s guide to how to pitch a tent. It’s all very well to decide you’re going to try out this camping thing, to go to a shop and buy a tent, but how do you put the thing up? Tents come in … More Camping for Beginners: How to pitch a tent

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Camping for beginners: how to buy a tent | iamapolarbear.com

Camping for Beginners: how to buy a tent

April 19, 2021

Perhaps you’re here because you can’t fly off to your sunny summer holiday and you’re beginning to think people might be right about this camping thing, at least until the plague is well and truly gone. But you’ve never camped before; you don’t even know where to begin. Never fear, I’m here to help! Camping … More Camping for Beginners: how to buy a tent

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What's in my first aid kit? | iamapolarbear.com

Outdoors 101: What’s in my first aid kit?

April 15, 2021

I’ll do a real YouTube-circa-2014 “what’s in my bag?” blog next time I go to Dartmoor but today a follow-up to “what to carry while out walking” from the other day: what’s in my first aid kit? I would recommend carrying a first aid kit whenever you go out walking. I mean, I don’t bother … More Outdoors 101: What’s in my first aid kit?

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Outdoors 101: what to carry on a day hike | iamapolarbear.com

Outdoors 101: What to carry on a day hike

April 8, 2021

In the last Walking 101 post, I was mainly making the point that you don’t need a lot of stuff or to spend a lot of money to get outdoors and get into walking. This post is “what to carry on a day hike”, aka all the stuff you do need. But you still don’t need … More Outdoors 101: What to carry on a day hike

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A Single Map | Fiddleford to Piddles Wood

A Single Map: Fiddleford to Piddles Wood

March 29, 2021

We’re back on my Single Map today with another country walk and we’re going from Fiddleford to Piddles Wood. One of Dorset’s most endearing qualities is the ridiculousness of some of its names. A few years ago that spawned a quiz called Dorset Village or NFL Player? and I particularly enjoyed that one of the … More A Single Map: Fiddleford to Piddles Wood

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Why and how to use a route card | iamapolarbear.com

Outdoors 201: Why and how to use a route card

March 25, 2021

This is kind of second in the How To Get Outdoors series but after Outdoors 101’s “what shoes should I wear?”, consider this the first part of related series Outdoors 201: we’re going to investigate why and how to use a route card. What is a route card? A route card is a piece of … More Outdoors 201: Why and how to use a route card

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How to grow vegetables for beginners | iamapolarbear.com

How to grow vegetables for beginners

March 1, 2021

Last lockdown I got quite into gardening, beginner-style, and as I’ve spent the weekend preparing and planning my updated garden, I thought I’d do a blog about how to grow vegetables for beginners. My baby lettuces and peppers brought me such joy last year and yet even this time last year I wouldn’t have cared. … More How to grow vegetables for beginners

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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.

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