77.8750° N, 20.9752° E

This morning started as most do when I am home. I stumble into my galley kitchen and power on my Breville coffee machine. With soft incandescent light barely illuminating the room around me, I make my coffee, froth my milk and turn the fire place on. I open up my book and pick up where I left off the morning before. This is my favorite ritual.

I’m currently reading Frostlines by Neil Shea. It’s filled with personal accounts of Shea’s time spent in the Arctic - from Umingmak Nuna (Ellesmere Island) to Anaktuvuk Pass to Qikiqtaq (King William Island) and so many others. The stories are divided into chapters, each in a different Arctic geographically, but the through lines couldn’t be more apparent. At a time when the warming of our planet is undeniable - I’ve started my own quest to learn more and see as much of these far reaches of land as possible. And while I wait to see them, I devour books like Frostlines to saturate my mind as much as I can.

My coffee cold, I closed the book and with just two chapters left, I want to savor it.

I carried on with my morning - made the bed, brushed my teeth and got ready for the day ahead. I always try to “get dressed” for my work days. Working from home can certainly blur the lines of “work” when there’s so much other stuff to do around the house; so I find getting dressed a surefire way to kick my ass into gear. And it’s a way for me to actually wear all the clothes in my closet. Today, it’s a simple pair of Levi’s and a new-to-me knitted sweater from Bean’s that’s light blue with polar bears on it. Unbeknownst to me, the careful selection of this sweater was about to mean something.

I sat down at my kitchen table which has many uses these days - it’s not only my office but also a makeshift workshop for Good Wolf. It’s a chaotic mess, but it’s my chaotic mess. My chair squeaked across the hardwood, I opened my laptop, took a swig of icy cold water - the work day begins. I checked my email, responded to a few and then checked Instagram to get a post ready to share.

With a few tweaks and a hell of a lot more work ethic today, this is really what my routine has looked like for the better part of 10 years.

In 2016, I had just landed a job at an ad agency in the town I’m from. Somehow after interning with them for a year and my final project presented one on one with the CEO having a grave spelling mistake, I spelled asses instead of assess, they hired me. And by all accounts, “I did it.” I went to school, got a degree, interned and landed a job WITH benefits in a field I, for the most part, saw myself exceeding in.

But something was awry. I quickly learned that what I yearned for in life wasn’t actually that. And it was in fact the exact opposite. Mind you, this is all happening at a time when the rise of social media is like a tidal wave washing over every day life. I had the app on my phone and was constantly inundated with far away places and experiences that were inaccessible to me otherwise. I found myself often day dreaming of the places I was seeing, quite like I did when I’d watch Nat Geo shows growing up. And suddenly I fell in love with a world and came to know a world I’d never seen with my own two eyes.

I was raised by a single mother and all of her resources were dumped back into my sister and I. I thought we were thriving, but you ask my mom and I’m sure she’d say we were surviving. Seeing the world beyond Maine often felt out of reach. And out of the country? Damn near impossible. She always made sure we had a roof over our heads, food on the table and presents at Christmas and on our birthdays. And on a few occasions, we had the opportunity to travel. She and I road tripped to Florida together, with my hermit crabs in tow. Just her and I in her red Ford Escort cruising 95 from Maine to Florida. Stopping at Cracker Barrel and staying at nearly every Red Roof Inn along the way. I can almost hear the fuzzy radio playing Shania Twain as we crossed state lines.

I credit that trip as planting the seed for my desire to see more.

I think a mother’s dream for their child is always health, success and happiness. But what makes my mom so incredibly special is that she understands that success and happiness can look entirely different than the traditional definition of the saying. I really, really admire a lot about my mom but that is one of my favorite things about her.

In search of something more, in 2015, while interning, I started a blog and started sharing my local travels around Maine and New England on Instagram. I didn’t know what I was doing but it was scratching that incessant creative itch. It was fun. I started watching Anthony Bourdain and following more people that shared travel stories and found myself on the page of a woman, now friend, named Lesley. I remember how much I looked up to her then and how I still do now. I remember how vibrant her photos were and how she had this incredible way of bringing the viewer, me, into a place so far away from where they were sitting. I remember wanting to experience exactly what she was experiencing.

In December of that same year, the same year I was hired at the ad agency, she posted a giveaway on Instagram. The winner of the giveaway would win a trip to Asia, with her, for two weeks. My eyes widened and my mind raced at the possibilities. I immediately envisioned myself on that trip. The crux? You had to share about why you wanted to travel to Asia. Having never been outside of the United States before, I was stumped. How do I explain wanting something I’ve never had? Or wanting to experience something so outside of any resemblance of my everyday life that it almost seemed unfathomable for one to want to do so?

Despite my self doubt, I entered the contest.

And on December 25, 2015, I received an email;

The world I’d never seen before just became a hell of a lot closer. Within arms reach. Over the next several months we solidified dates, location and activities. And come May 9-22, 2016 we be together in Hong Kong and Thailand.

In May 2026, it will have been 10 years since that trip. And what a decade it has been. I’ve grown a lot, both personally and professionally. But I think the greatest change in all of that is what I see my role in this wild life being. I searched so long, almost the entirety of the last 10 years, for purpose. For reason. For the legacy, if you will, that I want to leave behind. And a couple of years ago, I found it. “It,” like most things, is in a constant state of ebb and flow - always evolving but the mission remains the same. It has never been enough to just take photos, I’ve always wanted my work to have impact.

That part of my life deserves a story of it’s own but let it be known that I credit that trip to Hong Kong and Thailand, this chance I took, to who I am today. It came at a very pivotal time in my life when I felt I was on the cusp of change and just wanting something different for myself than the path that was unfolding in front of me. The path that I was participating in paving. They say travel changes you and I’m here to shout that truth from the mountaintops. There is something so elemental about seeing life unfold through a kaleidoscope of places and experiences.

All in and with a couple more international trips under my belt, I quit my job in December 2016. I bet on myself to pave a new path forward. One with purpose, connection and at the heart of it- storytelling. I went to Australia on a one-way and haven’t stopped traveling since.

Fast forward to the beginning of January 2026, I came across an Expedition Giveaway with the folks over at Natural World Safaris.

You see, the High North is at the center of so many conversations as of late and if it’s not obvious through my book choice, it’s certainly at the center of my mind, too. The Arctic, often identified as one singular place is actually many different places each with different animals, cultures and landscapes that span across countries in the high north. The Arctic is one of the many reasons life is even sustainable on our planet and subsequently it is one of the geographically unique regions that we can see the greatest effects of climate change.

I’ve become increasingly interested in the northern regions of our planet, especially after my trip to Manitoba with Churchill Wild. Seeing polar bears for the first time, much like seeing another country for the first time, changed me. Suddenly everything is tangible and you see how remarkable and how needed these diverse eco-regions are, not only to us but to the very livelihood of the animals that live there - like the polar bear.

You might conclude that I am Arctic obsessed and I certainly wouldn’t deny it.

I entered that giveaway. And when I opened my Instagram this morning, Natural World Safari’s story was first. I clicked it and there my name was. I’d won the contest to go on an expedition in Svalbard in May 2026. I squealed with excitement, much like that evening that I discovered I’d won a trip to Hong Kong 10 years ago. And just like that trip, this one couldn’t be more aligned with the person I am today.

Come May 2026, almost 10 years to the day of my life-changing trip to Asia, I’ll head north. To a new to me place, reading a new to me book likely about the Arctic and wearing this blue polar bear sweater in search of answers, sense of self and our connectedness to the warming world around us.

I don’t know what kind of forces are conspiring up in the universe to provide me with such incredible opportunities but I am endlessly grateful.