Me, visiting Ireland’s highest point Carrauntoohil, as part of a modified Kerry Way hike.
Ironically, my love of the natural world led me to spend more than a decade mostly indoors, studying geophysics at Cambridge University and MIT. Since then, I try to spend as much time as possible travelling in the wild. I went to Ecuador’s Avenue of the Volcanoes to learn how to walk far. This allowed me to be one of the first people to walk the length of the Transcaucasian Trail. I enjoy writing about these trips and illustrating them with maps, as a way to eke out the experience and as a fixative for fading memories. I also enjoy planning trips carefully using my skills in mapping and data processing, and I share my notes here. I hope I will encourage you to explore and preserve the wilderness however you can.
When I am not hiking, or planning to hike, or writing about hiking, I am a freelance cartographer (please contact me for commissions). I also volunteer for MapAction, a humanitarian charity that maps areas affected by natural disasters.