About Me, Adventure Becca

Hi, and welcome to my site where I document a life lived adventurously in search of understanding the Earth. I invite you to share in my adventures; embrace the outdoors and natural world, and escape modern comforts. Along the way, I’ll share extraordinary natural places and phenomena and explore a little how, geologically, they came to be.

On this page you’ll find the background to my philosophy, where it started and where it’s going…

I’m so glad you’ve discovered my site, documenting outdoor pursuits and adventures and filled with all my favourite photographic moments. I also dip into exploring the natural history that brought each physical landscape into being.

In this introductory post, I take you on a brief tour of how I came to love what I love and, in doing so, share with you how living adventurously can be limitlessly life-shaping.

1. Volcanoes, volcanoes, volcanoes.

I have long been drawn to the natural world, but it was volcanoes that held me captivated on the subject from an early age (cliché, I know). Because what better spectacle of nature than roaring, incandescent mountains? Their fiery lure, for me, is inescapable so, I oriented myself towards understanding them scientifically all through school towards and, eventually, at university.

In 2015, my love of volcanoes took me to the Land of Fire and Ice. Of course, Iceland is now such a popular destination for adventure tourism, road-tripping and natural spa retreats that it is a common bucket lister. As a volcano-lover, it was certainly top of mine. Visiting Iceland didn’t just confirm my intrigue, it directed my application to study Earth Sciences at university to uncover just what makes volcanoes such powerful natural phenomena, creating worlds of their own.

Well, seven years after visiting Iceland, I graduated with a master’s degree in Earth Sciences from the University of Oxford, specialising in the geochemistry of Mt. Vesuvius and what makes it a special volcano. Earth Sciences is a wide-ranging, immersive subject, which encompasses studies of a range of Earth phenomena and processes. If you’re interested in hearing more about what it is like to study Earth Sciences more broadly, then jump over to this post.

Having mastered in Volcanology, you could say I made my dream come true. I have been fortunate to work amongst top volcanologists making important discoveries about how these mysterious mountains work. I am still hoping to make some discoveries of my own…

2. In deepest Peru.

Other aspects of exploration and the natural world have led me here, too. At the age of 16, I self-fundraised over £4000 to join an expedition to Peru with Outlook Expeditions. This adventure took me deep into the Amazon Rainforest; up into the heights of the Andes (the second highest mountain range in the world), following the 8-day Choquequirao Trek; to sand-boarding in the sun-drenched Peruvian desert that splits the mountains from the Pacific Ocean, and finally to the joyful community of Azul Wasi Boys’ School in the Cusco Valley where my team and I helped continue the school’s construction work and, more importantly, embraced their vibrant, community life.

Only years later did I realise how profoundly my experiences in Peru helped form how I perceive many aspects of life. I attribute a large part of my sense of adventure to Peru and to my expedition leader, Bug, both of these serving as a constant reminder to focus my aspirations towards living life as wholly as possible. And the serenity that one finds in the mountains – well, I’ll be chasing that forever.

Travel over here to learn more about my expedition to Peru.

3. The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award.

There’s nothing like enduring days in the outdoors to forge a mentality of fortitude. Each new expedition I take on, my DofE Award remains with me.

The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, instigated by HRH, the late Prince Philip, seeks to encourage young people to challenge themselves, physically, mentally, and socially, through challenging multi-day expeditions in the outdoors and remote areas of the UK; commitments to sports and skills, and volunteering in their local communities. The Award helps young people to build strong skillsets for life and foster resilience and perseverance. I was fortunate to undertake all three levels of the award – Bronze, Silver, and Gold – all enriching and formative experiences. I am now a DofE Leader and Expeditioner Assesor myself, having benefitted so much from the initiative and wishing the same for other young people entering the programme.

4. Climbing, mountaineering and OUMC.

I’ve already given some introduction to my expedition and hiking experiences, but in my final year of university, climbing entered the scene, forging another, inseparable facet of Adventure Becca. Whenever I can, I love to hang-out at the climbing wall, attempting harder and harder ‘problems’ amongst the can-do attitude of other climbers, and steadily build greater skill and strength.

While I enjoy indoor climbing and the training it brings, I most enjoy outdoor climbing, be it sport or trad. Scrambling and true mountaineering are also part of the mix (I aspire one day to climb in the Alps but for now my training is on home rocks). Climbing across the UK with the Oxford University Mountaineering Club has been a great introduction to this intrepid sport and hobby.

Why is climbing, which carries obvious risk, so attractive? For me, there is excitement in the knife-edge situations that climbing and mountaineering present. The critical decisions made on precarious cliff-face ascents and uncertain terrain provoke alertness and awareness that is non-existent in everyday life because we are too frequently focussed on half a dozen tasks at once. But in these outdoor situations, little else matters but the problem in front of and around you, and all other complexities fall away. There is no choice but to focus.

Read more about my first time sport climbing in this post. Coming soon: ‘Scrambles in Snowdonia’ and ‘Winter Climbing in the Cairngorms’.

5. Adventure bookworm.

And finally, how would my adventure story have begun without reading others’ adventures? Adventure writing, be it real or fiction, has the power to transport not only our imaginations, but our aspirations, to the loftiest peaks. From fantasy adventure favourites like Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland, and J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, to the very real tales of fortitude in mountains and extreme places like Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air and Nimsdai Purja’s incredible 14 Peaks mission recounted in Beyond Possible, these recount endurance to the extreme. All my favourite books have adventure and fierce, natural beauty at their core.

Needless to say, my adventure reading list is always growing, especially as more female adventurers enter the scene (shoutout to Anna Fleming, author of Time On Rock, for her women’s trad climbing debut). Some time spent working in a local bookshop also sent my reading list multiplying.

If you’re not sure where to find your next pulse of adventure inspiration, check out this shortlist of my favourite adventure books. All of them are sure to inspire and motivate you, for whatever mountain is ahead!

6. Live life adventurously: my mantra.

If there’s one mentality I believe in, it is to live life adventurously. I hope through my site that I can encourage you to do the same.