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Krystle Wright ©

Sarah Marquis

Nominated for the 21st Century Adventurer Award 2025

Explorer

The Swiss explorer embarks on solo long-distance expeditions, driven by her mission to reconnect humans with nature. For over 20 years, she’s been fascinated by long adventures stretching across thousands of kilometers, months, and continents. She travels alone and on foot in the most remote regions. National Geographic named her the "Adventurer of the Year" back in 2014. Through her books and lectures, she inspires people worldwide to embark on their own self-discovery to find their own power. 

Latest news

Her tenth book Back to the origins will be published in October 2024: About the expedition through the Australian desert in 2023. (as of June 16, 2024)

Out of your comfort zone is where things grow.

Sarah Marquis posts this sentence on Instagram as she crosses the Tasmanian rainforest. With only a backpack, she’s been trekking the globe on various expeditions since 2000—one step at a time.

To date, she has covered almost 50,000 kilometers.

Krystle Wright ©

She mostly walks alone, sometimes with her dog.

For her longest expedition, she spent three full years on the road, walking 10,000 miles through six countries. She takes her readers along on this adventure in her second book Wild by Nature: From Siberia to Australia, Three Years Alone in the Wilderness on Foot.

Wilderness, wildlife & weather

Along with sharing her stories in books, the author regularly sends out videos and personal messages via her social media channels. Her followers from all over the world are offered insight into where she is, how she is fighting her way through, and the magic and the drama that wilderness, wildlife, and weather bring her way.

Ted Talk by Sarah Marquis

Her adventures are both an inspiration and encouragement to her many followers. As a storyteller, she shows how the connection with "unspoiled" nature reactivates primal instincts and how extreme circumstances unleash unexpected strength, resources, and courage; this is how she empowers and motivates her audience to realize their own dreams and dare to embark on their own adventures.

Let your soul touch the Earth... go walking.

The Swiss explorer prefers to travel off the beaten track, making her way through remote regions, not speaking to anyone for weeks on end and relying on her instincts. She describes how she becomes one with nature in the process, which is her ultimate goal and the reason her latest expedition is called Back to the Origins, which chronicles her three-month trek across the Australian desert. Her book about this adventure, now her tenth, will be published in October 2024.

The solo wanderer's heart beats not only for wandering in remote areas; she is also committed to charitable causes and has raised money for wildlife and dog shelters in Australia and Thailand.

She considers herself an ambassador for nature and aims to build bridges to the fast-paced, modern world so that we can sustain our innate self-trust—our instincts and intuition—which are deeply connected to nature.

The prize money from the 21st Century Adventurer Award would be invested in her next expedition.

Follow Sarah Marquis

Official website Letters from the Explorer
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