Hi, I’m Olivia.

I’m an adventurer. It took me a long time to realise that I could actually use that word about myself.

I’m dyslexic and was told I couldn’t go to high school because my English wasn’t good enough. Somehow, I ended up with a PhD in physics from DTU. The road there wasn’t exactly straight, and at one point it even took me through circus school.

I’ve been told many times that there were things I couldn’t do. Usually, that just made me want to find out for myself if I actually could. My first thought is often: Why not? Sometimes followed by: I’ll give it a try.

For a long time, I thought the adventures were probably something I would eventually grow out of. You have your gap year, your big trips and your adventures, and then at some point you grow up and start being a little more sensible.

But slowly, I’ve realised that maybe I don’t have to grow out of it.

I think I feel most at home when I’m walking.

I’ve walked alone through the mountains of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, climbed Iran’s highest mountain at 5,610 metres, and hiked and travelled through Iraqi Kurdistan, Lebanon, Syria and quite a few other places.

There is something about moving through a country on foot. It is slow. I can only carry what fits in my backpack, and I have to take things as they come.

My goal is really just to get from A to B. I can plan a route and pack my backpack, but I don’t really know what will happen in between. The weather changes, a river might be impossible to cross, someone invites me into their home, or the road I was planning to follow turns out not to be a road at all. So I change the plan.

And somehow, some of the differences between people become less important when you meet this way.

On Damavand in Iran, a woman once pointed at my headscarf and told me to take it off.

“Up here in the mountains, we are all free.”

I’ve thought about that sentence many times since.

I often come home with more questions than answers. Travelling has made me more curious about the politics of the countries I visit, about the people I meet, but also about myself and the ethics of the way I travel.

What risks am I willing to take? What responsibility do I have when I enter other people’s everyday lives? When am I curious, and when am I going too far?

The people I meet stop being people I only hear about in the news. They have names. Some I meet for just an afternoon. Others I end up staying with, hiking with or coming back to visit again and again. Some become close friends who I care deeply about. I give a lot of myself, and they give a lot of themselves to me too.

But I’m not a journalist. I’m “just” a hiker. And first of all, I’m a guest.