I am as far North as I have even been. As far as I likely will ever be again. At one point there was nothing between me and the North Pole, but a barren rock crowned with swirling puffins. I am on the Antigua, incongruously incubated with 28 other artists, activists, creators, makers and thinkers. We shouldn’t be here, no one should. Yet here we are to be inspired, mesmerised, metamorphised…instead I am frozen, in body and spirit. This is an accidental story, pulled together from scraps of moments, from glaciers and rocking boats…but maybe there’s something here we all need to hear, and if it motivates you to make a small change, then I think the scraps were worth pulling together, telling a small story that I hope will lead to big change here and there. I came searching in the Arctic for what most creatives do: time, space, silence, adventure, understanding, connection, inspiration, magic – and perhaps, if I was lucky, a better understanding of what was happening to this wonderous place. I had heard things. I had been told of destruction and disappearing. But what does this mean for any of us in the immediate moment? Every moment here, perched on a glacier, watching the incessant calving of ice plummet into the ocean, it meant something. Here in the Arctic, one of the last bastions of supposedly-pristine environments, I saw what every moment of inaction, uncertainty and blissful ignoring has done, and how much closer to the edge we really were. As a natural freezer for our earth, what happens here, affects everywhere, it is all interconnected. I didn’t just learn about climate disruption whilst here from books, but from hours walking across glaciers and marsh lands, and the innumerous discussions in the cramped but cosy saloon, as fellow travelers swapped information and experience over hot chocolate laced with vodka and the violence occurring around us. In all of our travels – together and apart, one thing all on the Antigua could all agree on was that across developing countries there was a common thread: people did not know or understand what was happening to their environment. Furthermore, if they did have any information, it was so data-soaked, abstract and intangible, that they dismissed it. Some of these communities we travel through are going to be the first and worst affected by climate disruption, and yet have the least amount of access to information, or power to make change – or even have a voice in the global discussion. Before I embarked into Arctic waters, my time in Indonesia had shown me plastic being discarded, waterways with sparkling surfaces of rubbish, and pollution fueling lungs – and yet an ancestral love and connection to land was easily seen through the fumes. Once I had disembarked from the Antigua, sea legs and sadness, I found myself on the dusty streets of Patan where the small woman with a soft voice and a mean brew told me to not regard the dust, it was just from development since the earthquake – unknowing that Kathmandu has some of the worst air pollution in the world, despite being one of the smallest contributors. This same woman would line up outside my window each morning to fill her painted jar with the dripping water from the public fountain that should have been flowing but was being redirected into plastic bottles. All the women draped with cloth, waiting with laughter and soft mumblings to people who shared history, hope and dust. Travel is a privilege, one available to so few of us. And with privilege comes incredible responsibility – to the planet, and to each other. Travel doesn’t need to just be a subscription to passive observation, but being an active witness of local and global issues, the knowledge-sharers and contemporary carrier pigeons. But, perhaps more importantly, to be the people that can share and bring change and inspiration from afar into the places that need it the most. I thought travel was my escape and indulgence, but I now realise that travel is walking from one lived reality to another, with an obligation to make each step lightly, and each contribution to positive change heavy with meaning.