Why I'm Sailing from Iceland to the Faroe Islands to Write a Children's Book

In August 2026, I will be aboard SV Sea Dragon sailing from Reykjavík, Iceland to the Faroe Islands with an all-female crew as part of the Her Planet Earth North Atlantic expedition. I have never sailed before. The North Atlantic is one of the most demanding stretches of open ocean on earth. Although I'm feeling nervous, especially as i suffer from sea sickness (oh the irony), I cannot wait!

This is how every Maya's Worldly Wonders® book begins...with me doing something I have never done before, somewhere I have never been, and coming back with a story that feels too extraordinary not to tell.

Why travel adventure books for children have to be real

I get asked often whether I worry about the research involved in writing books set in real countries. The honest answer is that I do not research the books, I live them. Every single Maya adventure is drawn from my own solo travel expeditions across more than 45 countries. The night market in Kuala Lumpur. The mountain trail in Nepal. The noise and colour of Carnival in Brazil. The bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto.

This is not a writing choice — it is a philosophical commitment. I believe that children deserve stories grounded in reality. When Maya wades through a rainforest in Malaysia or watches snow monkeys in Japan, those scenes exist in the books because I was there. That authenticity is what makes travel adventure books genuinely inspiring rather than merely entertaining.

The Faroe Islands will be no different. Except that to get there, I have to cross the North Atlantic first.

The Her Planet Earth expedition — all-female, all-ocean

The expedition is organised by Her Planet Earth, an organisation dedicated to connecting women with the natural world through adventure and conservation. SV Sea Dragon is a 72-foot research and expedition vessel that has crossed some of the world's most demanding ocean passages. The crew is entirely female. The mission is equal parts adventure, ocean conservation, and pushing against the limits of what women are expected to do.

I first climbed in the Himalayas at the age of 30 with no mountaineering experience. I am sailing the North Atlantic at 40 with no sailing experience. The pattern, I have come to accept, is intentional.

What this means for Maya's Worldly Wonders® (book 7)

The Faroe Islands are one of the most extraordinary and least-written-about places on earth. Eighteen islands rising dramatically from the North Atlantic between Norway, Iceland, and Scotland. Puffin colonies so large they darken the cliffs. Grass-roofed houses that look like they grew there rather than were built. A culture rooted in the sea, in wool, in isolation, and in a fierce, quiet pride.

Maya has never been anywhere like it. Neither have I. That shared discovery of an author and character encountering a place together for the first time is what gives every book in this series its particular energy. Book 7 will be no different.

I will be writing from the boat. Journaling on deck. Photographing the coastline from the water in a way that no land-based research trip could replicate. The book that comes out of this expedition will carry the smell of the North Atlantic and the sound of the wind in the rigging in every page.

Why I write travel adventure books featuring a British-Indian girl protagonist

Maya exists because I grew up reading adventure stories in which girls like me were never the hero. The protagonist was always someone else, usually someone white, usually from somewhere I did not recognise, and the world in those books felt exciting but somehow not mine to enter.

I want every child who reads the Maya books to feel that the world is theirs to enter. Not as a tourist. Not as an observer. As an adventurer. That is as true for the Faroe Islands as it is for Malaysia or Brazil or Sri Lanka.

The sailing expedition is proof of what I try to put on every page: that the world does not belong to the people who are already comfortable in it. It belongs to the curious.

Follow the expedition

The voyage departs Reykjavík in August 2026. I will be sharing updates from the expedition here on the blog and across Instagram and TikTok throughout the journey.

If you want to follow the journey and be the first to know when book 7 is available, sign up to the Maya's Worldly Wonders® newsletter below.

Maya's Worldly Wonders® is available at mayasworldlywonders.com. Follow the expedition on Instagram and TikTok @MayasWorldlyWonders.