Beard Optional: Sara Wheeler & Rosie Thomas

Both Sara Wheeler and Rosie Thomas have experienced the extreme conditions of the coldest places on earth. Few women have.

Sara Wheeler spent seven months in Antarctica and made eight journeys to the Arctic. Rosie Thomas travelled in the footsteps of Shackleton. 

They tell us why they loved it, in spite of pee-boxes and freezing conditions.

Sara Wheeler’s books include the international bestseller Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica, of which the Telegraph reviewer wrote, ‘I do not think there will ever be a better book on the Antarctic.’ The Magnetic North: Notes from the Arctic Circle, was chosen as Book of the Year by Will Self, Michael Palin, A. N. Wilson and others. 

Rosie Thomas lives and writes in London, but she is also a keen traveller, mountaineer and skier. Among many adventures she has climbed in the Alps and the Himalayas, trekked in Pakistan, Ladakh and Bhutan, followed the Silk Route through Asia, worked on a research station in Antarctica, sailed the Atlantic, explored in Chile, and competed in a classic car rally from Peking to Paris. Most recently she has sailed the southern ocean from Falklands to South Georgia and then crossed the island in the footsteps of Sir Ernest Shackleton. 

randomhouse.co.uk/sara-wheeler I rosiethomasauthor.com