My life as a backpacker began in Western Europe.

I never planned to go to Antarctica. It was not on a bucket list. To me, Antarctica belonged to textbooks, photographs and travel websites—a vast white place somewhere beyond ordinary life. Then one day, while looking at a map of South America, my eyes kept travelling south: Brazil, Argentina, Ushuaia, and then, farther still, Antarctica.

Once, at a kyudo dojo in Japan, I accidentally sat in the kamiza, the place of honor.