Emily Goodheart Kautz

Girl in Positano, Italy

Emily wandering the cliffside village of Positano on the Amalfi Coast of Italy.

Emily is a Colorado College graduate with a B.A. in anthropology and a background in wildlife conservation. During her childhood spent in Seattle, Washington, she developed a deep love for the environment while camping in the temperate rainforests, horseback riding through wildflower meadows in the Cascades and building fairy houses in her backyard. After writing a persuasive essay on green sea turtles in the fifth grade and coming face to face with one in Hawaii later that year, she caught the travel bug and has since explored 18 countries.

At 16, she traveled to Ecuador and the Galapagos for a wildlife conservation and photography student expedition with National Geographic. Eager to continue studying animals and world cultures, she spent a gap semester focused on wildlife photography and lion conservation in South Africa and Zimbabwe. She then traveled through five countries in Southeast Asia with her best friend, exploring the wonders of Angkor Wat and thousands of golden stupas in Myanmar while staying with the Hill Tribes and in floating villages.

She majored in anthropology at Colorado College and spent a month with the Colville Confederated Tribes in Eastern Washington for her thesis in traditional foodways and indigenous environmental education. While at school, she took college courses in Italy and India where she wrote about culture, cuisine and mythology, studied primate behavior at the Lemur Conservation Foundation and completed a wildlife rehabilitation internship in Costa Rica. During this time, she was also fortunate enough to travel with her family to England, France and Japan. After graduation in 2017 and a summer spent working as an environmental educator at the Denver Zoo, she found Nat Hab and never looked back. Combining her passions for animals, writing and travel is a dream come true, and she recently joined a Nat Hab adventure to see polar bears in Canada’s subarctic. When not working as Marketing Coordinator at Natural Habitat Adventures or exploring the world, you can find her immersed in a fantasy book, singing and volunteering at an equine therapy center.

Read Emily’s posts from around the world:

Africa:

Asia:

South America:

North America:

Europe:

And check out her travel quizzes: