So she began saving. All her birthday and Christmas money for 18 years went into funding this wild dream of hers. She even traded in her favourite pink bicycle, determined to bring that dream a little closer.
At eighteen, she finally boarded a plane to Australia to learn her scuba diving certification on the Great Barrier Reef. It was the first step towards a life she had imagined for almost a decade. She didn’t know it then, but that journey would become the beginning of everything she is today.
Falling in Love with the Wild
A year later, Sara travelled through Africa for the first time. From Cape Town to Nairobi, she crossed some of the continent’s most celebrated landscapes, travelling through Chobe, Kruger, the Serengeti, the Maasai Mara and beyond. She still remembers falling asleep to the sound of elephants and hippos outside camp and watching the sun disappear into the African horizon.
It was unlike anything she had ever experienced. “I couldn’t believe I could get so close to animals I’d only ever seen in books and documentaries.”
Before returning home, she made another promise to herself. She would come back to Africa every year. More than two decades later, she has kept that promise. Even during the pandemic, she found a way.
Learning Beyond the Classroom
When Sara was younger, telling people she loved animals usually earned the same advice. “You should become a vet.”
But that never felt right. “I didn’t want to stitch up cats and dogs,” she laughs. “I loved wildlife.” What nobody told her was that there were other ways to build a life around the natural world.
There were no school lessons on becoming an expedition leader in Antarctica or guiding wildlife photographers through Botswana. No careers advisor suggested spending months at sea in the High Arctic or searching for tigers in the forests of India.
Instead, she found her own path.
She volunteered wherever she could, helping with whale identification projects, turtle releases, rhino dehorning programmes and wild dog collaring. Every opportunity became another chance to learn, another excuse to spend time outdoors, and another step towards the life she wanted.
The Moments That Stay With You
For someone who has travelled across seven continents, people often assume the most memorable moments involve dramatic close encounters.
There have certainly been a few. Working in the Arctic means sharing landscapes with polar bears, one of the few predators that can genuinely view humans as prey. There have been tense moments over the years, but Sara believes the wild rewards respect. “I’m a great believer that Mother Nature is very forgiving if we respect her.”
Yet the stories she tells most fondly aren’t about danger. They’re about discovery. The first leopard she spotted before anyone else noticed it. The first polar bear she found alone on the sea ice. The first tiger her own eyes picked out before the guides had seen it.
“You spend so long scanning the landscape that, when you finally see it, your heart starts pounding. You want to shout with excitement, but you know you have to stay completely quiet.” Those are the sightings she never forgets. Not because they were rare. Because she found them herself.
A Childhood Dream Fulfilled
The dream that began in a cinema eventually came full circle. Years after watching Free Willy, Sara finally entered the water with wild orcas in the Galápagos. She had already seen an unforgettable superpod of more than 120 orcas off Vancouver years earlier. But swimming alongside them was something altogether different.
Why She Keeps Returning
Today, Sara leads photographic expeditions across Africa, India, the Arctic, Antarctica and South America. She has spent decades photographing wildlife, guiding travellers through some of the world’s most remarkable ecosystems and watching landscapes change in ways both beautiful and concerning.
She has witnessed melting sea ice in the Arctic, habitat loss in rainforests and increasing human-wildlife conflict across many parts of the world. But despite those changes, she remains optimistic.
She believes photography can do more than create beautiful images. It can spark curiosity, encourage compassion and remind people why these places matter in the first place. “I know how privileged I am to experience these places,” she says. “If sharing my photographs can bring joy, awareness or inspire someone to care about the natural world, then that’s something worth doing.”
If you ask Sara where she feels most at home, and the answer isn’t in a city. Nor is it behind a desk. It’s in the back of a dusty safari vehicle with binoculars in hand. Or standing at the bow of a Zodiac searching the horizon for whales.
“The longer I’m in the bush,” she says, “the happier I am.”
Today, she shares that passion with guests on Wilderness Uncut expeditions across India, Africa and South America, including Magical Bandhavgarh, Untamed Jaguars of the Pantanal, A Journey into Primate Country, The Zambia Explorer, Tanzania Tours and many more. If you’d like to experience these remarkable landscapes through the eyes of someone who has dedicated her life to the wild, find Sara’s upcoming departures below!
