Emily Goodheart

Emily combines her passions for animals, cultural anthropology and exploration as a conservation travel writer and Content Marketing Manager at Natural Habitat Adventures. She aims to be a voice for wildlife and has traveled to 70+ UNESCO World Heritage Sites across six continents seeking stories.

During her childhood in Seattle, Washington, Emily developed a deep love for the natural world while horseback riding through wildflower meadows in the Cascades, hiking past waterfalls in Olympic National Park’s Hoh Rainforest, kayaking between islands with bioluminescent beaches, skiing in Bavarian-inspired Leavenworth and building fairy houses by the cherry tree in her mother’s garden, in view of Mt. Rainer. After writing an essay on green sea turtles in 5th grade and coming face to face with one in Hawaii later that year, Emily discovered the wonder of travel and has since explored nearly 30 countries across North America, South America, Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia.

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 conservation and photography in South Africa and Zimbabwe. She then traveled through five countries in Southeast Asia, exploring the wonders of Angkor Wat and thousands of golden stupas in Myanmar while staying with local Hill Tribes and in floating villages.

Emily graduated from Colorado College with a degree in anthropology. She spent a month with the Colville Confederated Tribes in Eastern Washington pursuing research for her thesis on traditional Indigenous foodways and environmental education. She took courses in Italy and India where she wrote about culture, cuisine and folklore, studied primate behavior at the Lemur Conservation Foundation and completed a wildlife rehabilitation internship at the Jaguar Rescue Center in Costa Rica. While a student, she traveled with her family to France’s castle-filled Loire Valley, explored England’s Regency past and wandered through Japan’s historic mountain villages. Following graduation in 2017, Emily spent a summer as an environmental educator at the Denver Zoo before landing her dream job at Natural Habitat Adventures.

Natural Habitat Adventures combines Emily’s passions for wildlife, writing and travel. She has since traveled with Nat Hab to castles, glens and the real-life Hogwarts Express in the Scottish Highlands and the Isle of Skye, the far North in search of polar bears, the volcanic highlands of Mexico to stand among millions of butterflies during the monarch migration and Tanzania, where she met the Maasai, explored the Ngorongoro Crater and came face to face with lounging leopards, feasting cheetahs and Great Migration river crossings in the vast Serengeti. She also joined Australia South: Tasmania, Kangaroo Island & the Great Ocean Road, encountering echidnas, tiger quolls and koalas along the way. When she’s not writing, exploring the world or working with animals, you can find Emily immersed in a fantasy book, enjoying the performing arts (especially A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Pride & Prejudice), horseback riding, going on wildflower walks, finding vegetarian delicacies, and greeting baby animals on the farm where she lives with her husband in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Her travels so far include England (the Cotswolds, Bath, Lake District {Lake Windermere, Hawkshead, Appleby, Tarn Hows}, Yorkshire Dales {Swinton Park}, Windsor, London, Stratford-upon-Avon, Oxfordshire, Highclere), Italy (Amalfi Coast, Cinque Terre, Tuscany, Rome, Vatican City, Sicily), Switzerland (Lauterbrunnen Valley, Lake Brienz), France (Loire Valley, Paris, Versailles, Chamonix), Scotland (Isle of Skye, Edinburgh, Dunrobin Castle, Inverness, Moray Firth, Glen Shiel, Loch Ness, Jacobite Steam Train & Glenfinnan Viaduct, Mallaig, Outer Hebrides—Isle of Harris, Shiant Isles, Callanish Standing Stones on the Isle of Lewis), Hungary (Budapest), the Netherlands (Amsterdam), Tanzania (Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, Tarangire, Arusha), South Africa (Zululand, Lake St. Lucia), Zimbabwe, India (Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai), Japan (Kyoto, Shirakawa-go, Nara, Tokyo), Vanuatu (islands of Ambrym, Espiritu Santo, Moso), the Solomon Islands (Owaraha, Honiara), New Zealand (Hobbiton, Waitomo Glowworm Caves, Bay of Islands, Auckland), Australia (Tasmania, Kangaroo Island, Great Ocean Road, Norfolk Island, Brisbane’s Koala Sanctuary), New Caledonia, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Ecuador (Mindo Cloud Forest, Cotopaxi, Quito) and the Galapagos Islands (Santa Cruz, Isabela, San Cristobal), Costa Rica (Jaguar Rescue Center), El Salvador, Mexico (Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, Mexico City, Valle de Bravo), the U.S. (from the 40 states she has visited, highlights include Kauai, Maui, Hawaii, Big Sur, Martha’s Vineyard, Virginia’s Bluebell Trail, 16 national parks, 8 living history museums and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter), British Columbia (Vancouver Island, Whistler), Quebec and the Arctic (Churchill: Polar Bear Capital of the World).

Her future travel dreams include tracking gorillas in the misty mountains, exploring the German Fairy Tale Route and perusing Austria’s Admont Abbey Library, island hopping in mythic Greece, reconnecting with her redhead roots on horseback in Ireland, strolling through Green Gables on Prince Edward Island, returning again and again to the Cotswolds and the Loire Valley, marveling at the Italian Lakes and the Dolomites, mermaiding in Bora Bora or Sumba, and joining a North India safari to track tigers, eat her favorite cuisine and gaze at the Taj Mahal.