Wasfia Nazreen is a National Geographic Expeditions Expert, Explorer & Adventurer, mountaineer, and storyteller whose lifeβs work bridges extreme exploration with deep social purpose. She is the first Bengali in the world, and the only Bangladeshi, to have successfully climbed K2 and the Seven Summitsβ the highest mountains on every continent, including Everest.
Grounded in meditation and self-realization practices, Wasfiaβs path has always been propelled by causes close to her heart. A tragic beginning shaped her early understanding of what βhomeβ truly means, leading her to work closely with communities experiencing displacement and homelessness. Across development and nonprofit work, mountaineering, guiding, education, and storytelling, she has repeatedly risked comfort and convention in service of what she believes in, while becoming equally known for her sharp humor and rare ability to alchemize tragedy into comedy, pain into insight, and survival into shared laughter.
Forging her own way far from the expectations placed on women in her country, Wasfia chose a life of courage and ascent, meeting fear head-on, falling asleep to the sound of avalanches, and continuing to climb, both literally and metaphorically. An outspoken activist since her late teens, she has received numerous national and global honors for her leadership and her commitment to empowering women through adventure. Menβs Journal named her one of the 25 Most Adventurous Women of the Past 25 Years (2016), and Outside magazine recognized her as one of the 40 Women in the Last 40 Years who have advanced and challenged the outdoor world through leadership, innovation, and athletic achievement (2017).
Wasfia is the only woman to simultaneously hold the titles of National Geographic Explorer and Adventurer, and she received the Peopleβs Choice Award at the National Geographic Societyβs 2016 Explorers Symposium, an honor voted on by thousands of National Geographic staff worldwide. She is also the founder of High Karma Journeys, a global healing and wisdom-based platform that weaves together exploration, ancestral knowledge, meditation, adventure and embodied practices to support personal and collective healing. Through every summit, story, and shared laugh, Wasfia continues to invite others into a deeper remembering of courage, empowerment, belonging, and what it means to truly come home.
