‘I’m trekking 500 miles in 60 days to achieve the North Pole – and to point out girls they will do something’

A woman from Derby is trekking 500 miles to the North Pole in the hope of inspiring women and girls across the globe.

With International Women’s Day on Saturday, Preet Chandi MBE, 37, known as ‘Polar Preet’, is due to set out for her 60-day hike in the next few days, and aims to become the first woman to reach the North Pole solo and unsupported.

The four-time Guinness World Record-holding British-Indian explorer has already become the first woman of colour to reach the South Pole solo and unsupported when she walked 700 miles there in 2021.

Now, she has set her sights even higher, with conditions during her North Pole journey expected to be even more challenging. Setting out from Canada, she is hauling 130kg of her own gear on a sledge across one of the most hostile environments on Earth, with no outside assistance or resupplies.

If successful, the former British Army officer and physiotherapist will become the first woman to have completed the journey to both the North and South Poles. But this is about more than records for Ms Chandi. Her mission is to inspire people around the world – especially women and girls and those from underrepresented backgrounds – to push beyond what others tell them is possible, and show them that, in fact, anything is possible.

In the days before she set off, she told The Independent: “I enjoy pushing my own boundaries but also believe these trips are bigger than me – I want to inspire people and help them push theirs… Six years ago, I had the idea to go to the South Pole. You can be from anywhere, look like anyone and can do something you know nothing about… As a woman, I want to inspire women to show they can do anything.”

A “nervous, excited” Ms Chandi left for Resolute Bay, Nunavut, on Tuesday and will soon launch her expedition, which is expected to take around two months. On her roughly 500-mile journey, she will face temperatures as low as -50C, navigate a moving landscape of sea ice, and have to swim through open water that is well below freezing, the element of her trip that she is most apprehensive about.

She has undergone intense preparation, but since no one has attempted this trek for 12 years, she is not sure whether it will even be possible. And whereas her trip in Antarctica was on land in 24 hours of daylight and involved a drop off at the start, this time around, Ms Chandi is chartering a plane herself to travel to the starting point, while the open water and polar bears are fresh challenges.

“Everything I’ve earned and every bit of money is being put into this,” she said. “It’s so hard and challenging, I’ve taken such a risk here.”

Ms Chandi has served as a captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps, completing large-scale exercises and deployments in Nepal, Kenya and South Sudan, while progressing from half-marathons to ultra-marathons.

Her appetite for adventure grew, and she moved on to more extreme challenges, with her 2021 Antarctica trip her first solo expedition. She pulled a sledge weighing 90kg and completed her journey in just over 40 days, making her the third fastest solo woman to reach the South Pole unassisted, and bringing international attention to her work.

Speaking of her decision to embark on her first solo expedition, Ms Chandi said: “I was looking for something, the next challenge. When someone mentioned Antarctica, that became the appeal. I literally typed into Google ‘how do you get to Antarctica?’

“When I got back from the South Pole for the first time, I saw little girls dressing up like me for World Book Day – whether they want to be an explorer or not, the fact they can see themselves in me, I absolutely love that.”

She has since set multiple endurance records, including the longest solo unsupported one-way polar ski journey and the fastest solo, unsupported female ski journey to the South Pole.

Ahead of her trip, she said: “This is a solo journey, but it’s so much bigger than me – I really want to take people on this journey with me.”

Read The Independent’s influence list for International Women’s Day 2026 here.

Source: independent.co.uk