Cruelest Journey

Kira Salak is a National Geographic Emerging Explorer and contributing editor to National Geographic Adventure magazine. A PEN Award-winning journalist, she has traveled alone to almost every continent, visiting some of the world's most remote places, including locations in Madagascar, Mozambique, Bangladesh, and Borneo. She was the first documented person to kayak solo 600 miles down West Africa's Niger River. Salak was also the first woman to traverse Papua New Guinea, a country she writes about in her New York Times Notable Book Four Corners. She lives with her husband and daughter in Germany.