Helen Thayer (née Nicholson; born 12 November 1937) is a New Zealand-born explorer who lives in the United States.
[2] Thayer was raised on a farm at Whitford, near Howick outside Auckland, New Zealand and attended Pukekohe High School.
[1][3] She competed in track and field events, and represented New Zealand in discus at the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Perth, Australia.
[4] In the early 1960s she represented Guatemala in discus at the Caribbean Games, and in 1975 she won the United States National Luge title.
[1] She has completed a number of expeditions, including walking 6440km across the Sahara Desert from Morocco to the Nile River and hence becoming the first woman to cross the Sahara; walking 2575km across the Mongolian Gobi Desert; becoming the first non-indigenous woman to kayak 3540km along the Amazon River and living alongside a wolf den for more than six months in the Yukon.