Arriving in balmy Royan (France) straight from a frosty ice camp in Greenland was a welcome shock to the system. The small seaside town was home to a five day celebration of geographical and intellectual exploration – the Festival des Nouvelles Explorations. I had the pleasure of talking about icy science on Thursday afternoon and discovering some truly amazing work being done in the fields of virtual reality, art-science fusion, cyber-security, drone technology and conservation. Three short videos below explain some of the work on show at the festival.