By and large, I’m a solo traveller and I think it’s time I started emphasising that a bit more.
Back in the days when I could solo travel, I gravitated towards Iceland, Scandinavia and the Arctic, with occasional visits to places like the Baltic states and eastern Europe but you’ll find plenty of Paris and Switzerland and western Europe here too. Actually, my non-Wessex UK travels are here as well, so come with me to Scotland, London and a few other places around my own country.
When I first wrote this, I started with “Well, is there a better time to talk about your anti-bucket list, the places you don’t want to go to, the things you don’t want to do, than during a plague when you can’t go anywhere anyway?” but I’ve pushed it back and back for so long… More My anti-bucket list
I’m sort of surprised I’ve never written this one but on the other hand, there’s not much to write. It’s about the time I spent a week dogsitting in the south of France and I’m writing it now in honour of the day that my ex-boss emailed me out of the blue* to say “it… More Dogsitting in the South of France
If you haven’t noticed, there’s a volcano in Iceland still going strong. It’s a great tourist volcano – it’s fairly small and it’s pretty but mostly not dangerous. It’s producing a bit of gas and every now and then it has to be closed because of the volume of gas builds up but the lava… More Inside the Volcano
Since I’ve gone back to swimming recently, and since I made some comments about Iceland the Obligatory Naked Shower (although it’s possible they were in the first version that I deleted and rewrote), I thought I’d write a whole post about Iceland and swimming. Most western countries are pretty big drinkers and Iceland is no… More Iceland and swimming
When I put this Pafos itinerary in my blog schedule, I thought it might be possible that people might be going on holiday again by April. Well, we know by now that every date, estimate and guess is wrong in a pandemic. But if you’re hoping to get to Cyprus later in the summer, this… More 1 week Pafos itinerary
Nearly two weeks ago, Iceland’s new eruption started (I wrote a blog about it last week) and half the country flocked to see it. I don’t blame them, I’d be among them if not for the plague. But a similar eruption happened in 1973, the birth of the volcano Eldfell, and things worked out very… More Eldfell: the people who fought a volcano
With a summer approaching that’s likely to feature more UK breaks than summer beach holidays in Spain, now seems a good time to talk about my night at Loch Spiggie. I was in Orkney for a few days and figured I’d pop over to Shetland because it’s right there and because it’s quite a trek… More A night at Loch Spiggie
We’re going right back for this story. In September 2012, I went to Bergen (which is in itself a beautiful city, if not one I’ve managed to find much to say about) and while I was there, I did the round trip up to the Flåmsbana, down to Flåm on the end of the Aurlandsfjorden… More Flåmsbana: Europe’s most beautiful rail journey
Back in 2014, I finally did something I’d been wanting to do for a while. Given the lack of English-language information, putting it all together and figuring out how to do it was a bit tricky and so let me save you all that. This is how to climb Esja. Esja is Reykjavik’s mountain. If… More How to climb Esja
Today is Thinking Day, a kind of Girl Guiding and Girl Scouting birthday. I’ve spent Thinking Day at Pax Lodge three times now. I went for the day with another leader in 2020, where we could feel the pandemic drawing in around us. I went for the day on my own in 2019 but spent… More Thinking Day at Pax Lodge