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.
In today’s post, I’m going to talk about family holidays in Tirol, since both my parents were somewhat mournful last week that “we were supposed to go to Austria today”. Yeah, I’m supposed to have gone to Iceland twice this year. Life hasn’t gone as planned this year. But it gave me an idea for… More Top 10 things to do in Tirol
In 2017, I decided I could save some luggage space and maybe some money by, instead of hiring a car and taking a tent, hiring a campervan. I knew approximately what it was going to look like before I picked it up but people at home didn’t and my grandmother was adamant – told my… More Upgrading from a tent to a campervan
Ok, it’s very obvious I’m not a professional photographer and I don’t actually have a camera bag. But I do take photos when I travel and I keep trying to make videos so I haul around more camera stuff than I really should. Panasonic Lumix DC-TZ90 This is my main camera. It’s the fifth generation… More What’s in my camera bag?
In November 2015, I went to Svalbard – that’s those really cold polar bear-infested islands right up north. It was amazing and I’ve since calculated that I was among the northernmost 0.004% of people in the world, which is quite a claim – that more than 99.99% of people on the planet are south of… More How to travel to Svalbard
Because I can blog about Iceland forever, here’s a post containing things no one mentions and things I see pop up over and over again – 20 things you need to know before you go to Iceland! 1. 99% of international flights come in to Keflavík airport. 99% of domestic flights go into Reykjavík. It’s… More 20 things you need to know before you go to Iceland
The other day I told you about my first trip to the Altitude Festival in 2010 and now we’re fast-forwarding to my last. The year is 2013, I’m back at Altitude Festival, back at my snowboarding lessons because I’m still not capable of going out on the mountains by myself and I happen to have… More Stay At Home Storytelling: My highest ever paraglide
I considered going to the Altitude Festival this year – for obvious reasons, it’s a good thing I never quite made up my mind to do it. There’s nothing seasonal about this but since we can’t travel at the moment, let’s relive old travel stories. This is Altitude 2010, my first ever visit to the… More Stay At Home Storytelling: my first snowsport holiday
Good morning! Today I’m finally in the mood to tell you about my trip to Oxford in March. It was before social distancing and lockdown and isolation and whatnot but after the virus got loose in the UK. To frame it precisely, I was supposed to be going to a gig and I really didn’t… More Stay At Home Storytelling: Christ Church, Oxford
“What, on your own?” is a phrase I heard, uttered in horrified tones, throughout my early twenties. My adventures to the likes of Helsinki, Bucharest, Vilnius and Trondheim were tame by the standards of internet travellers but by the standards of the people I encounter in day-to-day life, I might as well be venturing to… More “What, on your own?”
I was supposed to be in Iceland last month. Obviously, that didn’t happen. Icelandair have been very good about changing flights for free so after being on hold for 77 minutes, I moved my flights to November and the tour companies I’d booked stuff with both have policies of refunds if you cancel more than… More Stay At Home Storytelling: The Iceland itinerary I had planned