Your average tourist to Iceland will be completely oblivious to Borgarnes, even the ones who pass through it – and maybe stop at its roadhouse – on their long day trip to Snæfellsnes. But Borgarnes is a strong contender for my favourite place in Iceland. It’s a small town on the west coast, the service … More Borgarnes: my favourite town in Iceland
After Monday’s post about enjoying caving, let’s have a lava caving story. In the UK, if you’re going to crawl around in a hole in the ground, it’ll be a limestone one formed by water action. It’ll have a certain smell, similar to petrichor, you might find fossils and it’ll probably have a mixture of … More Lava caving: crawling under an eruption
Back in June 2004, my caving club went on an “expedition” to Ireland. That’s caving-speak for a holiday. I don’t write a lot of caving stuff but I used to spend half my life underground. We chose Ireland mostly because that’s where they’d been the previous year and because there were plenty of caves. In … More A student caving expedition in Ireland
One thing that people ask sometimes about travelling all your own is: When you’re a solo traveller, how do you get photos of yourself? A few years ago, Buzzfeed published an article called We Asked 17 Travel Pros For Their Best Advice on Traveling Solo And Here’s What They Said and I realised this was … More How to get photos of yourself when travelling solo
How has it taken me this long to realise I should do a Russia packing post? Everyone loves a “how did I manage on hand luggage only?!” post. My not-quite-three weeks is at the very bottom end of the long trip-minimum luggage ladder. However, I was visiting three distinct climate zones – Moscow & St … More Three weeks in Russia on hand luggage
Back in January, before 2020 really started, I went to London to cross some cathedrals off my list. The list started on April 16th 2019, when the Notre Dame fire made me realise that the great English medieval cathedrals might not be waiting for me to get round to them. Project #BeforeItBurnsDown kind of got … More On top of St Paul’s Cathedral
And so to the conclusion! Having left Odense in the last post, I was now on my way to Aalborg, one of, if not the, northernmost cities in Denmark. I’ll spare you the woes of engineering works and rail replacement buses and unexpected extra changes. I won’t spare you spending the last hour watching Mission … More Backpacking Denmark: 48 hours in Aalborg
When I left this story, I was just getting on a train bound for Odense, my second Danish backpacking destination. It runs anywhere between 1 hour 11 minutes and 1 hour, depending on whether it’s the express or a stopping service. Eight years on, I have no idea which one I jumped on. What I … More Backpacking Denmark: 24 hours in Odense
I’ve tried writing about my mini backpacking trip to Copenhagen, Odense & Aalborg before and somehow it just won’t come out right. So I’m going to have another go. Consider this part one of a trilogy covering my 6 day epic adventure. Welcome to Copenhagen. It was 2012 and Her Majesty was having an extra … More Backpacking Denmark: 48 hours in Copenhagen
I’ll never forget my first visit to the Arctic. I’d spent a couple of days in Trondheim and then I was going to fly north and spend a couple of days in Tromsø. Tromsø is now an old friend. I’ve considered moving there for a few months, maybe even a year. But back in 2011, … More The day I fell in love with the Arctic
I Am A Polar Bear 