I’ve been yearning just a little bit to go to Svalbard lately and I knew I wanted a post about the place in the Polar Bear Winter Festival, because what’s more wintery than a frozen archipelago in the High Arctic? But I wasn’t sure what to write about. So I had a look at what … More Svalbard: the polar bear story
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
Today is the second anniversary of me flying back into Moscow from my adventures in Murmansk, Ekaterinburg and Perm, the second anniversary of seeing Red Square properly for the first time, and I think the post I’m going to commemorate the event with is this one, Russia on film. Back in 2018, I found three … More Russia on film
It’s now two years since my big Russian adventure and to celebrate the anniversary, and because I was talking about language-learning the other day, I want to talk about overcoming the Russian language barrier. I put off my Russia trip for years. Russia was well outside my comfort zone. It’s so… Russian. It never feels quite … More Overcoming the Russian language barrier
It’s September, it’s back-to-school season and although all that means to someone of my age is that it’s time to go back to Brownies, I thought I’d give you a quick tour of my year abroad student room in Switzerland. That’s partly because this is a travel blog and partly because I had a film … More Year abroad student room tour
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
We have actual travel content today! I went on my first holiday of 2021! It was a two night camping trip, except it was slightly better than camping because I was in a tree tent! Brownsea adventure camping has finally, after 100+ years, opened to the general public. I’ve camped with my Guides before and … More Brownsea adventure camping review | Tree Camping June 2021
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
I Am A Polar Bear 