This is where you’ll find all the series I’ve written about travel.
I’m not a foodie. I’m laughably far from a foodie. But I like chocolate and so I buy chocolate everywhere I go and compare it to other chocolate to find out what the best chocolate in the world is.
I’ve been travelling solo for so long that I don’t even think of leaving my country while in possession of a particular set of reproductive organs as an issue – but it is. So I’m trying to bring all my experience together into a useful series for newcomers to solo female travel.
I was a literal language student – I have a degree in French and Spanish – and it’s still something I enjoy learning. So here is a series on all the languages I’ve picked up, tried out and then usually put down again.
In 2019 I went to Russia. With the price and hassle of a visa, I had to make it worthwhile so I stayed nearly three weeks, visiting five cities and travelling around by plane and train.
The “solo” and “female” bits here are really clickbait. This is the stuff where I’ve travelled on my own to wherever I’ve gone that’s not in the UK – or at least, not in the south-west corner of the UK.
In 2018 I walked the Laugavegur Trail in Iceland. I kept a diary while I was out there, hand-written in a chunky notebook. When I got back, I wrote it up as a series of blog posts, so follow me along Iceland’s most-loved long-distance mountain trail.
I don’t watch a lot of TV but when I watch something travel-related, I try to write it up here. You’ll find a lot of Iceland here, because the TV still finds it exotic enough to send your favourite celebrities there to do Christmas specials.
I’ve climbed volcanoes. I’ve seen lava fields. I’ve seen an erupting volcano. I’ve even been inside a volcano. And here are my stories.
Books about travel or books about places that aren’t where I live. Some of these are adventures, some are journeys and some are just about being in a place.
I know I have a blog to contain all my travel memories but I like something more tactile so more often than not, I’ll make a scrapbook. Occasionally I’ll do it while I’m away but more often I’ll gather all my tickets and receipts and postcards and make a scrapbook when I get home. Come and see what I’ve done.
What do I need to take? What’s useful to take? What might I not think to take? Well, here’s my series on all the things you might want to pack that might turn out to be useful.
I don’t do a packing post for every trip but I’ve done enough to gather them together here. What have I packed for various places and situations? What else should I have taken and what was a waste of space and weight?
I’ve not written as much here as I should but I was glancing around my office during lockdown and realised some of the things I’ve brought back from my trips are a bit odd. So I figured why not write an irregular series about some of those odd things?
As a language student, I had a compulsory academic year to spend in a country where my language was spoken. So I spent a year living in Switzerland. I didn’t document it as well as I should have so I’m trying to gather everything together to make for myself an ultimate guide to my year abroad.