Europe

There’s more to discover in Europe than you might think. From historic cities to lush green landscapes, Europe is home to so many beautiful places. Take a slow travel trip to Barcelona, get lost in a maze of streets in Granda, explore magnificent lakes in Macedonia, immerse yourself in Bulgarian history, and go by train across Poland.

Coastal Paths, Clean Beaches and Local Heritage in Porthtowan

In England, it’s not unusual to take a family holiday to the same familiar seaside town, often just the closest one to where you live, or one of the really popular ones that actually have sand rather than pebbles.

Every year you pack up the car with too much stuff and a bag of Starburst. You go, you build sandcastles on the beach, eat Mr Whippy ice creams, probably eat fish and chips too, walk along the pier and play on some penny machines in an arcade. That’s what family holidays were like for me when I was growing up.

Like most people in the UK, I have a lot of nostalgia about seaside holidays.

4 mins read
Durdledoor England

The Coastal Path from Lulworth Cove to Durdle Door

I can’t say that I’ve ever seen a more rugged coastline than in the south of England. The Jurassic Coast, which stretches over 95 miles between East Devon and my new home county of Dorset, is characterised by it’s grassy cliff tops, sheer drops of jagged white rock cliff sides and spectacular geology.

I first walked along the Jurassic coast when I was much younger. Back then, I was enchanted by Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door because they were just how I imagined many places from fantasy novels to be.  All those memories washed over me again when I recently hiked along the coastline.

Even after travelling across different continents, I still think that the short two and a half mile walk between Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door is one of the most beautiful walks in the world.

3 mins read

Feeling Lost at Home and at Home on the Road

It’s a strange thing to admit to yourself: that you can feel at home on the road and just kind of lost in the familiar place that you know as home.

It’s a feeling that I’ve only just come to realise since travelling home to the UK from Nicaragua a couple of weeks ago. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t like being at home because I do really miss my family when I’m away and I do appreciate the comfortable feeling that comes with being home. It’s just that I never made my home here.

I never got that job commuting into London, I never moved into that first time flat, and I never decided that it was time to settle. When I graduated from university, I moved abroad with Luke almost right away. We spent a year teaching in Taiwan, and sure we worked full-time and lived in an apartment like most people do, but we also travelled a lot.

3 mins read

5 Films about UK Youth Culture to Watch Before You Travel

Those who haven’t travelled to the UK often has a very romanticised view of our culture and lifestyle from watching Downton Abbey and Hugh Grant romcoms – but in truth the UK and its film industry is a whole lot more diverse than that.

Love Actually and Bridget Jones’ Diary captivated many a romantic dreamer, but that’s not all the UK film industry has to offer. The more popular UK films might leave viewers thinking that we all live in mansions and drink tea in the countryside, but that’s just not the case. The UK has a plethora of directors making great films about youth culture that deal with real issues experienced by people in the UK in recent decades. While my list of five films aren’t the most wanderlust inducing and probably won’t make you swoon over English traditions, all of them taught me a lot about the socio-cultural background of the country where I grew up.

4 mins read

2014 in Photos

Back in January, who knew that our 2014 would look like this…

When we came home from Taiwan at the end of 2013, Luke told me that 2014 was my year. By that, he meant it was up to me to choose what we would do. Moving to Taiwan was his idea and though I chose to follow, it wasn’t an easy decision for me. Although I loved our year away in Taiwan, I felt homesick often and that feeling was always exacerbated by the stresses of teaching.

I loved the travel, I loved weekend road trips, I loved the independence and having our own home, and I loved Luke. But I wasn’t happy as a teacher and I didn’t want to be crawling through the week, desperate for the weekend. I wanted to make changes to our lifestyle. By the end of 2013, we were both ready to leave Taiwan.

Though I don’t think about it as 2013 being Luke’s year and 2014 as being my year, there’s no doubt that this year I was the one who put forward the idea of an alternative travel lifestyle as freelancers and house sitters. Thanks to Luke’s trust, our combined determination and perseverance, and the incredible generosity of strangers, 2014 has been the happiest year of my life.

3 mins read

I Want To Travel, But What If I Run Out of Money?

Reader Question: I’ve decided that I want to travel. I have zero attachment to material things, I’m a really simple person, calm, easy going and minimalist. The only thing that stops me from starting my trip is knowing that I won’t have any income and the only thing I fear is to put myself in a really bad situation, I want to prevent that.I’m thinking of what could happen if a run out of the money that I have managed to save (which isn’t much). The only thing that has occurred to me is to use Couchsurfing to find a place to stay and try to find a temporary job wherever I go. I also thought of doing WOOFing.My journey starts in January. I have a flight to France and that’s the place to start for me. I’m planning to travel around Europe. For now I can speak English, Spanish, a bit of Italian and I’m learning French!What would you suggest to me?

7 mins read

An Unexpectedly Great Escape in the Isle of Wight

Last year, I escaped to the Isle of Wight with Luke’s family. Unlike other family holidays I’ve been on, this escape to the Isle of Wight wasn’t about escaping the rain, nor escaping the domesticity of home. In fact, it was about embracing both of those things.

There is one thing we did escape though: the internet. Luke and I both spend a lot of our day online. We read the news online when we wake up, we work online in the mornings, we speak with our family and friends online and we write our blogs online. Sometimes we spend far too much time online, and sometimes we forget that too.

3 mins read

How Much Does it Cost to Travel Poland on a Budget?

We had no idea how much it would cost to travel in Poland. We signed up for the Angloville programme on a whim, got accepted and booked some flights. We didn’t plan our travels beforehand, except for a sketchy route.

Fortunately for us, Poland turned out to be a cheaper travel destination than many other European countries. It’s worth noting that our travel budget is so incredibly low because we spent 5 days of our 20-day trip on the Angloville programme where we received free accommodation and food.

4 mins read

How to Afford Travel in the UK

Everyone knows that the UK is notoriously expensive; budget travellers and backpackers avoid it, and even UK residents don’t travel around all that much because of the cost. Although I’m originally from the UK, I’ve never held down a full-time job here and because I’ve been away for so long, I don’t own a car. I am well and truly outside of the British economic circle and have only my savings from teaching in Taiwan to rely on.

6 mins read

A Backpacker’s Route: Poland

If you ask someone whose never been to Poland what it’s like, they’ll tell you it’s all industrial and drab. And sure, in certain areas it is, but for the most part Poland is beautiful. What people don’t know is that Poland is home to quite an array of different landscapes: cobbled cities, snow-capped mountains, golden sand beaches, forests and lakes. This 2-3 week backpacking route around Poland encompasses all of those cityscapes and landscapes.

5 mins read

How to Eat Vegetarian in Poland

“A vegetarian travelling to Poland? You’ll struggle to find anything to eat there. They only eat meat, more meat and bread.”

When I told people at home that I’d be travelling in Poland, I got only negative replies about how I’d have nothing to eat. I’d probably starve if I didn’t eat meat, they said. It turns out that people are either misinformed or altogether uninformed about the Polish diet. It turns out that the Polish eat a lot of vegetables and being vegetarian in Poland isn’t so hard. They have salad with every meal and you rarely see a plate that doesn’t have shredded beetroot, cabbage and grated carrot heaped on the side. In fact, Poland has the highest rate of fruit and veg consumption in Europe. 

5 mins read