the journal

My first ever trip overseas as an adult was to Japan. If you’ve read any of my other journals and are familiar at all with my haphazard style of ‘planning’ (and I use that term loosely), it will come as a shock to hear that on that trip, I made… an excel spreadsheet. I know. […]

This story starts with an international licence. Or more accurately, a lack of one.  There are some experiences when travelling that make you sit back and say “Yep. Absolutely. This is what it’s alll about”. I’m talking… riding a rusty old pushbike to the beach in a sundress, being the sole customers in a shell-adorned […]

Despite my penchant for a holiday, there’s something I had never done. I don’t know how to put this without shocking anyone with it, so I will just come right out and confess: before this year, I had never experienced a quintessential Euro summer.   Not a Contiki at 18? Not a romantic sojourn through […]

Living somewhere affects the recommendations you give to visitors. Instead of one traveller passing on their “top tips” to another that feature big attractions and unique lodgings, you tend to build up habits and preferences that make for a less show-stopping kind of list. However, after a particularly full-on period of work and travel, I’m […]

Generalisations about India are plentiful, particularly from people that haven’t experienced the indescribable world of contradictions that the subcontinent serves up (usually, adorned with marigolds).  For those that haven’t visited, their preconceived ideas about India – and ones that were repeated to us often prior to our trip – can include danger, dirtiness and overwhelm. […]

Coming from freezing (read: 8c Celsius) Mexico City, disembarking the plane into the dry Oaxacan desert was a welcome change for someone who didn’t pack jeans.  Getting the 6am flight from Mexico City meant that we arrived by 7:30am, with the whole day stretching ahead of us to explore. With instructions to head to Boulenc, […]

Our tendency as humans to under-appreciate the things right below our noses is one that’s well documented. I recently read Happy Money (and haven’t shut up about it, as it provides some particularly convenient justifications to spending money on travel). There’s something I love about self-improvement books – getting semi-obvious information delivered to you with […]

There are some trips that I’ve taken that simply occurred too long ago for me to provide any meaningful advice, and there are some that were too fleeting. This one falls into both category A and category B. While I’ve heard that things have changed a lot in the States since COVID, I’m sure that […]

Cuba, Havana in particular, has been at the top of my bucket list for a long while. I even attempted to book flights to Havana for a few days (as you do) during a particularly waterlogged week on Bocas del Toro, Panama in 2018 before sadly realising that it was Thanksgiving and flying anywhere – […]

Ahhh, Straddie. The feature of countless bumper stickers sitting in traffic on the Gold Coast and Brisbane, with drivers who would undoubtedly rather be sipping a frothy at the Point Lookout Surf Club.  As someone who grew up on the Gold Coast, I had – I am ashamed to admit – only visited South Stradbroke […]