So I’ve been lucky enough to have done a fair bit of travel in my life so far. If you want to see everywhere that I’ve been, then this is the place. Any plans for future travel will also be here, along with some bucket list items as well!
Bucket List:
(This is by no means a complete list, as I’ll probably always be adding things to it…)
- Spend more time dogsledding in Alaska (and maybe the Nordic countries as well)
- Speaking of Nordic countries, I reckon Svalbard would be pretty interesting as well.
- Iceland (and the Northern Lights)
- Antarctica (and the Southern Lights)
- Hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu
Past Trips:
2009 – 8 Weeks in the UK
- 3 weeks exploring London for the first time
- Salisbury and Stonehenge
- Caernarfon and Snowdonia, Wales
- Edinburgh and the Scottish Highlands
- Couple of days in Paris, France
- And a couple more days in London before the flight home
2012 – The start of the big one: Around the world (in a bit more than 80 days)
- Three months in the USA and Canada, travelling mostly by train.
- Including a week of dogsledding in Denali National Park with Jon from Earthsong Lodge.
- Some very long train trips to see the Grand Canyon, Chicago and New Orleans
- Two very full days at Kennedy Space Centre, including a tour of the Vehicle Assembly Building
- Washington DC, Boston and Niagara Falls
- A quick hop into Canada to see Toronto
- Back to New York City
- A week long cruise for the Titanic Centenary, visiting Halifax, Nova Scotia and culminating in a memorial service over the wreck site 100 years to the day since the ship sank with the loss of over 1,500 lives.
- Back to New York for a couple of days and then off to:
- Turkey, to see Istanbul and spend Anzac Day at Gallipoli.
- And then to London for the second time, where I would end up living for 12 months.
2013 – The rest of the world (All travel by train / bus unless otherwise noted)
- Some more of the UK, including York, Edinburgh and the Highlands again, Mallaig and the Isle of Skye
- Over to Northern Ireland and Belfast, in time to attend a memorial service on the 101st Anniversary of the Titanic sinking at the shipyard she was built at
- Back to London to finalise a couple of visas and then I was off!
- First up, a Topdeck tour of the battlefields of the Western Front, culminating in the Anzac Day dawn service at Villers-Brettoneux.
- Down to Paris for a week and then flying off to Egypt
- An amazing 7 day Topdeck tour of Egypt with a great bunch of people, hitting all the highlights:
- The Cairo Museum, the Pyramids, Temples galore, sailing on the Nile, the Valley of the Kings and Tutankhamun’s tomb.
- Flight back to Paris and a couple of days in Interlaken, Switzerland to recover.
- A train down to Rome, and the immense amount of history that city has to offer
- Down to Naples, mainly to visit Pompeii and Herculanium, buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79AD.
- Up to Venice for a couple of days and then out of Italy and into:
- Vienna, Austria and it’s amazing museums
- Then to Prague, Czech Republic, during the 2013 European floods, which was an interesting experience!
- Up to Berlin, Germany for a couple of days and then back Eastwards to:
- Warsaw, Poland and the amazing amount of history that city has seen.
- Continuing East to Kiev, Ukraine for a couple days, then into:
- Russia and St Petersburg, starting a 21 day Intrepid tour that nobody else joined, so it was just the guide and I!
- St Petersburg to Moscow via Suzdal, then off to Lake Baikal via the Trans-Mongolian Railway.
- Down into Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and Terelj National Park.
- Heading further south to Beijing, China, where the tour finished and I was on my own again for a bit.
- Saw the Great Wall and the Forbidden Palace and then off to:
- Hanoi, Vietnam, and a visit to Ha Long Bay. Getting back into warmer climates now!
- Train down the length of Vietnam to Ho Chi Minh City, where I started another Intrepid tour, which a couple of other travellers this time.
- From Ho Chi Minh City we travelled across Cambodia by bus, stopping at Phnom Penh (including a somber visit to the Killing Fields), Siem Reap (and the amazing Angkor Wat), and Battambang and then into:
- Bangkok, Thailand where tour ended and I was back to solo travelling.
- A train down to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for a couple of days and then the final stop:
- Singapore. Having travelled from London to Singapore by land in 144 days, visiting 20 countries and covering about 37,000km.
- Then one final flight back home to Australia in August 2013. Arriving back in the Southern Hemisphere for the first time since January 2012.
2015 – Short one this time – 3 Weeks back in the UK and Ireland.
- Starting off with a couple more days in London, as there’s always something else to see.
- Then up to Chester and it’s amazing zoo.
- Back into Scotland for another couple of days in Edinburgh and a tour of the Highlands.
- Flight over to Dublin for my first visit to Ireland.
- Caught the ferry over to Holyhead, Wales and the train to Llandudno.
- A ride on the Ffestiniog Railway through the amazing scenery of Snowdonia and a visit to the old slate mine at Blaenau Ffestiniog, and down to Porthmadog.
- Then back into England to Bath and the very well preserved Roman baths there.
- Finally back to London and then a flight back home.
2019 – Another short one – 3 and a bit weeks in the UK and North West Europe.
- Started off back in London, which is almost a second home at this point!
- Then up to Chester again, researching some family history this time.
- Once more into Scotland, this time for a 3 day tour of the Orkney Islands with Rabbies.
- Flight over to Amsterdam and exploring it’s canals.
- Then the train down to Brussels.
- And another train to Ypres, site of the Menin Gate Memorial from WWI and the amazing In Flanders Fields Museum
- Finally, one more train to Paris and the flight back home from there.