Travel Blog
We set up our travel blog to keep a journal of our holidays and travels, it is easy to forget details. As we Travel around the world we want to visit as many countries as possible following the sun. Europe, Asia, Africa, Australasia and the Americas are all on our list to explore more
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Here we go…
Today’s the day. After years of dreaming and months of planning, it’s finally the day when it all becomes reality. Later today we head to Heathrow and for the next 105 days we will be exploring South East Asia through Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and finally Singapore. It almost feels unreal. Next stop Bangkok….
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The Next Chapter
So here we are just a couple of days from realising our travel dreams, and setting off on the first of our major adventures post retirement. In the “about” sections of the blog you will find some history of our travels, and some clues as to why this is our dream. We got together as a couple in 2011 and since then wanderlust has simply taken over. Before we met we had both travelled to a degree, and have now each visited 40 countries of the World. And, in those 9 years together, we have visited 33 already, a number to be increased somewhat this year. This is a summary…
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Legends, Kings & Storms in Wet and Wild Cornwall
With just a couple of weeks left before our travels we take one more trip down to Cornwall. We arrive at the tail end of Storm Brendan battering the UK, the Cornish coast is being buffeted by the strong winds and the Atlantic is crashing in making a dramatic scene. The Atlantic is in an angry mood. So after reacquainting ourselves with some of the Padstow pubs on our first evening, we spend the first full day here battling the elements at Tintagel, Boscastle and Port Isaac. Tintagel is of course the legendary site of King Arthur’s castle, with its wonderful tales of Merlin, Arthur and the Knights of the…
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Dover Castle – The defender of England
As we wait for our travel date to arrive we continue our exploration of our local area. One major site which has been on our list for some time is Dover Castle, a familiar site majestically standing proud atop the white cliffs of Dover, keeping watch over the English Channel across to mainland Europe, keeping England safe through the ages, a myriad of underground tunnels holding secrets of days gone by. This site has been occupied in some form since Roman times, the Castle in its present form built by King Henry II and has played a key part in England’s defences throughout many wars, not least of course the…
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It’s 2020: Our Year Of Destiny Dawns
So we are now, officially, a retired couple, our working lives done and dusted and behind us. And with the New Year dawning today, it’s precisely four weeks until our dream comes true and we start our long term travels around the world. January 29th is the date on which the first leg of our travels begin, when we are due to arrive in Bangkok and set foot in Thailand for the first time in our lives. The last few weeks have been – well – different. With Michaela on midweek tours of the UK visiting family in Lowestoft, Birmingham and Gosport, my final spell of work was punctuated regularly…
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Michaela on tour – week two continued- Stratford upon Avon
The town of Stratford-upon-Avon is known across much of the World as William Shakespeare’s birthplace, and remains a major destination for tourism, with good reason. Of course, the town milks the Shakespeare theme to the limit, but in its own right it is one of the best preserved old towns in all of England, with many stunning ancient properties and a wonderfully quaint character. It simply oozes charm. The town dates from a charter granted in 1196, but it was of course Shakespeare who changed the course of history here, culminating now in a town which has less than 30,000 inhabitants yet welcomes 2.5 million visitors per year. It loses…
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Michaela on tour- week two
Week two of my retirement and I head off to visit family in South Birmingham in the Midlands, another week of eating, drinking and fun. Although I am from Birmingham originally, I haven’t lived here for many years so today I take a solitary tour around a number of special childhood places and a trip down memory lane centred around the village of Bournville and the home of Cadbury’s chocolate. Maybe I am biased but in my opinion Cadbury’s is the best chocolate in the world!! My family has a long history with Cadbury’s, my Nan was an original Cadbury girl starting work there at the age of 14 back…
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Photography by Michaela
Another photograph taken on our travels has been reproduced in oil by Norma K Read, aka “Michaela’s Mum” This photo was taken in Gasaba market, West Bengal, India, to see other works take a look in “photography by Michaela” Norma is exhibiting the below paintings at the moment at “The Cut” in Halesworth and the Ferini Art Gallery in Lowestoft.
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Recurring Themes. No 1: Depopulation
Some themes seem to resonate no matter where we travel, not all of them by any means are edifying. So ahead of commencing our trip of a lifetime, ahead of living our dream, we examine some of those recurring themes. Depopulation of rural areas is already one of those recurring themes, bringing with it the loss of tradition and culture. As the world becomes more and more accessible, so the destination hubs grow. The attractive cities expand, resorts grow, hotels and apartments spring to life. With all this comes a series of largely false micro economies, as tourism brings in the foreign dollar and jobs, and incomes, become readily available. …
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A-Z of Travel Preparation- Last Bit
And so as we enter the final weeks of work before retirement and with more than one eye on the start of our travels, we conclude our alphabet of all of those things to remember and to put into place before we go. U is for the Unknown. We are pretty organised people and consider ourselves to be pretty thorough, but there’s bound to be something we’ve forgotten. Something will crop up: either something we haven’t covered at home, something we haven’t organised for the trip, some little, or maybe big, detail we’ve omitted. It’s almost interesting to see what that something turns out to be. V is for Visas,…
