The Accidental Travel Influencer

I had a random thought the other day. Ironically, it involved Karl Pilkington.

In a world of endless “Top 10 things to do in…” lists and “Come with me for a day…” videos, Karl Pilkington may have accidentally become one of the most useful travel influencers of the modern era. Which is unfortunate, because he’d probably hate being described that way.

Filmed between 2010 and 2012, An Idiot Abroad arrived just before influencer culture truly took hold. Instagram was little more than a place to share photos. TikTok didn’t exist. YouTube was somewhere to watch old music videos and the occasional funny dog clip. The premise was simple. Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant sent their friend Karl around the world, placing him in situations ranging from mildly uncomfortable to genuinely absurd.

Karl Pilkington at the “All right Wall of China”.

Karl is a self-confessed advocate for the simple life. On one podcast, he spoke about envying old blokes in Italy who seemed content to sit around eating pasta and not doing a great deal else. On another, he explained that he and his long-term partner Suzanne enjoy visiting graveyards on holiday. His simplicity is often ridiculed. Sometimes fairly. Sometimes less so.

Yet for all his complaints, Karl repeatedly did things many people never would. He slept in places he didn’t want to sleep, travelled to countries he had little interest in visiting, met people whose lives were entirely different to his own and threw himself into situations that genuinely frightened him. For someone who constantly claimed he wanted an easy life, he spent a surprising amount of time pushing himself outside his comfort zone.

The difference was that he never pretended to enjoy anything.

When An Idiot Abroad was made, travel occupied a different place in the culture. You went away, found some places you liked, came home and uploaded 487 photos to a Facebook album. The modern traveller is often encouraged to become a collector. Collect the attractions. Collect the ‘hidden gem’ restaurants. Collect the ‘secret’ beaches. Collect the photographs proving you were there.

Entire queues form so people can take the same photograph in the same spot as thousands of others before them. Entire destinations can feel as though they arrive pre-packaged, complete with a list of approved experiences and mandatory stops. The irony is that the more people follow the same patterns, the more similar their journeys become.

Much of modern travel content assumes certain experiences are inherently wonderful because social media has collectively decided they are. Karl Pilkington, meanwhile, turns up at the Great Wall of China and declares it the “All right Wall of China”.

It’s a ridiculous observation. But it’s also a useful one. Because Karl gave himself permission to have his own reaction.

Sometimes the answer is that an experience really is extraordinary. Other times the answer is that we’re doing something because we’re supposed to.

One of my favourite examples comes when Karl visits the famous Taj Mahal bench where Princess Diana sat following the breakdown of her marriage to Prince Charles. Tourists queue up to sit on the exact same spot. Karl points out that it’s impossible to have an emotional experience there with so many people around. He then speculates that Diana wasn’t looking sad because of the breakdown of her marriage at all. She was probably just fed up of India and had diarrhoea for three days.

It’s a funny conclusion. Yet buried beneath the joke is an interesting observation. Travel experiences often arrive with emotions already attached to them. We’re told how we’re supposed to feel before we arrive. Karl never seemed especially interested in following the script.

Princess Diana pose, Taj Mahal, India.

What Karl understood, perhaps accidentally, is that travel isn’t always about the headline attractions.

In Israel, he appears far more affected by passing through security checkpoints than by standing at the alleged birthplace of Jesus. In Egypt, he’s fascinated by the chaos of the traffic and questions the song Walk Like an Egyptian given all the locals are driving and beeping their horns.

For all the jokes, Karl is often more interested in people than places. He repeatedly drifts away from the attraction itself and towards the lives unfolding around it. How people work. What they eat. Whether they’re happy. How they spend their days.

One of the most telling moments comes when he’s staying with a Mayan family in Mexico. After trying wasp larvae, Karl decides it’s only fair that the exchange goes both ways and offers them some Monster Munch. It’s an interesting image, but also a revealing one. Karl’s best moments rarely happen at the landmark itself. They happen when he’s talking to people, asking questions and trying to understand how they live.

In fact, Karl is often more open-minded than he’s given credit for.

At Chichén Itzá, he admits he’s spent much of the trip moaning about the world’s wonders. Having tried new foods, slept in unfamiliar places and pushed himself outside his comfort zone, he decides to approach this one differently. He wants to give it a fair chance.

Whilst there, Suzanne calls and asks what it is like, he sums up this Seven Wonder of the World as “It’s alright, yeah. Just a big pyramid” before moving the conversation back to helping her connect the DVD player to the television.

It’s a perfect Karl Pilkington moment. He tries. He engages. He just refuses to pretend.

Karl Pilkington, Petra, Jordan.

Later in the episode, Karl describes Mexico as the favourite place he’s visited so far. Not because of Chichén Itzá, but because of everything else. The people he met. The places he stayed. The experiences he had along the way.

More tellingly, he says it’s because he felt able to do what he wanted to do.

I think that’s true of travel at its best.

Not following somebody else’s itinerary. Not ticking off the approved experiences. Not collecting photographs purely as evidence that you were there.

Exploring on your own terms.

Travel, after all, is often found in the small moments. The bloke asleep with his gob wide-open on a plastic chair outside a taverna. The strange local election posters lining a backstreet in Bangkok. A conversation with a tuk-tuk driver. A simple sandwich that’s far better than it has any right to be. The details that never make it into an Instagram reel.

The landmarks give us a reason to go. What we remember is usually everything around them.

While everyone else was looking for the world’s wonders and next best thing, Karl often seemed more interested in the ordinary things happening around them. At the pyramids, in Egypt, he notices a tornado of litter whirling through the air and remarks that “you don’t see that in the travel brochure”.

And he’s right. You don’t.

You don’t usually see it on social media either. The tension. The contradictions. The difficult questions that travelling poses. The parts where we’re all, to some degree, complicit.

Karl never really shied away from those things and I think that’s part of what makes the programme feel so fresh all these years later. Beneath the jokes, he wasn’t trying to optimise travel. He wasn’t chasing hidden gems, curating an identity or collecting experiences for an audience.

He was simply reacting to what was in front of him.

An Idiot Abroad seemed an appropriate title at the time.

Looking back, the opposite may be closer to the truth.

The show feels accidentally ahead of its time.

If you enjoyed this, you might like the below too…

Coming Up For Air

I’m face down in the water, floating in rhythm with the waves. There’s a comfortable silence, broken only by the distant hum of a boat engine somewhere further out at sea.

Below me, a large green turtle lifts itself slowly from the sea bed. It stops eating the seaweed tangled amongst the coral and begins rising towards the surface for air.

I come up beside it, hoping to catch that brief moment where its small head breaks through the water before disappearing again.

As I do, I notice a clear plastic bag drifting across the surface.

It’s not the first I’ve seen. It won’t be the last either.

A green turtle, Gili Meno, Indonesia.

Travelling sharpens moments like this. Outstanding natural beauty sitting beside visible reminders of our impact upon it.

At home, that impact feels easier to ignore. Buried beneath routine, infrastructure and the general noise of daily life. Away from it, especially near the sea, it feels harder not to notice.

In Langkawi, Malaysia, early morning walks along the white sands of Tanjung Rhu become interrupted by piles of litter washed in by the tide. Plastic bottles, wrappers, fragments of things impossible to identify. The sort of debris that looks as though it has travelled a long way to end up somewhere beautiful.

I start bringing a small bin bag with me each morning. More out of frustration than optimism.

After a few days, I begin noticing a difference. The bag feels lighter. The beach looks cleaner. For a moment, it feels strangely satisfying.

Then the tide comes back in.

Litter picking in Langkawi, Malaysia.

One thing I notice repeatedly in Langkawi is how much of the litter appears to come from neighbouring Thailand, sitting just across the water from this corner of northern Malaysia. Thai branding stamped across faded plastic packaging scattered along otherwise beautiful beaches.

Thailand drawing much of the tourism attention, Langkawi receiving part of the aftermath.

In the Philippines, around the islands of Palawan, the damage feels less physical at first.

Places like Hidden Beach, no longer especially hidden, become crowded with tour boats circling outside narrow limestone openings. Hundreds of tourists drift in the water whilst diesel fumes hang heavily in the hot air. I’m there too, squeezing through the same gaps, GoPro in hand, part of the same problem.

The line between wanting to experience somewhere and quietly contributing to its erosion often feels uncomfortably thin.

‘Hidden’ Beach entrance, Palawan

In Sri Lanka, crowds gather along the shoreline waiting for turtles to surface. People edge further into the water holding phones above their heads. Plastic bags drift nearby. Someone pushes a turtle slightly to improve the angle of a photo.

No one else seems especially surprised by any of it.

Beside me, another turtle comes up for air.

I feel like doing the same.

If you enjoyed this, you might like the below too…

The Moon Under Water - A Perfect Pub

Cold, smooth, creamy liquid pours down my throat rapidly before coming to an abrupt ending with a bitter finish on my tongue. It’s my first pint of Guinness in over four months. I’ve been away travelling, and one of my first ports of call upon returning is the pub.

I’m sat in Fagan’s, a well-known and much-loved institution on Broad Lane in Sheffield city centre. Recently changing hands from long-time landlords Tom and Barbara to a collective of Sheffield businessmen and creatives, including some famous faces. The change thankfully kept the pub largely as it was before. The traditional decor remains, the charm undisrupted and the warmth constant.

I have another gulp of the black stuff. No room for splitting the G nonsense here… It tastes like familiarity. A version of myself I’d not been for a while. I breathe a sigh of both relief and pleasure… I’ve missed this.

As I look around this beautiful traditional pub, I remember George Orwell’s essay The Moon Under Water, where he outlines his idea of a perfect boozer back in 1943. I wonder what that may look like today and how much of his essay still holds true.

It’s probably fifteen years, or more, since I last read it, so I remind myself of its prose and some key and surprising moments, for example the bar staff being “middle-aged women—two of them have their hair dyed in quite surprising shades—and they call everyone ‘dear,’ irrespective of age or sex. (‘Dear,’ not ‘Ducky’: pubs where the barmaid calls you ‘ducky’ always have a disagreeable raffish atmosphere.)”

I decide to revisit the idea of a perfect pub, realising everyone has their own perceptions of what good may look like. Nonetheless, here are my own.

Fagan’s - Sheffield city centre.

Another sip of Guinness as I glance around at the slightly imperfect décor of wood-panelled walls adorned with a mish-mash of artwork speaks to my version of a perfect pub. It’s eclectic yet harmonious without being over-designed. A pub with authenticity, not clichéd pastiche like the steady influx of themed “Irish” pubs that now seem to blight most towns and cities, where the proxy for being Irish is reduced to old beer barrels as tables and fake retro Guinness signs sitting alongside inspirational quotes featuring four-leaf clovers and leprechauns.

Many pubs in London in particular are renovated to be faux traditional and look shit. Other city pubs feel soulless despite the thin illusion of being “posh”.

A pub should have an original wooden floor, stone tiles and, depending on the location, a good old carpet. Curtains are a yes, even nets. Blinds absolutely not. Wall lamps, beer mats and banquettes elevate the look even further, as does a real fireplace. In fact, I don’t think the perfect pub can be so without one. It may not be in use, but it’s the focal point of the room. Something to stare at and ponder.

A pub should tread the fine line between calm and clinical, interesting without tipping into sensory overstimulation.

The setting and layout, I don’t believe, is as hard-fixed as Orwell outlines in his essay. Use of space is far more important. That said, a pub should provide space for large groups whilst also allowing room for peace and solitude, tucked into a comfy corner with just your thoughts as company.

Pubs should not be performative venues, but egalitarian spaces where anyone can come as they are.

My mind turns back to Fagan’s as some workmen from Wolverhampton enter, chatting to the barman. It’s their first time here, yet the conversation flows. A cheeky pint before they head back down the M1. Typical of any good pub is this openness and friendliness amongst strangers without being intrusive. We share some small talk with them as they keep coming to the window we are sat by, peering over the road to check their van hasn’t received a parking ticket.

All pub interiors should be eclectically simple

There’s no judgement in a perfect pub. Debate and open conversation, yes. But self-righteousness should largely be left at the door. There’s enough of that just over the threshold, in the real world. A pub is escapism grounded in a lived environment.

Of course, the elephant in the room (tap or lounge?) is that the escapism comes from the alcohol itself. However, and perhaps controversially, I feel that this is one of the least important aspects of a pub and something that’s often overcomplicated, particularly in recent years with the rise of craft beer.

Sure, a pub needs beer and it can’t taste bad. But I’ve drank in many pubs that pride themselves on having an amazing range and quality selection and had a bad time. Unless a beer has been badly kept, the opposite cannot be said. A good range is nice: a lager, an ale, a stout and a cider is really all that’s needed. There shouldn’t be any cocktails in a proper pub, unless a gin & tonic or a shandy counts. Wine is fine too. It’s quick to pour and doesn’t dominate the room like the sight of someone vigorously shaking a cocktail shaker in a backstreet boozer would.

In his essay, Orwell pointed out there’s a difference between country and city pubs. One real difference for me is food. In a town or city centre: no full meals, just snacks. Countryside and out-of-town pubs: yes, and in fact a necessity. There are few finer simple pleasures than a brisk countryside walk on a cold sunny winter’s day followed by a homemade pie or roast dinner. A reward for the hike and an undoing of the calories burnt is a rite of passage. Unless explicitly stated as a gastro pub, I don’t want to see any poor attempts at nouveau cuisine and definitely no balsamic-glazed salads, which in my view should be outlawed.

My temporary anger at food faux pas is interrupted by a loud laugh from the bar. I zone back into my surroundings at Fagan’s. There’s a hum of conversation taking place as the music of my youth, mid-2000s indie, plays in the background. Intentionally or ironically, I hear one of the co-owners musical prowess coming over the speakers as, I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor, reminds me that I’m very much now back in Sheffield as well as very much no longer fifteen.

Music in the ultimate pub, if played at all, shouldn’t be loud or intrusive, but nicely there - how a pub should be. You don’t want to be shouting just to ask your drinking partner who they think will win the World Cup this summer.

Speaking of World Cups, these are the kind of moments where a TV can work in a pub, but generally I’m against it. Worst still when pubs seem to have TVs on silent in conflict with loud music and Coronation Street subtitles flashing away in the background. The competing stimulation removes the whole point of going to the boozer in the first place: to be social.

Being social can also mean a dartboard and/or pool table. But they shouldn’t dominate should you wish not to participate. Cards and board games are welcome for long and lazy afternoons cradling one ale too many.

The snug - Fagan’s, Sheffield.

Much of the vibe in a pub is, of course, a by-product of the staff. An arsehole landlord or mardy barmaid can take an otherwise pleasant pub and make it uncomfortable.

The ultimate pub should have service that’s friendly and warm without being overly familiar. Efficient too, with those standing at the bar (not queuing in a line, please stop doing this) duly noted and served in order.

I think back to the moment I walked into Fagan’s. Eagerly the first one there as it opened at 4pm. I tell the barman that I’ve just got back from months of travelling and have been Guinness-less throughout. The conversation is easy and natural and I ask him about the Exposed Awards that evening, an annual Sheffield event where people nominate their local “best ofs”. Being uncharacteristically out of the Sheffield loop now, I ask if they’re up for nomination. They are: Best Traditional Pub.

I ask if he’s confident and he provides such an unexpectedly brilliant answer full of humility - explaining that of course he’d love to win, but the real strength of the pub is the community. Not only those who visit and form part of the fabric of Fagan’s, but the surrounding pubs in the “Irish Triangle”, where they all help each other out. It’s a symbiotic relationship, particularly now where city-centre pubs are increasingly dependent on weekend pub crawls. Being part of this little network gives each other a leg up and provides a shared sense of destination and identity.

I reflect back on his words with glee at how this wasn’t something I’d even thought of. Orwell certainly didn’t. But then that was during a time when pubs were largely centres of the community and were full. Today’s landscape is much more challenging, of course, and widely written about. But the point of it not just being the pub you’re in, but the wider surroundings and neighbouring businesses, really struck a chord with me. He’s totally right. The perfect pub isn’t usually a standalone at all.

Fagan’s went on to win Best Traditional Pub that evening. Fitting really.

‘The Snog’ by Pete McKee - Fagan’s

I stand up to leave Fagan’s unsure when I’ll be able to visit again. I take a final look around the main room and realise that the real feeling to any really good pub is meaning. Not meaning as to why you’re there, but what the pub means to you.

Of course, pubs you visit for the first time can still wow, but it’s not until the second visit and beyond that they can begin to hold some true meaning. I’m reminded of time spent in here with friends. Persuading my mate Nick to buy a Fagan’s branded hat from behind the bar, after he said they looked cool. It was in the snug I was about to pass on leaving that I told my mum one Mother’s Day that I was going to propose to my now wife.

And that’s really what pubs are above all else: moments shared.

If you enjoyed this, you might like the below too…

Never Trust A Hotel Review

As most people probably do, we always ensure we check reviews before we book to stay somewhere. A bit of due diligence before parting with hundreds of pounds is surely a reasonable thing to do? 

However, one thing I’ve become aware of having stayed in such a large number of places, in a short period of time, is that you can never trust a hotel review.

One person’s idea of a delicious breakfast, was my idea of what you’d imagine getting served as an inmate in a South American prison.

A tropical paradise - surprising one guest who was shocked to find one insect.

Likewise, someone’s horror story 1 star review, just because they found an insect (in what is effectively a jungle), leaves me wondering why they wanted to holiday amongst nature at all.

Or negative feedback for a hotel, because the nearby sea, yes that natural force of nature, had too many waves.

These are extremes of course, but I’ve also seen many 10/10 booking.com reviews where people have then gone on to add some negative feedback and it leaves me wondering why some people don’t understand the concept of scale.

Surprisingly no mentions of the toilet being in the shower cubicle, for this hotel.

So here’s the part I’m meant to tell you what you should do to avoid any disappointments. A list of hacks. A top 10 list for guaranteeing a perfect stay every time.

The problem is that there is no magic formula. Travel inevitably involves discomfort, compromise and occasionally realising that your idea of somewhere doesn’t quite match reality.

The longer we travel, the more I realise people are often reviewing their own expectations as much as the hotel itself.

Hotel reviews tell you less about the hotel than the person writing them.

If you enjoyed this, you might like the below too…

One Last Push

My legs tighten. One last push. Over another bump in the gravel and the climb finally gives way, opening out into a plateau. A stretch of green rice fields ahead, the sun catching on the flooded plains. Zebra doves make their mechanical whirring sound overhead as a worker in a conical hat walks past.

It feels like I’m in a film. And yet, somehow it is exactly as you’d expect it to feel in a place like this. Early morning mist lifting above the tree line. Mount Rinjani sitting behind it all, fixed against a big blue sky.

Mount Rinjani looming large, Tetebatu.

We cycle through small villages where children run out to greet us. Smiling and waving with the kind of enthusiasm you don’t question at that age.

Back into the fields and another scene opens up. A narrow dirt path raised between paddies, water on either side. Palm trees line the horizon. A small thatched house sits just ahead. A woman walks along the path, and it stops feeling like a film set, to something lived.

The tempo is slow, meandering, but deliberate. Getting lost feels like the point. There’s always the sense that something might appear just around the next bend.

Tetebatu rice fields, Lombok, Indonesia.

Eventually, we reach Hideaway Coffee - a name that, for once, doesn’t overpromise. It’s tucked away along a narrow pathway off the main road. Past more rice fields, through the edge of someone’s yard, a hen and her chicks scattering as we pass.

We leave the bikes at the top of a steep hill. Where a sign announces we are at the Hideaway, yet it’s nowhere in sight (appropriately). Narrow dirt steps cut through thick greenery. A short walk, a bamboo bridge, and then it opens out into a clearing with terraced levels where the eclectically furnished café sits, blending into its natural habitat. It feels like a natural end point.

We sit with coffee and pick up a book from a nearby shelf about why humans evolved to have a brain.

I look up from the page for a bit and take it all in.

Hideaway cafe - living up to its name.

If you enjoyed this, you might like the below too…

Strong Women - Sukarara weaving village

After enough time on the road, travel stops being about places and starts becoming about perception. Not what you see, but how it rewires what you thought you knew.

I’ve felt that in many places and I felt it last in Sukarara, a weaving village in Lombok, where our driver pulled in on our way to Tetebatu - rice country.

Lombok is a predominantly Muslim island and before coming here I carried a loose, untested assumption. That women would be less visible. More hidden. That life would feel, in some way, constrained.

It didn’t take long for that to fall apart.

Our guide - Rihanna

We were shown around by our host, who introduced herself as Rihanna. Around her were Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, J.Lo, Ariana Grande. Not names given to them, but names they had chosen themselves, worn lightly, almost as a joke shared with the world passing through.

We pass outside a small house with a structure full of looms, sitting alongside a small platform where one of the village women (Ariana Grande) sat tirelessly working away, methodically building patterns with cotton and silk.

Nearby, Taylor Swift sits upright at the loom for hours each day, even in the heat of noon. Bamboo dowels clack softly as she works, adjusting the pattern thread by thread. It’s precise, repetitive work.

Intricate hand weaving in action by Ariana Grande

Even here, in the middle of it, she turns to my wife and asks if she knows Adele personally, after finding out we are from England. When she says no, Taylor Swift laughs and starts singing anyway - Someone Like You. Just the chorus. The two of them sing it together, half serious, half joking, while a pair of chickens wander past across the dry, dusty ground.

The loom doesn’t stop and the rhythm holds.

At one point, one of the older women (no stage name provided) tells me her niece wants to go to university. It’s too expensive. Schooling, she explains, doesn’t always stretch as far as ambition here. She hopes that might change.

She says it simply. Not as a complaint. Just as a fact.

It stays with me. Not as a judgement of the place, but as a contrast. A reminder of the things I’ve taken for granted. Of how differently life can branch depending on where you begin.

What struck me most wasn’t that this overturned everything I thought about Islam or Indonesia. It didn’t. That would be too neat. Too easy.

Sukarara weaving village, Lombok, Indonesia

But it did challenge the version I’d been carrying.

Because what I saw wasn’t oppression, or at least not in the way I had imagined it. What I saw were women with agency, organising, joking, hosting, holding the space. Visible in it. Comfortable in it.

Strong, not in a dramatic sense, but in a steady, everyday way.

It didn’t rewrite the whole story. But it changed the tone of it.

And that, more than anything, feels like the real gift of travel.

If you enjoyed this, you might like the below too…

The Third Space

Having a third space is having a place outside of your home, or workplace, to convene or relax. It might be purposeful, like a pub or a café. Or it could be something less obvious, like a park or a beach.

During my time in the Philippines, I’ve found it more difficult to write. That may well be natural - a trough, a kind of writer’s block. Then I was ill, which disrupted the best part of a week…Not exactly a fertile environment for creativity.

But even accounting for that, I think the biggest reason comes back to the idea of a third space.

CYC Beach, Palawan. A would-be third space?

Of course, the Philippines has many of the things I’ve mentioned before. But none of them have yet felt like mine in the same way they have elsewhere. The beaches, particularly around the more popular parts of Palawan, often feel utilitarian. Places designed to serve movement. Boats coming and going, ferrying people out to the natural beauty that sits just beyond, out at sea.

They are gateways, rather than places to settle.

A cafe in Coron Town - a perfect spot

This isn’t a woe-is-me reflection from a privileged position. It’s simply an observation. Our environments shape us more than we tend to acknowledge. What appears exotic and beautiful on the surface doesn’t always translate into creativity or clarity, if the conditions to properly be present, to reflect, aren’t quite there.

The third space is that condition.

It’s a kind of safe haven. A regular café at home, or a one-off walk through a park while travelling, they serve the same purpose. A temporary removal from the noise of everyday life, whatever that life happens to be.

A freeing of burden. An unravelling of thought. And, perhaps most importantly, a chance to be at ease with yourself.

The Bay of Bacuit

If you enjoyed this, you might like the below too…

Seen From Elsewhere

On a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Cebu, I look down and spot a cluster of small tropical islands off the coast of Borneo. All green jungle, ringed by white sand and clear turquoise water.

I wonder who is there, what it might be like. Within seconds I feel a pull towards them, stronger than anywhere else, despite having been unaware of them less than a minute before.

Tropical beach - Palawan, The Philippines.

The following day I’m lying still on my back in the sea. Clear water, white sand behind me, thick jungle beyond. A group of swifts circle overhead. Then a plane cuts across the sky, and I’m taken back to 24 hours earlier.

Here I am now, in a place not so different from the one I’d looked down on with envy, but on the other side of it. I start to wonder who is on that plane, where it’s going, what they’re seeing below. Whether someone up there has just added somewhere new to their list.

The view hasn’t changed. Only the position.

An aircraft above - a shift of perspective

If you enjoyed this, you might like the below too…

Sri Lanka - Beauty & Discomfort

The ceiling fans whip above our heads at an alarming rate, trying to keep pace with the mid-afternoon humidity as those of us sampling afternoon tea on the veranda at the Amangalla Hotel in Galle attempt to tread the fine line between refinement and simply keeping cool, all while downing cups of hot tea.

It is a slightly nostalgic afternoon for a period of time of which I have no living knowledge. Anemoia, to quote my musician friend Yarni.

The building itself has lived several lives. Once the headquarters of the Dutch East India Company, later Galle’s first hotel under British rule, and now a quietly polished luxury stay.

Like many places on the island, Sri Lanka still carries clues of its European colonial past.

Old world luxury - Amangalla Hotel, Galle

In Pettah, a red post box inscribed with GR for King George sits almost unsuspectingly beside a bald car tyre filled with concrete. Even the humble custard cream, that quiet mainstay of the British biscuit tin, is readily available in supermarkets.

But the story here is not solely British.

At Geoffrey Bawa’s Colombo residence and at his country estate at Lunuganga, outside influences appear in more considered ways. Less in your face Mini Cooper energy, more quiet synthesis.

Born to a Sri Lankan father and Dutch mother, Bawa began life as a lawyer before turning later to architecture. What he left behind feels deeply deliberate. There is no pastiche here. No attempt to impose European forms wholesale onto tropical ground.

Instead, Bawa allows the space itself to do the work. Clear sightlines. Considered light. A calm sanctuary designed for thinking and for living.

His trophies are different too. Murano glass. Indian artwork. Fragments gathered from across the world and absorbed rather than imposed.

Geoffrey Bawa’s Lunuganga residence

Sri Lanka today feels like a country steadily finding its own feet. After years of internal strain, a modern identity is forming, unevenly but visibly.

Nowhere is this more apparent than along the southern coast, where development and tourist appetite sometimes appear to be outpacing the infrastructure beneath them. Hastily built beachside accommodation sits beside small local shacks selling fruit, snacks, or lottery tickets.

And then an Ashok Leyland bus roars past, and the old world briefly returns once more.

Workers at the Dambatenne Tea Factory

Travel a couple of hours north of the beaches of the south coast and you reach the tea country at Uva. Another relic of the past, where the country’s first commercial tea bushes were planted by the British. By the early twentieth century, the vast estates that remain today were already in place.

A visit to Dambatenne tea factory, built in 1890 by a Scot, Thomas Lipton, furthers this feeling of the old world. Not only is the factory still standing, but much of the British-made machinery within it remains in operation. Our tour guide was incredibly keen to show these off to ourselves, from the UK.

However, here too, the stark contrasts of Sri Lanka loom large as workers tirelessly labour in questionable conditions for the equivalent of around £3.60 a day. A reminder that cosplaying with nostalgia has very real downsides for those in the thick of the reality of real life.

It isn’t only ornate architecture, beautiful design and tea-drinking rituals. There is a real human element at play, one where people are exploited today just as they were back then.

Tea plantation worker in the hills near Ella

It makes me think about how morally difficult it can sometimes feel being a tourist. The natural curiosity and delight of catching a glimpse into a time you didn’t experience; often via small, real-time moments, albeit in modern clothes and modern technology - sits awkwardly beside an awareness of the hardship faced by others.

The balance between bringing much-needed outside money and avoiding the temptation to turn a day trip into a photoshoot of poverty.

Most people don’t like to be uncomfortable when they travel, but perhaps discomfort is an unavoidable part of seeing the world honestly. Something to learn from, to grow from and to try and affect positively, in your own little way. An opportunity to appreciate beauty whilst also recognising and respecting the difficulties that others live with every day.

As Anthony Bourdain once put it:

“Travel is not always pretty. It is not always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you.”

Railway relics from another era

*All photos used were done so with the permission of those photographed*

If you enjoyed this, you might like the below too…

Look At The Plates

When travelling, there’s a long list of advice people give about how to find a good place to eat:

• Eat where the locals eat

• Avoid menus with photos

• Look for short menus

• Check Google & Trip Advisor reviews

• Avoid restaurants with someone trying to pull you inside

All of that can be useful. But there’s another signal that’s quieter and surprisingly reliable.

Look at the plates.

A hallmark of quality - flowery plates. Koh Kood, Thailand.

If the plates are old, patterned and slightly mismatched, you’re usually in the right place.

Not modern white restaurant plates - this can be a red herring. Not colourful crockery. Not uniform stoneware chosen by an interior designer. The good places often have plates that look like they’ve been there forever.

Floral prints. Gold rims slightly faded. Different patterns mixed together. The sort of plates that feel like they might have come from someone’s grandmother’s cupboard.

Veronese bollito misto - Locanda Castelvecchio, Verona

And that usually means something important. It means the restaurant probably wasn’t designed first and cooked in second. It grew slowly and reliably. It’s probably been serving food long enough that the plates have simply accumulated over time.

Places like this tend to prioritise; home cooking, regular customers, continuity. They don’t generally do it as a concept, branding, or pure aesthetic.

Bowls of goodness in good bowls, Kuala Lumpur

Of course, pre-planning for this is not always possible. Sometimes you only notice the crockery when the food arrives and the plate lands on the table. And when that moment does come, it often brings a quiet feeling of relief. You sit back comfortably in the chair and think, “Ah. This is going to be good.”

If you enjoyed this, you might like the below too…

Paradise Isn’t Always Quiet

A loud rumble of a vehicle passes close to my right side as I walk along the dusty, dry street, narrowly avoiding uneven slabs of pavement and stepping over open drain covers.

Welcome to the hustle of southern Sri Lanka. A place where beautiful seas and beaches sit in uneasy tandem with the overcrowded coastal road. Where nature is in direct competition with humanity’s relentless pursuit of growth at all costs.

A simple walk to the shop for water often turns into an assault course for the senses. A Leyland Ashok bus hurtles through town at unnecessary speed, brushing the already heavy air across your body with even greater intensity, as a seemingly endless fleet of tuk tuks passes by asking if you need a ride.

After almost two weeks away, the prospect of returning to the beach brings a flicker of excitement.

It doesn’t last long.

Ashok Leyland Bus - A Sri Lankan menace

I’d read the beach would be busy with people drawn by the turtles, but I hadn’t expected quite this. Masses of people huddle around the giant animals at the shoreline, lured in by food bought from beach vendors and tossed into the shallows. Visitors crowd around, phones raised, inappropriate poses readied and edging closer and closer.

On one occasion my wife pulls a plastic bag (used for the aforementioned food) from the water, left drifting where a turtle might easily have swallowed it. Nearby, she gently but firmly tells a woman to stop pushing one of the animals for a better photo.

It feels wrong. Upsetting. A little hollow.

A circus, not the quiet encounter with wildlife I had imagined.

It reminds me that travel isn’t always soft edges and easy beauty.

Relaxation at Ahangama Secret Beach

Two days later we finally find a beach that ticks the most important boxes: quiet, safe and calm. We decompress almost immediately. Each sip of the chilled king coconut from the nearby beach hut a literal tonic to the heat exhaustion. 

The repetition of sea-sunbathe-sea-hydrate becoming a seductive mantra for relaxation and unwinding. The day passes slowly and upon returning to the main road, there’s almost a feeling of the outside world being one of calm. And then it hits you again - the offers of a tuk tuk ride, hurtling blue buses and weaving mopeds. The sea breeze is behind you and it’s a race back to the comfort of the air conditioned room for respite.

The cycle continues for a few days and we settle into a nicely compromised daily ritual. Morning light and walks. A cafe. Then to the beach before returning for a rest and then braving the busy streets once more for our evening meal.

Respite at The Kip, Ahangama

We depart the south coast and head to Udawalawe National Park and the following day take a safari. 

Our jeep crawls through winding jungle roads past tropical birds and groups of monkeys who look like that incredibly ugly bloke we all know. Over bumpy tracks into vast watery plains with colourful peacocks and gurning water buffalo (there’s the ugly man again!).

And finally, the king of Udawalawe. The elephant.

We see a few lone males and small family groups along the way, but nothing beat the final roll of the dice when we turned down a quiet back road and stumbled upon a small herd eating and bathing in the muddy water.

Total bliss just sitting in silence. The only sound being the spraying of water and mud onto their hot brown skin, watching these beautiful creatures go about their day peacefully from touching distance. 

And at that moment I realise just how much noise we had been carrying inside and what paradise really means to me.

Elephants bathing in the mud, Uduwalawe

If you enjoyed this, you might like the below too…

Pettah Go Early

Long before the crowds and chaos, there is a moment of calm. A stillness. An unexpected beauty.

My tuk tuk comes to an abrupt stop outside the Jami-Ul-Afar Mosque in Colombo’s Pettah district. It’s early on a Sunday morning and I am here to take some photos of this colourful area before it all gets too much.

The air is heavy following a downpour overnight. The clouds are thick and grey and puddles linger at the side of the road. I step over one to reach the relative safety of the pavement across from the ‘Red Mosque’, a jewel in Colombo’s architectural crown.

The road between me and the mosque is quiet. A few locals pass by and I’m conscious of their glancing looks as I pace up and down, trying to find my amateur photographer’s best angle to show off the beauty of the tiled building before me.

The ‘Red Mosque’. Jami-Ul-Afar, Colombo

While I do so, a small crowd approaches the mosque and I realise it’s a wedding photo shoot. I hang back and muster the confidence to take a photo of the happy couple, stood outside the entrance. I watch on with no real purpose and then, after a short while, find the nerve to attempt a shot of the pair holding hands, through the window of a passing tuk tuk. I somehow manage it first time and I’m quietly thrilled that my fairly limited technical ability with a camera pays off.

I walk on and head to explore the surrounding streets. Down 2nd Cross Street it is still quiet, but things are beginning to stir as market vendors set up their stalls for the day. I have a clear view of the jumble of signs fighting for attention from the buildings lining the street, advertising everything from clothing, to watches, to baby items.

The happy couple through a tuk tuk

King George VI red postbox, Pettah.

I’m relieved I came early and have the bandwidth to take it all in without the crowds. This time of day is maybe my favourite for getting out and walking. Right on the cusp of things starting to happen and a sense of possibility and excitement for the day ahead. A literal awakening of the day.

At an intersection I spot a red King George post box and think briefly of home. As I turn around, I see yet another newlywed couple having their photos taken right in the middle of the street. I hold back to give them space and continue on along Prince Street.

Love amongst the chaos, Pettah. Colombo.

Market porter on the move. Pettah Market.

Market porters now pass with increasing regularity, pushing goods on large trolleys and dodging the big puddles. A Chinese tour group of photographers walks by and says hello as I duck into the small passageways off the main thoroughfare, marvelling at the vivid red signs and retro typography.

Then I notice my smugness beginning to fade. I’ve made the rookie error of not checking my camera battery before setting off.

I loop back towards the mosque via 1st Cross Street. An old lady walks ahead of me, framed by towering yellow cranes at the nearby port. I’d almost forgotten I was by the sea, but being out at this time has given me the space to observe and to settle back into myself.

My camera battery finally dies and I hail a tuk tuk. It winds its way through the ever-busier streets as traffic begins to build and another day properly starts.

The smugness, briefly lost, has returned.

The towering yellow cranes of the port

If you enjoyed this, you might like the below too…

Fruit, Heat, Repeat

It’s hot and humid and we are stood uneasily inside a badly lit shop. Sharp knives are carelessly left on any flat surface that can be found. A large spider crawls up a wooden beam directly behind my wife and settles, part-camouflaged beneath a heap of pineapples. There’s a bucket of discarded leaves, skins and chopped ends of fruit rotting away as flies circle its circumference.

Welcome to the fruit stall.

Since travelling we’ve become attuned to what’s in season and what each place does best, and have subsequently spiralled into some kind of unnamed fruit addiction. One that now quietly drives the intent of our days.

In Thailand, mango is king. A serving at breakfast with yoghurt. A mango smoothie with lunch to cool off after a day at the beach. The ubiquitous mango sticky rice from a street vendor, shared as dessert from a plastic tray.

Mango smoothies, Koh Kood - bliss!

Dragon fruit, with its otherworldly shape and bright purple flesh speckled with black seeds. The tartness of passion fruit, enough to awaken the sleepiest mid-afternoon lull. Pineapple with its thirst-quenching sweetness.

Visiting a street market in the evening and grabbing a fruit smoothie for around 50p, freshly made in front of you, is now one of life’s simple pleasures. The quiet corner in a pub temporarily dethroned by a plastic stool in a makeshift seating area alongside endless rows of parked scooters.

Galle fruit market, Sri Lanka

In Sri Lanka, mango is readily available, but it’s much more floral in flavour. Something to be savoured rather than devoured.

Banana dominates here. Hanging from every nook and cranny of a stall. Big ones, little ones and even red ones. Sweeter and creamier than those I’m used to at home. A visit to the fruit vendor here often results in a free sample pressed into your hand as you navigate the busy streets.

Daily fruit stall rituals

Back at the fruit stall, the elderly Sri Lankan man is hacking away at a papaya, revealing pale orange flesh that reminds me of the hues of the sun setting over the Indian Ocean. The dark brown seeds are scooped away and forgotten. Eating the cool papaya feels like the perfect antidote to the most humid of days.

The stall holder hands us our clear plastic bag of fruity goodness, sticky to the touch. We pay and dodge our way back past a mound of bananas on the floor.

Another deal done. Another bag of tropical goodness secured.

The daily ritual of the fruit stall isn’t always pretty, but it is always rewarding.

If you enjoyed this, you might like the below too…

Setting Sun

Each day, everywhere in the world, the sun will set (extreme solstice points notwithstanding). Sometimes it’s visible, other times it’s hidden behind a thick blanket of overcast sky. On the motorway, outside your home, or at the beach. Often in places you’ll never return to.

The busyness of day-to-day life usually makes most of us forget this daily occurrence. Travelling allows permission to stop, and quite often provides the perfect canvas for the sun to project its palettes of reds, oranges, pinks and purples onto the most beautiful landscapes.

It becomes part of the daily rhythm around which all other activities revolve.

“Shall we eat before, during, or after?”

“Accompanying beer, or not?”

“Are you taking your camera?”

Sunset in Koh Kood

My favourite sunsets are, unsurprisingly, by the sea. The reflective glow, the ever-changing tones on the glistening water as the sun gets progressively lower.

In Sicily, sat on the balcony of an Airbnb in Ortigia, it felt theatrical. Swallows murmurating above in a large mass of black specks, a fishing boat crossing the sun on the water as it headed back to the harbour. A glass of zibibbo in one hand, a fork loaded with fresh fennel and sardines in the other.

A sun set in serenity. Ortigia, Sicily.

In Koh Kood, sunset arrives quietly, as beach revellers reluctantly filter off home, leaving the odd person to swim in the cooling sea. A group plays volleyball, seemingly unaware of the spectacle behind them. Others cradle an ice-cold Chang and look out to sea, hypnotised by the changing of the day.

Wherever you may be, sunsets don’t ask anything of you. They don’t care what you’re doing. There’s no judgement, no measure of your performance, no requirement that you have everything figured out. They simply come and go, reminding you that today is all but done.

Bang Bao beach, Koh Kood, Thailand.

And that’s somehow comforting. A reminder that endings can be gentle, even when your life is in transition.

The sun sets not as a conclusion or a performative display. Just as a pause. Tomorrow it rises once more, and we do it all again.

If you enjoyed this, you might like the below too…

Pizza, Oh Dear

I interrupt my usual travel writing (no, this is not a travel blog) with something closer to home.

Pizza.

Or more specifically, the endless wave of pizzerias now blighting the UK, spreading across cities like an unstoppable beige tide of sourdough, San Marzano tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella.

This week in Sheffield, where I’m from, a new opening arrived in the city centre: Forbici. Already operating in Manchester, it has now headed over the Pennines, bringing yet another Neapolitan-style offering to a city already flooded with them.

And it made me wonder: is there any limit to this copy-and-paste way of feeding people?

The ubiquitous pizza napoletana

Sheffield, of course, is behind London, which at least now has a more diverse range of pizza sub-genres. London has moved on to Roman slices, New York folds, Detroit trays (admittedly there are also a couple of these in Sheffield), Chicago deep dish, New Haven cult imports, and whatever people are currently calling “London style”.

Sheffield, meanwhile, is still stuck in the mid-2010s hype cycle of all things Naples.

Back to Forbici, though, who have perhaps realised that the Steel City doesn’t exactly have a shortage of pizza napoletana already. And instead of marketing themselves on the familiar holy trinity of best dough, best tomatoes, best mozzarella, they appear to have opted for a slightly more bizarre left-field approach.

Their angle is this:

Come here… because you cut your pizza with scissors… Forbici also translating to scissors, in English.

Apparently, this is the Neapolitan way - Here was me thinking the Neapolitan way was either folding it up portafoglio style and eating it on the street, or sitting down with knife and fork, slightly burned fingertips and a look of mild superiority.

In Sheffield, the world leader in manufacturing blades, perhaps the scissors are the most locally authentic part of the experience?

If anything embodies the sheer mass of identikit Neapolitan pizza options now boring many UK cities, it is surely this.

My first question is: why would anyone care about the method of cutting pizza?

People have been managing perfectly well for decades. Entire generations have survived without artisanal scissors. I admit I’ve even used them at home myself, on the rare occasion I buy a supermarket pizza for the oven. It works. It’s fine. It’s not exactly a culinary revelation.

My second question is: how sustainable can this kind of marketing possibly be?

A restaurant built on kitchen scissors feels unsustainable. What happens when the novelty wears off? Do they move on to machetes? Hedge trimmers?

Ironically, their pizza does look very nice. I’m sure it tastes very good. I have no issue whatsoever with Forbici.

My issue lies elsewhere.

A refreshing change - pizza romana al taglio

It’s the lack of imagination. The sense that outside London, the dining scene has largely become trapped in a loop: the same concept (see also, smashed burgers), the same aesthetic, the same language, the same slightly reverential obsession with Naples, repackaged again and again with some small gimmick taped on top.

And perhaps I’m being snobby. Perhaps I need to loosen up.

But I can’t help feeling it’s a slightly sad reflection of where we are that hype for a new opening is now generated not by flavour, or originality, or even atmosphere…but by the utensils.

All that being said, I know full well that the next time I’m back in Sheffield, I’ll be yearning for one of Napoli Centro’s Maradona-stamped pizza boxes making its way to my door.

Pizzeria… Pizza, oh dear.

Pride of place - Diego Armando Maradona

If you enjoyed this, you might like the below too…

A Change of Pace

I am now in Koh Kood and arriving here has been a change of pace.

After the bustle of Bangkok, and the constant movement of travelling through Australia, it is comforting to be spending a couple of weeks in one spot. To wake up without needing to think too far ahead. To let the days arrive as they are.

The good life: sunset at Bang Bao beach

Decision fatigue can creep in, even in the fortunate circumstances of travel. Eating out is a perfect example for us. In every new city, we seem to accumulate lists as long as our arms: places we’ve saved, restaurants we’ve read about, spots we don’t want to miss.

And then comes the strange work of it all. Checking menus. Opening hours. Availability. Mapping it onto the shape of the day. In bigger places, even dinner starts to feel like logistics and a chore.

I’m not complaining. We love it, genuinely. Seeking out the revered little trattoria, the neighbourhood bistro, the place that everyone swears is worth it. But after weeks of living that way, it becomes tiring in a way you don’t always notice until it lifts.

Only since arriving in Koh Kood have I felt that weight fall away.

Here, the choice is simple. Two or three places nearby, all serving good food, all more or less the same. The decision is made on mood rather than optimisation. You eat where you feel like eating. And that simplicity is oddly refreshing.

It’s a small reminder of how much quieter life is now.

Living out of a 47-litre backpack reduces the noise also. It narrows the options. It makes the essentials clearer. That doesn’t mean I want to live forever with so little, but it has shifted something in me: a renewed appreciation for how little is actually needed, and how much freedom there is in less.

I used to think freedom meant more options. More possibility. More control. But I’m starting to suspect it might be the opposite. Freedom might be fewer decisions, fewer distractions, and the ability to simply be where you are, without needing to maximise it.

A simple meal that will literally put a smile on your face

If you enjoyed this, you might like the below too…

Unfamiliar Familiarity

Familiar unfamiliarity is often a feature of travel.

A trip to New York turns a lifetime of television and film into reality. Manhattan becomes a walking set of “wasn’t this in…” and “isn’t that where…”. Paris and Rome carry a different kind of recognition, the inherited romanticism of the Seine or the Trevi Fountain, places we feel we already know long before we arrive.

Sydney offers those picture-postcard moments of familiarity upon first visit too. The Harbour Bridge, so often a backdrop to New Year’s Eve news stories, watched from afar while the Australians celebrate and you wait for the clock to crawl round to that mate’s house party back home. The Opera House, a view seen a thousand times and in-person, as is often the case, appearing smaller than you first imagined.

Sydney Opera House and a camera friendly seagull

But Sydney offers something else, something deeper and more disarming, particularly for a British visitor.

Not only do you hear British accents everywhere and Aussies drive on the left, but there are quieter clues too. Street names and statues regularly nod to Britain’s past. Queen Victoria in particular is everywhere, watching over parks, squares and civic buildings.

Then there are the streets themselves. Much of the architecture can feel uncannily close to home, especially on a wet day, when the light dims and the air turns heavy.

Elevated Aussie take on a terraced house

A walk along Liverpool Street (there we go again…) brings to mind Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester, a comparison that will no doubt upset several corners of the North West at once. The area around Kings Cross (oh, one more) echoes the seedier edges of Leicester Square. An evening walk after dinner in Paddington (ok, this is getting daft now…) provides an Australian take on the quaint terraces of Notting Hill.

The familiarity can become confusing, almost disorientating. Enough so that you find yourself seeking reassurance in small rituals. A pub. A pint. Australians, it turns out, do pubs exceptionally well, serving proper pints in proper glasses, often with the option of a pie, or a roast dinner alongside.

A Sydney boozer whose exterior reminded me of one you’d find at some UK seaside town.

Of course, this is not what visiting Australia is really about. But there is comfort in being on the other side of the world, in a subtropical climate and still being able to find a bacon sandwich. Familiarity, it seems, has travelled a very long way.

If you enjoyed this, you might like the below too…

Byron Bay

The sun rises above the horizon, spilling gold across the sea and over the hundreds of pilgrims gathered at the Byron lighthouse. A middle-aged Italian man begins singing the opening lines of My Girl by The Temptations. Not an obvious soundtrack for a warm, cloud-free January morning, but a welcome one nonetheless.

Long before the sun appears around 6am, the streets of this small but famous New South Wales beach town are already alive. People of all ages run, walk and cycle through the quiet roads. Being outdoors and connected to nature feels like a default setting here, something that comes up again and again, and one of the reasons Australia, and Byron Bay in particular, feels so appealing.

Byron Bay lighthouse

Early morning sunlight has well-documented health benefits. It helps switch off melatonin, boosts serotonin activity, and supports mood, emotional resilience, and metabolism. I have always been more of a morning person, but time in Byron Bay deepened that connection to rising with the sun and getting outside as soon as possible.

Back home, mornings were often something to get through rather than enjoy. Coffee drank quickly, social media checked too early, the day already half spent before it had really begun. Here, mornings feel like an invitation rather than an obligation. Nothing is waiting for me except the light.

Good weather and beautiful surroundings help, of course, but a week of this routine left me feeling noticeably more energised, more positive, and sleeping better too. I notice it most in the afternoons. The familiar slump never quite arrives.

Sunrise at Byron Bay

Beyond the beach, Byron’s neighbourhoods unfold in quiet, tree-lined streets. Weatherboard houses sit lightly on their plots, all timber and verandas. Cafés and bakeries appear almost incidentally, corners rather than destinations, serving excellent coffee and improbably good pastries to people still in flip-flops or running gear. Nothing feels overdesigned. It is interesting in the way places become beautiful when they are lived in properly.

Health and wellbeing are a constant presence here. The stereotypical Australian instinct to be active is hard to ignore, especially around the beach, where it is striking how few overweight people there seem to be. Surfing, another well-worn cliché, is everywhere, but with a far broader cast than expected. Small children, older men, young women, and the archetypal surfer bro all share the same waves with little fuss or hierarchy.

Surfers at Tallow Beach

Australia also appears to have a refreshingly relaxed relationship with class. Byron Bay is sometimes described as “posh” or “stuck up”, which likely says more about the observer than the place. Anyone familiar with the UK’s deeply ingrained class consciousness would struggle to see much of that here. Even amid the wealth of Byron, there is an air of egalitarianism that is hard to miss.

As with most great places, however, it is the natural world that truly steals the show.

Tropical birds make sounds you usually only hear in David Attenborough documentaries. Koalas sleep lazily in eucalyptus trees while tourists peer hopefully into the canopy above. The koalas barely acknowledge the attention. Curled into themselves, they sleep through the excitement, entirely uninterested in being seen.

Dolphins are visible from the coastal path, just offshore in turquoise water. Lunch at Beach is accompanied by an unexpected sighting of a pod of whales a few hundred metres out to sea, as we tuck into the ubiquitous Moreton Bay bug. No sharks during our stay, thankfully, though a tree snake, luckily non-venomous, pops out to say hello as we check in to our Airbnb.

By the time we leave Byron Bay, waking early no longer feels virtuous or productive. It simply feels normal. As though this is how days are meant to begin and life is meant to be lived.

If you enjoyed this, you might like the below too…

Rain…I don’t mind

Usually, a rainy day would put me in a bad mood. Perhaps surprising, given I come from the north of England, but it’s never something one really looks forward to, especially when travelling in the hope of sunny climes.

And yet, on this latest trip, I’ve noticed a shift in mindset. Rainy days no longer bring the same sense of mardiness they once did. Of course, they can be a welcome relief from the heat, but more importantly they feel like nature’s way of saying, have a day off.

A wet day means fewer possibilities. No long sightseeing loops, no afternoon spent lying on a beach, comatose under the sun. Instead, it gently forces your hand towards the quieter things. The life admin. The laundry. Sorting through the ridiculous number of photographs you’ve taken. Or finally sitting down and finding your rhythm with writing again.

Like life itself, even the most idyllic stretches have a gloomy day now and again. And while it’s never wise to ignore how we feel, rain has become a small reminder that time still passes, plans still shift, and there are often quiet positives to be found in moments that initially feel like a disappointment.

Sometimes, all you need is permission to slow down.

If you enjoyed this, you might like the below too…

Unfamiliar Kitchens

Eating out is one of the great joys of travel. I love food and I love trying as broad a range of things as possible, while away - ideally local and ideally seasonal. We spend a lot of time planning what and where to eat on our trips to make sure we experience the best and most authentic food a place has to offer.

Sometimes, though, it is nice to make use of the kitchen where you are staying and have a night in. A visit to the local market is always a must. It is one of the quickest ways to understand a place, its rhythms, its people, its priorities.

Then comes the kitchen itself.

A country kitchen at an Air BnB near Ragusa, Sicily.

Unfamiliar kitchens come with inevitable compromises. The blunt knife. The awful plastic chopping board, or worse, a glass one (which explains the blunt knife). An induction hob paired with a collection of pans that do not work on induction. Leftover salt and olive oil from previous guests. And, lurking at the back of the cupboard, the true heathen: balsamic glaze.

Cooking at home is an intuitive dance. Fridge to chopping board, to bin, to stove, back to the chopping board, then oven, sink, fridge again. A solid nine on Strictly. In an unfamiliar kitchen, this becomes the uncoordinated movement of a drunk uncle at a wedding. Where are the pans? Where did I put the garlic? Is this really the only knife they own?

Impatiently attempting to cook Swordfish an old outdoor grill

The fumbling intensifies if you decide to cook outside, or attempt to use an ancient wood oven. Spoilt by modern conveniences but instinctively drawn, like most men, to the primal appeal of cooking over open flames, you cannot resist. Hours are spent coaxing heat from wood and embers, trying to judge timings so that dinner does not quietly drift into midnight.

Serving presents its own challenges. No kitchen tongs. No proper serving spoon. Plates in questionable colour pallettes. Wine poured into a glass clearly designed for fizzy pop. It all pulls you out of your comfort zone, and somehow that is part of the appeal.

Once the frustration fades, you realise none of it really matters. A first-world problem, as they say. But it is a small and welcome reminder that travel is not all glamour and carefully curated feeds. Sometimes it is blunt knives, bad pans, and wine in the wrong glass. And somehow, that makes the experience richer, not poorer.

From an unfamiliar kitchen - nice ceramics and even some wine glasses, but a challenging cooking set-up

If you enjoyed this, you might like the below too…