Since we left the UK in 2013, Andrew and I have stayed in hundreds of hostels, hotels, guesthouses, apartments and Airbnb places. While some have been incredible, like our five-star honeymoon suite in Thailand, we’ve also stayed in some real dives and battled with bedbugs more than once. Here’s a look at five of the most unusual travel stays we’ve experienced to date, from a longhouse in Malaysia to a lavish London pig sit.
Lisbon, Ljubljana, Tallinn, Berlin… This month our heads are spinning with potential digital nomad destinations in Europe as we try to choose the perfect base to work from this autumn. With that in mind, this week we met up with our friend Alyson from World Travel Family, who was our Airbnb host at the very start of our 2013 trip in Port Douglas, Australia. At the time, Alyson was getting ready to travel the world with her husband and two boys and now runs hugely successful travel and homeschool blogs while exploring from a new base: Romania. So, what’s life in Romania like and how does the country shape up as a digital nomad destination?
It’s six am and a cat is prodding me. Now, I can hear the dogs rucking around downstairs followed by the insistent snorting of pigs in the garden. Yes, pigs. Welcome to our first London house sit of the summer! We’ve taken up temporary residence in a beautiful, leafy part of west London that we’d never in a million years be able to afford to really live in. Have I mentioned how much we love house sitting?
Want to know one of my biggest travel oversights? I’ve never been to Paris. Although it lies just across the channel from the UK and I’ve visited France many times, I’ve just never made it to the iconic capital. Since we’ll be heading back from Prague to the UK for Christmas, could this be the year when I finally get to fulfil my Paris wish list?
Hello from a very uncharacteristically warm UK! In fact, news channels have been declaring that we’re in the midst of a heat wave (or at least we were last week when I drafted this post). As always, it’s good to return to The Island for our annual summer visit, but future travels are never far from our minds. So, what are our plans for the rest of the year?
The sun is shining, the sky is blue and our cupboards are full of festive goodies. When we started 2016 we certainly didn’t expect to end the year back in Asia but here we are, spending Christmas in Chiang Mai after a year of intense highs and lows and many amazing travel experiences. Here’s our 2016 travel roundup and a look at the highlights from what turned out to be a rocky, yet transformative year.
After two days of exploring Bratislava, Slovakia’s Little Big City, we had some time on our hands. A quick map check revealed that we were just a hop, skip and a jump away from a brand new country: Austria. In fact, the capital Vienna lay just 60km away and would take only an hour to reach by bus. We couldn’t resist the temptation to get a taste of a new city, so we set off the very next day on our Viennese Whirl.
Our eight-week trip through Eastern Europe was one of my travel highlights of the year. Although we were on an extremely tight budget, we managed to save a lot of money by travelling by bus. This allowed us to visit five countries, eat loads of delicious food, and go crazy with sightseeing.
This summer we got our first taste of travel in Eastern Europe. Although we barely scratched the surface of the region during the eight-week trip, we crammed as much culture, history and delicious food into our adventure as we could. Our journey took us through UNESCO towns and turquoise seas in Croatia to sedate Slovakia and the heaving capital cities of Budapest and Prague. So, how much did our Eastern Europe trip cost us?
Prague. The word conjures up images of spiky gothic buildings, ancient stone bridges, towers, quirky statues and cobbled squares. I remember the cacophony of music that followed us around during our trip to Prague, as well as the screech of trams and the taste of cinnamon chimney cakes. My lasting memory is of the sun setting over the river with Prague’s hilltop castle glowing softly in the distance. How much did I love Prague? Let me count the ways.