Explore the Heart and Spirit Behind Determined Traveller
So where did it all begin?
After a childhood of caravans and tents in soggy fields, adulthood brought package holidays with hotels and pools close to a packed beach. It seemed blissful for a while, a form of luxury, until I began to realise that one basic hotel is like another and a pool can be found all over the world. What did I see that was new? Where did I end up that was different? I realised that there was a world out there full of amazing things to see and I was sat reading a book. I could do that a home.
So, I went as a solo on organised tours to Thailand and Peru, terrified out of my life, completely out of my comfort zone and discovered the most amazing experiences of my life to that point. No doubt about it. I was hooked. A year later and my boyfriend, David, had been easily persuaded to become my travel companion. Mexico, Kenya and Tanzania and Brazil followed, each with amazing memories, before our honeymoon took us to China and Hong Kong. Each trip had it’s challenges. I have suffered with altitude sickness, a bad reaction to malaria tablets, upset stomachs, weeping sores from insect bites and a broken finger. Yet decades later, I can recall so much from each trip. The memories are still so clear.
Fast forwards a decade or so and the travels continued yet had had to change, with two small sons and a more limited budget. Package holidays returned for a time, through necessity I believed, but they never made brought the joy of previous adventures. I took a stand. I began to book transport and accommodation separately, discovering the flexibility of booking sites with cancellable options. A week in a hotel by a pool, began to have a nearby city break attached and I began to find the joy in planning holidays through the cold days of the winter months.
Forward to today, and at any one time, I will have several holidays planned, not all of which will ever be completed, though I intend to try. My husband has been told that if I die tomorrow, he must access my booking.com and cancel all my reserved bookings for the holidays he knows nothing about. I know that accommodation owners must hate customers like me- the ones who book and then cancel. But my holidays have got so complicated now, it is like a puzzle that has to be solved. Destinations and dates have to constantly be changed until they can be finalised. I cancel as early as I can, and many times, I have returned to book an accommodation that I have previously cancelled, for different trip. I love this planning. It is one of my most favourite things to do when I can’t travel.
So travelling has become an important part of my life- anywhere new, anywhere in the world and long may it continue. It occurred to me that my meticulous planning should not be defunct after the trip is done. A lot of time and effort has gone into getting it just right. If it is of interest to just one person, somewhere else, then they should have free access to it. Hence my new hobby- a travel website containing my plans and the evaluations of those plans. Learning how to create my own website is also part of the fun. It is going to take me some time to organise and upload everything so come back again and see what has been added.
Why “determined”?
Because travelling is not always easy, even when you are young and fit. Add mobility limitations and a neurodivergent brain and the challenges that travel brings increase.
But when you love to be anywhere new, to walk streets that you have spent the winter months walking down on Google Maps, when you get to visit the places from the photographs you have seen on the internet, the locations from your TV shows and the settings from your favourite books, you become determined that nothing will stop you even if it hurts.
And afterwards, you can’t wait to get planning the details of your next trip, although you already know where you will be going, because you have been planning it for years.