About

“let me live, love, and say it well in good sentences”

― Sylvia Plath

My name is Clare. Clare Louise Absolon, if you want the long version. It’s Clare without the ‘i’, because my staunchly un-Francophile father insisted on the traditional English spelling. No-one’s quite sure where Absolon comes from. There’s been suggestions that it originates in Hebrew, or possibly French. Either way, I’m grateful to it for two reasons; it never fails to spark a discussion with a stranger, and it made me first in the register at school for things like injections and sports day. Simply put, it made me unafraid to be the first, alone.

In 2013 I bought a one-way ticket to Bali, where I promptly met the man who later would ask me to marry him on a windswept beach on the Northumberland coast (that’s him above, if you were wondering who that guy was). I travelled, with him and then solo, for the next 12 months, and then it was time to go home. We moved to Manchester, I started a graphic design business online, and we plotted our next trip.

In January 2016 we left for Mexico, and we’ve been on the road since. Right now we’re calling New Zealand home, travelling around in our converted Toyota camper van Dolly, and house-sitting all over the country whilst I navigate running a business as a digital nomad.

THE BLOG

The Wayfarer Diaries is my journal, my place for telling stories. I collect memories, I always have; whether in a box of dusty photographs, the refrain of a long-ago song, a taste memory triggered by a particular flavour, or a collection of words on a page. This blog is a record of my long term journeys, and a collection of memories which I hope will entertain and delight lovers of aimless wandering, seeking the unknown, and the magic of the everyday.

Here you’ll find photo diaries from my adventures all over the globe, musings on life at home and away, off-beat guides to help you wander some of my favourite places, and stories. All kinds of stories. Stories of travel to faraway lands, and stories of the magic of coming home again. Stories about everything falling into place, and about everything falling apart. Stories about long train journeys through Burma and road-trips in the Scottish Highlands in winter, about catching tropical diseases in Thailand and climbing mountains in Nepal, about visiting a guru in India and living on a farm in New Zealand. Stories about food, and family, and the earth and the ocean.

 

And what is travel, really; or life for that matter, other than a collection of wild and precious stories?

 

 

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the wayfarer diaries travel blog

Travelgrams

  • Another moment captured of a place I'll never forget; sleeping beneath the palms on the edge of the most beautiful white sand beach, whilst the sky danced overhead. Pure magic.
  • Skipping into the bank holiday weekend like 💃
  • Ever since we met, sunsets have been something that we make an effort to do. We've watched sunsets across the world; sunsets in the Scottish highlands that melted from grey to pink to an inky black light show of constellations, sunsets in New Zealand that streaked all the trailing colours of the rainbow, sunsets in Goa that lit the entire sky on raging fire. On this day we climb steep stone steps from the beach to the pier, hot concrete beneath bare feet after a day baking in the sun. We walk out, hand in hand, to where the walkway falls off into the water and the sky melts like ice cream into peach and lemon and blueberry swirls above the silhouettes of distant islands on the horizon. We sip cold beers, brush white sand from our toes, and wait for the stars.
  • 🌴🌴🌴
  • Boats with long legs, painted bright blue and jade and sunshine yellow, skating across the surface of the water like pond beetles. Distant islands outlined on the horizon, floating in a dreamlike haze. And a few wisps of candy floss cloud suspended in the purest blue sky #wowphilippines

About

The Wayfarer Diaries is a place for stories, memories captured in journals, and tales of faraway lands. There are stories of the exotic and unfamiliar, as well as the intricate fabric of the everyday. It's about the beauty of the journey as much as the destination itself. Mostly it's about chasing adventures, of all kinds; whether across the globe or at home.

the wayfarer diaries travel lifestyle blog

Oh darling… let’s be adventurers

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