Travel stories for freedom chasers
Dealing with the rail system in India is, frankly, a total pain in the arse. Not only is obtaining tickets practically impossible, but every person employed within any kind of travel industry role (in Goa anyway) seems determined to make it as difficult as possible for you to get anywhere. The trains become full weeks in advance; the online booking…
Time in South Goa moves at a strange pace. Although the days pass in a languid haze, drifting by like dust motes caught in a shaft of bright sunlight, my time here has flown too quickly and now, suddenly, it is time to move on. As ever, I have at once too much and yet not enough time. I have…
Let 2014 be a year in which something big happens. Let it be a year of adventure; a year in which you think of something that scares you and you do it anyway because you can. Get out of the comfort zone. Climb a mountain, train for a marathon, swim in the ocean, make new friends and try new foods….
2013 has been a year of great change, of new beginnings and long awaited dreams coming true. The year I finally packed my backpack and got on a plane to the other side of the world, alone. A year of pain and joy and realisation. On the last day of 2012, I was at my parents house with my then…
Walking the dusty beach side road that separates Patnem beach from Columb Bay, I felt the sweat running between my shoulder blades as the midday sun beat down on my head. We had been wandering for a couple of hours, stopping at colourful concrete homes and roadside restaurants to speak to local families with houses to rent, in search of…
Last year, I published a fairly popular Christmas gift list for the design conscious traveller, which functioned as a kind of ultimate wish list of lovely things that I imagined would be great to have along with me. This year however, being actually on the road, my priorities have inevitably changed. Turns out that mini makeup kits hold less importance when…
I sit on the unfinished makings of a concrete balcony, the door to my home-stay room at my back. I can see rooftops, palm branches, the black silhouettes of crows darting between them. The days light is nearly gone, and below me in the winding alleyways people head home in the dusk, men on rickety bicycles and woman in paintbox…
The market was dark, smokey; the air so thick with flavours as to be almost indecipherable, charred fish and bright citrus and a low, steady hum of spice. All around our little group, vendors barked and chattered behind stalls piled with a cacophony of vegetables. Tomatoes burst with scarlet juice, fragrant kafir limes rolled in shallow wooden bowls and mushrooms…
