t is for travel
do you remember that old nursery rhyme 'monday's child'? well, i was born on a thursday, and my mum has always reaffirmed that means that i do in fact have far to go. i obviously took that literally, because rather than go out and get an education, amazing job and surround my life with wonderful things, i chose to travel the world... and instead experience wonderful things.
i've been lucky, really, to have seen a lot as a child. my mum is a teacher (for all intents and purposes), so always had the same school holidays as me. every year in the summer holidays, my mum and dad and i would pack up the car and the camper van, and head off somewhere new in australia. while all my friends were visiting their cousins and family around the outer suburbs, i was off discovering kakadu or the grampians or the great barrier reef or the great ocean road or the nullabor plain or uluru... i was spoiled for sights and stories, that's for sure.
my mum's family are all in new zealand. for as long as i can remember, we'd visit them or them visit us in alternate years. so, from a very young age, i'd already been on too many international flights to recall. i loved flying too, and mum says i was never a fussy flying baby. probably the only time i wasn't moaning... at 15, mum and i went to the states for three weeks. coast to coast, we vay-cayed in florida, california, hawaii and day tripped to mexico. we did all of the disney parks (at my mum's request, natch), and i forced her to take me to things that i knew from the tv (i really wanted to go to san fran to see the 'full house' house. we didn't go. boo!). i'd never seen such intense sights, as that of the concrete jungle that is downtown l.a, the derelict state that is tijuana, the obvious natural beauty that is honolulu. we swam with dolphins in hawaii, and were offered illegal drugs in mexico. it was all so surreal. being back home in small-town australia was tough.
i always dreamed of travelling after that. and since then, and since moving to the uk, i have been lucky enough to add another twelve countries to my previously tiny list of three. only twelve! i don't want to brag, so you can read a bunch of my stories here. there are still so many places i want to visit! i want to island hop in greece, to flail on a mountain top in salzburg, to see 'le mis' on broadway, to experience aurora borealis in iceland, see the kremlin in red square, to go to the christmas markets in berlin, lounge on a jamaican island, eat pasta in naples, visit the markets in istanbul... ugh, so many things. but the only trip we have planned this year is back home - my first trip back since december 2010. feels like i'm going backwards instead of forwards, but it'll be nice to reset, and start again. and, it is only a holiday!
all i need is a few more years, and an additional salary. or, travel journalism gig.
what's been your favourite destination? mine has to be...
