How I had wanted to travel – My Story

Here I talk about my story of how I have wanted to travel since I was a child and the travel bug has still never gone away from me.

My first trip was when I went to Australia as 6 months old, my mother was 21 at the time and this trip to Oz was her late 21^st birthday present. Of course, I don’t remember much of it at that age, but I do remember my grandmother going over there quite a bit in the 80s and 90s bringing back koala bear cuddly toys I used to play with at her house as a child. These memories of Australia are the start of my cultural explorations and more about Oz will be detailed in later posts.

I also remember going to Disneyland Paris the moment it was first opened. I was about five or six., it was then called Euro Disney as child and I really enjoyed it. I even remember spending one birthday there surrounded by several Disney characters such as Chip and Dale who were my favourite Disney characters and Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Although not real characters, I still have an autograph book somewhere with their names in and plenty of photos from then too in my family photo albums. Obviously, things have changed a lot today but for a child in the 1990s, this was pure heaven. As I have got older, I now realise that the illusions and fantasies generated from the Disney brand have started to become reality when I see adverts on TV regarding Disneyland Paris and Florida’s Disneyworld. As a child you don’t realise it but as you get older you do and this was something I most certainly found out myself.

I also remember a trip to Ireland when I was about six or seven. I was staying with family in a caravan there near the beach in County Kerry. My best memory then was using a spade to scoop up the jellyfish the moment they were drifted onto shore by the waves. I wasn’t stung at all by them even though I did touch the surfaces of them on a few occasions. I also remember finding an entire mesh of crystal on the beach with my grandfather and managing to get some out. I still have the remnants today in my bedroom.

When I was only just 10 years old, I watched the travel series Full Circle with Michael Palin which was new out at the time and became a huge fan. I had also collected Palin’s other travel works and I had even met the man himself at a book singing in London’s Olympia as a 10-year-old in early 1998. My copy of the Full Circle book was signed, and I still have it in my bookcase even to this day. Thanks to Palin, I have been inspired by a lot of things travel wise over the years and I have a lot of ideas drawn from him I will mention in later posts.

In 1998, I became a huge fan of the FIFA World Cup at that time and this had broadened my horizons in what countries they had participated in. Even though I was only 10 then, I particularly became a fan of the South American teams, especially Argentina which I will explain in full much later in another post in the lead up to this year’s edition. All this made me realise that as I got older, I found out where those countries were by reading atlases and finding out more about them in the hope that they will one day be in my travel plans. More of the intended plans will be revealed in later posts.

At the age of 15, I started to go off the mainstream music in my country and had started to explore other territories instead. One of the major areas I had explored was music from other European countries and it was at a moment when I was switching over channels on my TV was when I had discovered the Eurovision Song Contest. Ever since that unexpected moment, this has changed my life in a big way especially as I was bullied badly at school and suffered from depression a lot as I grew up and I saw this as a way out for myself. More details about this will be discussed in later posts.

When I was 16, this was my first real big break travel wise. I went to Milan, Italy as part of an examination celebratory present and the first destination I have went to outside of both the UK borders and France. I really loved the city and I do intend to go back there one day. This trip was actually the start of my frequent travel with myself going to France on an end of year school trip with my then classmates and going to Germany to spend my 17^th birthday that year.

My first proper love for beach holidays came when I was approaching 18, when I went to the Algarve in Portugal for my 18^th birthday. I absolutely loved it there and was most certainly the most family friendly resort I have ever seen in my life. I didn’t even want to leave this place, so many gorgeous sandy beaches and pretty landscapes. I also went to Gibraltar then for a day trip too which was so unforgettable. So many macaque monkeys everywhere and I could even see Morocco from over the sea. I even still have my souvenir from there after all those years, a toy monkey with Welcome to Gibraltar on it which makes a noise when you press a button on it.

The first time I had went to a concert abroad was when I was 19, almost 20 when I went to Corfu, Greece to see a Greek musician whom I had began to learn more of since his appearance in the Eurovision Song Contest one year. His name was Sakis Rouvas, a really awesome and energetic male singer and it was from then on was when I had started to get interested in attending concerts. As well as in the UK, I have also been to Greece, Cyprus and Germany so far to attend them. I personally find concerts of foreign language artists very passionate and energetic. In fact, I moved on from mainstream artists many years ago which was the main reason the Eurovision Song Contest came into the picture, thus discovering many new artists in the process. My favourite music types are Greek, Balkan and Russian and I know a fair few artists from those regions, which I would absolutely love to see soon if I have the chance.  

Around the time I had started university in 2010, I had accidentally bumped into a random Thai restaurant when I was looking for something to eat in Fulham. I had later found out that the restaurant that I had ate in was called The Blue Elephant and there was only one of its kind in the UK at the time. It was expensive, but I was really impressed with the food, so much that I went in again and again. Eventually, it got too expensive to eat there every week and the restaurant had eventually moved to Imperial Wharf until it was closed down in London about 2 years ago now. So sad to see it go but this was my main inspiration in wanting to go to Thailand in the future. More will be detailed in future posts.

During my university years, I really did plan both my Thailand and Australia trips. But unfortunately, a few unpreventable circumstances had prevented this from happening in reality. First of all, my university schedules had eventually become too tight to plan anything like this which meant that many ideas have had to be scrapped as well as with the weather as I had found out that the best times to go had clashed with my university terms, so I have had to wait until my degree was completed before planning anything. My grandmother, who had passed away last year, had eventually became too incapacitated and ill to accompany me on this trip, thus had to find someone else to cover for me which took me a very long time to do, more will be detailed in a later post. 

Nowadays, I have a PA who would support me on my travels and my eventual aim, which wouldn’t obviously stop there, is to go to both Thailand and Australia. I am currently making steps into making this happen in the near future, so far so good and stay tuned on the upcoming developments.

This is my travel story, looking forward to hearing yours.