All posts tagged: travel

My Travel Bucket List

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Follow my blog with Bloglovin On the 5th of February 2016 (that’s pretty soon – eek) I’ll be heading out on the road for my round the world trip. I’ve spent a lot of time planning logistics, finances and other admin things like that, but I haven’t sat down and thought about what I want to get out of this trip. So I’ve reached down deep and come up with a bucket list of experiences I want from my travels… 1. Get a massage I have never had a massage (gasp), I know, shoot me! There are two reasons, one being I hate spending money on things I can’t see… like nice underwear, totally pointless to me. The other is, ewwwwww, stranger intimately caressing my naked body – I seriously don’t get enough action of that kind anyway, so my body isn’t used to it. My little sister LOVES massages, she’s obsessed, she even let a souk-keeper molest her in Marrakesh in exchange for a quick back rub (now that was funny) so they must …

The Atlas of Beauty Celebrates Diversity

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(Main photo.  Rio de Janeiro, Brazil by Michaela Noroc) Romanian photographer Mihaela Noroc‘s ambitious project The Atlas of Beauty aims to capture portraits of women from every country in the world, she’s already snapped girls in 37 countries and shows no signs of slowing. From Western Europe to Asia, North Africa, Scandinavia and the Caribbean Noroc shows us the vast diversity of women, and that it is all these differences that make each of us beautiful. As a mixed race, brown-skined child growing up in the UK in the 90s I felt so hideous because I was the polar opposite of all the thin, white and almost exclusively blond women in the media. These days we have beauties that break the mould like Beyonce, Kim Kardashian and Rihanna, but they still mainly adhere to Western ideals of beauty – so theres a way to go yet. These multi-coloured, multi-cultural portraits from around the globe make the runways and fashion magazines I read seem unbearably dull and bland in comparison. See the rest of The Atlas of …

Girl wearing matador hat

Don’t Tell Me to ‘Be Careful’…

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I’ve been planning my round-the-world trip for almost a year now, and without fail, the first thing anyone says to me when I tell them my plans is ‘Ooh, be careful’. Not ‘wow, that’s amazing’, ‘have fun’ or simply ‘why?’, always a warning about the dangers that await me out there in the big wide world. I have no proof but I could bet my bottom dollar that a male announcing a backpacking trip wouldn’t get the third degree. At first I wasn’t annoyed by all the negative ninnies but after the 100th time I just told the person expressing concern for my safety to f*ck off. It’s boring. It’s rude. It’s xenophobic actually. There are dangers everywhere, of course, but when someone tells me they’re going on holiday I don’t tell them that their plane could crash, they could get robbed or they could trip over, bang their head and die. If I did tell them that I’d be called many things, but definitely not caring. Though not the same, this faux-concern reminds me of …

Beauty Bits To Take in Your Backpack 

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There are the obvious things and then the not so obvious things…. A caveat to this article is that you may require different bits to me. You will certainly need more than the items on this list, but the lesson to take away from this, is to think outside the box. Just because someone has told you to take certain bits, you need to truly tailor your packing to you. If you have annoying baby hair and use a certain gel to tame them every day, than by Jove, take it with you (and a spare). If you have skin that burns particularly easily then take your favourite SPF, they might not have a high enough factor for you in Sri Lanka or wherever. So the following are examples but also represent a savvy way of thinking when it comes to beauty. Hairdressing Scissors Am I a hairdresser? No. Could I be? …Nooooo. Is my hair a bit mental? Yes! On a level, though, you’re not going to shell out for a haircut on your travels, …

Photographs of Coober Pedy, Australia by Abigail Varney

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I’ll be visiting Australia for the first time in a few months and alongside about 1000 other places, I really want to see the small town of Coober Pedy. A tiny town 800 miles north of Adelaide, it is home to fewer than 2000 inhabitants – some of them the indigenous Australians descended from the Nomadic peoples that lived there for centuries. Famous for being the main source of Opal gemstones in the world Coober Pedy is a place full of eccentricity and authenticity – due to the isolated location and small population. Melbourne-based photographer Abigail Varney has captured the town in a series of photos entitled ‘Rough & Cut’. They show the sun-bleached, almost desolate Coober Pedy in an eerie light, there are no inhabitants in the photographs to add to the sense of a forgotten land. It’s certainly a place like no other – definitely one for the bucket list! Rough & Cut by Abigail Varney

Movies to Get You In The Mood For Travel

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I’m currently in that wonderful (sense the sarcasm) no-man’s land of waiting to jet off on my one woman trip to the world. Of course waiting means saving, and saving means no shopping, no Pret and no beers down the pub lest I drink away my air fare. So, what’s a girl to do with all this spare time? Netflix and Chill TO THE MAX of course. Here are my top 5 flicks to whet your appetite for travel… The Beach Firstly… WHEN IS LEO GOING TO WIN AN OSCAR?! Seriously, give the guy an award already. Anyway, this early Leonardo Dicaprio movie, directed by Danny Boyle (Trainspotting) shows off the Thai backpacking experience wonderfully; the squalor, the noise, the new friends, new crushes, music, blue skies, blue seas, white sand… murder. Sorry for the spoiler. If you can watch the first three quarters of The Beach without wanting to book a one way ticket to Bangkok then you’re a stronger person than me. The Darjeeling Limited You’d have to be a cold-hearted, unromantic dullard to …

The 7 Best Money Saving Tips for Backpacking

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Chances are, you’re not that well off… don’t get offended, I say this as a fellow pauper. Also, in Sherlock Holmes fashion, I have deduced that if you were ‘in the money’ then you wouldn’t choose backpacking as your method of seeing the world. If I had the dough it would be Kardashian-type excursions to the Maldives, sippin’ on yak, and wearing Roberto Cavalli kaftans. As it stands, I’m a mere mortal; travel – even on a shoestring – requires cold, hard cash and quite a lot of it. So you’re going to have to save those pennies, something I have realised is hard, so here are some tried and tested tips to help you fund that trip. Please bear in mind that I’m from the UK and lived in London, one of the most expensive cities in the entire world, so my tips come from that perspective. If you’re an Ozzie or from the US or Western Europe you’ll still probably find they apply to you. 1. SET A GOAL Before you depart you …

Amazing Photos of Los Angeles and Coney Island

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Singapore-born US-based photographer Nguan describes his photographs as ‘ordinary fantasies’ which I think may be the most heartbreakingly perfect couplet of words I’ve ever heard. His projects ‘Coney Island’ and ‘City of dreams’ beautifully capture big city yearning in dreamy candyfloss hues. I love. Coney Island and City of Dreams by Nguan CONEY ISLAND CITY OF DREAMS