About

I’m a Cardiff-based writer who’s written for a number of magazines and digital sites, and spent years living in London.

In my professional life, I write about anything and everything, although it’s rare I get the opportunity to write about two of my favourite things: travel and food.

I’ve loved travelling for as long as I can remember, and try to get away as often as my money and holiday allowance will let me, which unsurprisingly, isn’t as often as I’d like.

I love that travelling gives me an opportunity to experience a different way of life and wherever I go, I like to immerse myself as much as possible in the local culture, read up on the history, learn about the customs, meet the people and try as much of the local cuisine as my body will let me.

I read anthropology at university and thoroughly enjoyed it, it was great fun and an endlessly fascinating subject.

It definitely piqued my curiosity about the world around us as I learned just how fantastically diverse Homo sapiens are – from the hundreds of tribes in Papua New Guinean to the polyandrous cultures of the high Andes and the Inuit tribes of the Arctic circle, human societies have evolved in all sorts of different ways.

This blog is my way of documenting where I go, what I experience and who I meet, whether at home or abroad.

Here are a few of my favourite travelling experiences so far, and that all-important holiday wishlist…

Favourite countries: Japan, France, Cuba, Spain, Vietnam, Jordan

Favourite cities: Petra, Boston, Tokyo, Prague, Naples, Edinburgh, Ho Chi Minh City, Venice, London and Kyoto

Favourite experiences:

• sleeping in swags (sleeping bags covered by a mosquito net) in the bush in Kakadu National Park, northern Australia
• seeing the Monastery in Petra and sitting drinking tea with the Bedouin on one of the highest points in the ancient city looking out over the incredible Wadi al Araba
• seeing elephants swimming across the Chobe River in Botswana
• trekking through the countryside around Viñales, Cuba and seeing traditional farming methods still in use
• seeing orangutans in the wild in Borneo
• exploring the caves under Buda in Budapest
• snorkeling in the Red Sea and seeing a turtle swim underneath me
• being handed raw bits of fish and shellfish to taste test before 7am at Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo
• kayaking in Halong Bay, Vietnam
• crawling through the Cu Chi tunnels in Vietnam
• going on a subterranean tour around Naples’s Roman aqueducts
• visiting Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe and flying over them in a helicopter.

Worst destination: Capri, Italy

Least favourite cities: Hartford, Connecticut

Worst experiences: Sleeping in a cold teepee in the middle of winter in Byron Bay, Australia, and spending a night on a sleeper train between Hanoi and Hue in Vietnam, only to wake in the morning to find my bed covered in mouse droppings.

Most embarrassing moment: Being wheelchaired out of the Art Gallery of NSW in Sydney, Australia by the very kind staff and driven to hospital with a swollen ankle. And the time a pigeon perched itself on my head at an outdoor cafe in Grasse, France and only realising when seemingly everyone in the packed square began laughing and pointing at me.

Scariest moments: Staying overnight in a creepy hostel in Hartford, Connecticut, and almost drowning in the sea in Cannes, France.

Most wanted destinations: Madagascar, Patagonia, Cambodia, New Zealand, Canada, Istanbul, Seville and Granada, the US west coast and Nashville, seeing gorillas and chimps in the wild in central Africa, and staying in an ice hotel in Sweden

If you’d like to keep up-to-date with my adventures in between blog posts, you can find me on Instagram @thislittleoldworld.