Ten Favourite Travel Memories from an Expiring Passport

I was sad to bid farewell to my old passport this week — not just because it was an EU one (*sob*) but also because the stamps inside remind me of the travel experiences I've enjoyed over the past decade. To highlight some of these wonderful memories, I decided to pick one photo from each year, and boy was that hard! (I cheated because the header image features an 11th photo!)

My Top 10 Travel Experiences of the Past 5 Years

Later this year, I am travelling to Peru, where I hope to cross another item off my bucket list: hiking the Inca Trail and visiting Machu Picchu. I'm really excited about the trip, which will be my first time in South America, and I couldn't help but look back on some of the other amazing travel experiences I've been lucky enough to have over the past few years. I hope some of these will inspire you with your own holiday planning for 2018 and beyond.

A Year in Leaps: 2017

2017 has been my busiest ever year for travel. I spent 84 days outside the UK on 12 foreign trips, some for business but most for pleasure. 30 of these days were spent on a sabbatical in Australia and New Zealand. I visited five new countries and ten countries in total: the Czech Republic (Prague); France (Paris and Cannes); Germany (Cologne); Italy (Padua); Norway (Oslo); Spain (Barcelona); the United States (New York, Boston, Cape Ann and Maine); Singapore; Australia; and New Zealand.

Bex's Food and Drink Awards: 2017 Edition

2017 has been a particularly fine year for coffee, food and cocktails for me, partly because I've travelled to diverse destinations with copious coffee and culinary delights. Remind me not to work on next year's list on an empty stomach: reviewing so many food and drink photos gave me quite the appetite!

How To Spend Four Weeks in Australia and New Zealand

I've only been back from my month-long trip to Australia and New Zealand for ten days and I'm already missing both countries. I blogged on the road about the places I visited — Australia here and New Zealand here but I also wanted to report back on my overall itinerary: where I stayed, how I got there and how I spent my time. I had 28 full days so this is a very long article. Brew yourself a cup of coffee before you dive in!

12 Specialty Coffee Spots To Visit in Wellington, New Zealand

After a couple of intense periods of specialty coffee consumption in Melbourne and Sydney, I reverted back to ‘normal’ levels until I arrived in Wellington, New Zealand. I had a number of local roasters and coffee shops on my list for the New Zealand capital, but I was also lucky that a coffee-loving Wellingtonian offered to show me around the city and its coffee scene. Lovely Tim (@coffeelater on Instagram) seemed to know almost everyone who works in coffee in his home city and introduced me to a number of the movers and shakers, for which I am endlessly grateful.

48 Hours in Auckland: Specialty Coffee, Food, Shopping and Things To Do

I came to Auckland three times during my fortnight in New Zealand, although only went into the city twice, for one full day each time. I was supposed to have an extra afternoon and evening the day I arrived from Sydney, but my Qantas flight was cancelled and rescheduled so I got in at 00:30 am rather than nine hours earlier. It was perhaps for this reason that I didn’t really take to New Zealand’s largest city the first time I arrived. I don’t like arriving in new cities after dark — and especially not at 2:00 am — and my late arrival meant I woke up late and grumpy on the following day.

Thrills and Chills in Queenstown, New Zealand

After a bit of culture — coffee and otherwise — in Wellington, it was time to get back into the great outdoors. I almost didn’t come to Queenstown, but everyone I spoke to told me I was mad to come to New Zealand and not visit the South Island, so I ended up booking three nights in the self-proclaimed ‘adventure capital’ of the world. There had been snow overnight — very late in the season as it’s almost summer — and the landing into Queenstown Airport was beautiful, with the mountain range known as The Remarkables looking particularly spectacular with more than a dusting of snow on top.

48 Hours in Wellington, New Zealand

As soon as the plane came over the mountains and landed next to the clear turquoise waters of the Cook Strait at Wellington Airport, I knew two days would not be enough time in New Zealand's capital. I fell hard for Wellington in a way I never really did with Auckland, although the latter has another day to win me over tomorrow. 

New Zealand North Island Road Trip II: Rotorua, Taupo, Waitomo and Hamilton

At the end of the first installment of my New Zealand North Island road trip, I had just arrived in Rotorua. Unfortunately, the beautiful sunshine of the Coromandel Peninsula shifted into grey skies and persistent rain that didn't stop until I left Rotorua three days later. I didn't let the weather get in the way of my enjoyment, though; having a car of my own also helped me to stay as dry as possible. Here's what I did in the second part of my road trip.

New Zealand North Island Road Trip I: Coromandel Peninsula

I commenced my first New Zealand trip in Auckland — later than planned thanks to Qantas incompetence — but I’ll be returning there before I fly home next week, so for now, I’m skipping ahead to the next section: a short North Island road trip. I rented a car from central Auckland (it was under $200 NZD for a Toyota Corolla for six days) and was soon heading south on State Highway 1. Here is what I got up to along the way.

My Antipodean Adventure: Four Weeks in Australia and New Zealand

I'm off travelling again today. Regular readers will know that this is hardly news for me; I tend to take one or two foreign trips each month. This one is special, however. I will be away for a whole month, which is the longest I've been able to take off work at one time since I started my career in publishing 11 years ago. I decided to take advantage of my company's sabbatical policy to book in a four-week trip to Australia and New Zealand, both of which have been on my travel to-do list for over 15 years.

I've been planning (and saving!) hard since January and booked my flights from and to London back in April, nailing down the rest of my itinerary over the summer. As always, I found the Lonely Planet guidebooks an invaluable resource. I used their 2015 Australia guide (there is a new edition coming out next month) and their 2016 New Zealand North Island guide, knowing that I would be focusing most of my attention on this part of the country on this trip.

A note on my itinerary and my decision to visit both countries in four weeks: I know that it isn't possible to 'do' either country (or even a small part of Australia) in one month, but I also don't know when I will next get the opportunity to visit this part of the world — after all, it took me almost 34 years to schedule my first trip — and I wanted to have a taster for both countries. Moreover, for me, one of the best parts of travelling is that sense of excitement and wonder I get when I first arrive in a new city. I love revisiting favourite destinations, but I'll never tire of the thrill of discovery.

Excluding my international flights, I have 28 full days and am splitting this time about evenly between the east coast of Australia and New Zealand's North Island. Rather than taking the hefty Lonely Planet Australia guide, I was planning to buy a copy of the more portable East Coast Australia guide; the new edition isn't out until next month, however, and I am very grateful to Lonely Planet who provided me with a review copy, which will be a major point of reference during the first half of my trip.

I have a packed itinerary, which includes several cities, the Great Barrier Reef, some beach time and a road trip around New Zealand's North Island. Being me, a key focus will be specialty coffee. I already have an unfeasibly large coffee to-do list for both Melbourne (my first stop) and Sydney, but to help me sift through the many possibilities, I would really welcome any recommendations — please let me know in the comments or on Twitter (non-coffee-related suggestions are also welcome!). I'm also on the look-out for coffee (and other) tips for Auckland and Wellington, New Zealand.

As usual, I am packing light: I am taking my Rimowa Salsa Air carry-on suitcase (frustratingly, most of my internal flights have a 7kg carry-on limit, which will mean checking my case), my TUMI Halle Backpack and, as a handbag, my purple small Longchamp Le Pliage tote. 

During the Antipodean late spring, the weather is likely to range from warm to hot (by British standards, anyway), and I'm taking four dresses, two pairs of shorts, one pair of jeans, enough tops and underwear for ten days, three sweaters, my Uniqlo ultralight down jacket, running kit, two bikinis, a pair of running shoes, sandals, flip flops and ballet pumps. Technology-wise, I'm taking my MacBook Air and Kindle, and decided to downsize my camera kit and take just my compact camera (I bought the Canon Powershot G7X Mark II a few months ago, and I've been really happy with it) and my Nikon waterproof camera.

I won't have room to bring much coffee home, but I'm taking my trusty Aeropress with me so I can brew some fine Antipodean coffee while I'm there. I'm also delighted to report that the Made by Knock Aergrind, which I backed on KickStarter some months ago, arrived just in the knick of time and will be coming with me. Alas, it didn't come with any instructions, so I'll have to re-read Brian's great review on the Coffee Spot.

This month is partly about giving myself a break from my hectic day job in the busy press office of a major scientific journal, but while I'm away, as a minimum, I am planning to produce one post about each destination I visit and one specialty coffee update for each relevant city.