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Can Drinking Ayahuasca Change Your Life?
It’s what I’ve heard can happen. And I was dutifully sceptical, as many people often are when regarding things they don’t understand. Ayahuasca’s just a drug, right? A cooked up plant from deep in the...
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An All Night Long Dance with the San Pedro Cactus
I'd been standing in the reception of my Isla del Sol hotel for at least ten minutes, waiting for a girl to bring me a bottle of water, when two figures stumbled in through the door. He collapsed onto...
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Thirteen Hours in Atlanta Airport: Why I’m Flying Back Home
There’s always a quiet spot in an airport, if you look hard enough. Most people who wander the gleaming white corridors and settle briefly in arm-rested chair rows aren’t in need of somewhere calm:...
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On Fear, Self Deprecation and my Traveller Alter Ego
“I hate this,” I said, slightly pathetically, to the empty air around me. There was nobody near enough to hear the words: the only people capable of listening were already halfway down into the canyon....
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Learning Time Management in Medellin (and Why I’m Having a Slight Meltdown)
For the last fourteen months, I've been travelling through South America and publishing an article every week on Flora the Explorer. Whatever adventures I've been having simultaneously – whether it's...
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Falling for a Traveller: My On the Road Relationship
We met in a bar in Bolivia. I'd been in the city of Sucre just under a week, living in an apartment with a couple of guys who were due to leave the next day. They dragged me out to a place crowded with...
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After Two Years of Travel, I’m Moving Back to England
For a long time (and without sounding too smug), I've been rather proud of how much travelling I've managed to accomplish. When I finished university in 2011, I spent six months interning in London...
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A Lack of Familiarity: Learning How to De-Travel
It’s been a month since I left South America. Four weeks ago, my last full day in Colombia, I was on the outskirts of Bogotá playing tejo in a giant greenhouse with a group of Colombian friends;...
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Sometimes I’m Scared to Travel – But That Doesn’t Stop Me
“Don’t you get scared? Travelling alone?” The girl from Paris spears a piece of pineapple as she looks towards me, across a table groaning with freshly cooked food. Outside, the sounds of Havana’s...
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Confessions of a Camino Newbie
“Is my little toe supposed to feel numb?” I’m walking through the forests of Sigulda with Janis, my Latvian guide. I’m wearing newly purchased hiking boots with equally new insoles which the shrewd...
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What Does Travel Mean to You?
When I was eight years old, I got locked inside a toilet cubicle in a Japanese KFC. I’d been eating fried chicken with my parents mere minutes before; my fingers were greasy, and the lock on the door...
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Sexism and Machismo: the Attitude to Women in Latin America
Travelling as a woman will always open up avenues that are unavailable to men. Despite being foreigners and strangers, women often connect with local children, young mothers, and old ladies with an...
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Kindness and Community on the Camino
They say the Camino brings out the best in people. I didn’t believe them at first, but it’s true. Becoming a pilgrim means talking to, befriending and helping out others just for the sake of it....
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From Syria to Calais: Nine Years of Changing Perspectives
In the summer of 2007 I travelled to Syria. Our group were on a trip around the Middle East when we crossed over the Jordanian border to arrive in the ancient walled city of Damascus. A collection of...
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The Day I Walked to the End of the World
Arriving in Santiago didn’t feel the way I expected. The Spaniards I had been walking with for the last seven days had tears in their eyes as we walked through the city’s winding streets and emerged...
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The Spanish Challenge: a Surprise Return to Paracas, Peru
Men scurry along either side of the barrier which divides the congested highway in two. They carry paper-covered boxes of snacks to sell to car drivers through their windows: small biscuits, wafers,...
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Thoughts From the Window Seat
It’s finally springtime in London. Joggers and dog walkers are multiplying; people walk down the pavement with sunglasses and smiling faces. This morning I am sitting at a desk in the new house I...
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My Quiet London Love Affair
“Shall we walk home through the city?” Beverley and I had been out for lunch on a sunny Sunday in London’s Southbank, treating ourselves to burgers and beers beside a window that curious tourists kept...
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Being Naked and Being Human
It started in Oslo, on a muggy summer Sunday with a hint of rain in the air. After two weeks on board an expedition ship I was relishing the chance to be walking around outside, with an entire day at...
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What Makes You Happy?
This afternoon, a man on a bike cycled past me. He had headphones jammed in his ears and was singing along to music which was only faintly audible: the song was one I didn’t recognise, but the big...
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