Hello

I didn’t know how to start a travel blog, but thought ‘hello’ would do. It’s quite polite. Informal maybe, but polite.

I’ve always wanted to start a travel journal of some kind. We’ve done a fair bit of travelling over the last couple of years, and thought a blog would be a great reminder of where we have been, what we have done, and hopefully give others some great ideas for their own travel. You always see loads of travel blogs on the internet, with stuff like ‘ooh look how great this beach is’ or ‘wow look at this monk’ or whatever. This isn’t going to be one of those. 

There’s also probably loads of blogs about traveling with kids, which we do most of the time. Blogs with tips like ‘make sure you pack some focaccia sticks, and pit the olives pre-flight so that Honey Blossom and Shaniqua don’t choke’ etc. This won’t be that either. It will mostly be what we did and saw on our trips, where we went and how we got there.

I’ve been quite lucky when it comes to travelling. Been to a fair few countries and that with various jobs. France, Germany, Oman, Canada, The Caribbean and USA. Also been on holiday around Europe. My wife had been on much less. Or fewer. Which one is it? Fewer is physical figures isn’t it? Quantity? I can’t remember. Anyway, this is how this blog came about really. The travelling, not the grammar lessons.

Belgium

My mate had moved to Brussels to work, with his wife and son. They had lived there for a little bit, and wanted a visitor, so they invited us over, which was nice. We looked at the cost of travelling and had the following options:

Drive – Ferry-Drive

Drive-Train-Drive

Drive-Fly-Lift

The lift would have been my mate picking us up from the airport, not an actual lift. Cost wise, ferry was the cheapest. This is how my mate, actually, his name is Ant, my mate. That’s easier than writing ‘my mate’ each time. This is how Ant got back to the UK, so thought that was the easiest option. We got all the items we needed for driving in Europe, well, France mainly. Items like luminous jackets, red warning triangle, spare bulb kit, light deflectors, breathalyzer, and a couple of other bits and pieces. Some of it makes sense. Safety and that. Also, the French po po can fine you if you don’t have an item!

At the time of travel, there was the ‘migrant crisis’ going on. Loads of nationalities from Eastern Europe to the Middle East and Africa had set up a makeshift camp at Calais, nicknamed ‘The Jungle’. Loads of them tried jumping into cars and lorries to get a lift into the UK. There was talk of the French knocking it all down, so folk were getting more and more desperate to get into England. Not Scotland or Mid-Wales or any other weird place though. For this reason, we decided to spend an extra 30 mins on a ferry, and get off at Dunkirk instead.

The kids loved the ferry. DFDS. Had a small soft play area which was handy. Prices of food on board were cray cray, and also not that tasty. We got off, drove an hour and half to Ant’s, which is a lovely detached cottage. There was a little field next to it, with 2 sheep in, which the kids called Ben and Holly. We did a few things in Brussels, went to a Quick Burger place, a park, and had some of Ant’s cooking, which was a lot of nice beans and lentils and that.

How this blog began, sort of

Chatting about travelling one evening, and Ant’s wife had been to South America, Russia and Far  East. My wife downloaded a travel app where you can tick off places you have been. Ant’s wife had about 30 countries. I was on about 15. Char was on 5. This upset her a bit, so she started a sort of bucket/wish list thing. She came up with a plan to visit 5 new countries by the end of the year. And so this whole blog began. Char learnt how to use Skyscanner, I learnt AirBnB. She learnt how to minimise costs. I learnt to say ‘yes’ to whatever she was booking next. There were bookings over the next few weeks that I couldn’t keep up with! She knew my shifts at work, and filled my day’s off as much as she could with new trips away. 5 countries in a year was a go! 20 days later, we were on another ferry, to a new country.

Thanks for reading my first ever blog! There will be a lot more after this, so come back soon!