Travel

I am writing this from my hotel in Thimphu, Bhutan, where one of the myths of travel in Bhutan has already been shattered for me… that there’s very little wifi in the country. Another myth about travelling in Bhutan? That it’s difficult to get a visa to visit, or that the government limits the number of visas they grant per year to tourists. So is it difficult to get a visa for Bhutan?

I’ve received a few emails from readers over the years asking the same question: “How do you know you’re ready for long-term travel?” I totally get it. You know you want to travel. You’ve read the packing lists and advice blogs. But how do you know that you are definitely ready to take the plunge to travel for two months, six months, or… indefinitely? Long-term travel may not be for everyone, as it is vastly different than a week holiday to the beach. It requires a bit of planning, a lot of optimism, and a healthy dose of an open mind. And while it can be incredibly rewarding, exciting, humbling, and FUN, it can also be stressful, challenging, and eye-opening (none of which are necessarily bad experiences to go through in life).

So, how do you know if you’re ready for long-term travel?

Because that’s the thing – we have absolutely no control over the weather (short-term, anyway, don’t get me started on global warming). When we go to book a holiday we have little to go on other than what previous years have told us. I may know that a particular season is rainier than others, but even that doesn’t guarantee that I’ll need a raincoat or umbrella.

But looking at that forecast for Bergamo, I decided to pack accordingly. “I’ll bring an umbrella,” I thought. “A pink one.”

Because I’ve also been fortunate enough to stay in London a bit longer, I’m seeing this as an opportunity to see more of the UK and of Europe in general. It is incredibly cheap to fly to many European countries from London; with airlines like RyanAir and Easy Jet, it’s possible to fly to some European cities for less money than my weekly Oyster card update to travel around London. I don’t know what the future holds after those couple years in London, so I thought I should take advantage of the proximity to Europe as much as possible in the upcoming year. While I’ve visited a lot of the major cities around the continent, there are a lot of smaller cities and towns I haven’t seen yet. More than that, there are experiences I’d really love to have if I can.

If you’ve ever taken a look at my Instagram account you know that I’m not exactly one for muted, soft tones. I love bright colours, vibrant reds and blues and yellows. My winter jacket is lime green, so that has to tell you something. I’ve often written about my love of bright colours on this blog, always highlighting different hues I’ve found around the world.

I started noticing brightly-coloured photos of an adorable vintage-inspired amusement park on Instagram about two months ago. It was aptly named Dreamland, and I quickly discovered it was located in the coastal city of Margate, in England’s region of Kent. Less than two hours away by train from London, I started to plan a weekend trip or even a day off in order to go and experience the place for myself; it just looked like too much fun to not see it in person. Less than a week later, fate intervened, as Visit England wrote to me and asked if I’d like to visit Dreamland on their behalf.

I once spent a bit of time in Copenhagen… a few months, to be exact. I wrote about why I lived there – and why I love the city so much – in this post. While I spent all that time in Copenhagen, however, I never really explored the rest of Denmark. Call it naivety, call it being broke, call it whatever you want, but the fact is that I never really saw another side of the country.

Fast forward nine years, and I ended up meeting Kathrine at a travel blogging conference. We instantly hit it off and I learned she works for Visit Denmark.

“You should come to my hometown sometime!” she told me. “It’s called Aarhus.” The name rang a bell – I knew that I had met a few people from Aarhus before, and after a bit of research found out that it is known as Denmark’s second city. Only three hours by train from Copenhagen, I was a bit embarrassed that I never made the journey there while I spent time in Denmark.