"best in london"

OK, so I feel like I just wrote the post discussing the five year anniversary of this blog, but nope, that was already a year ago. On April 12th, 2010, exactly six years and one day ago, I posted the first of many blog posts on This Battered Suitcase. I wasn’t new to blogging, however – I had been writing on a Livejournal account for seven years before that, which brings my blogging total to 13 years. It’s been one hell of a ride, and it’s nowhere near over – I love blogging and being a part of the blogging community more than ever. And because some of you have been reading for a while (some even since Livejournal!), and because I know that many things I’ve gotten out of blogging have been because of readers like you, I wanted to talk about the future of This Battered Suitcase as transparently and as honestly as I hope I’ve always been. For more on my history with blogging, check out what I wrote on the four year anniversary of the blog; much of what I say there still totally stands. I feel kind of silly writing these posts, but it also feels silly to let the anniversary slide when it’s something that takes up such a huge part of my life.

When I was growing up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, a mid-sized city smack-dab in the middle of the Canadian prairies, I used to lose myself in books – they were a way to take adventures. Later, in my teenage years, I became completely obsessed with the idea of travelling. I studied maps, I read National Geographic magazines, I watched as many travel documentaries as I could. And while I come from a family of travellers – my parents lived in a van in Europe in the 70s, and my sister went backpacking with friends around Australia and Asia just out of high school – most of the people I was seeing on TV or in magazines were men. I hadn’t yet discovered women like Freya Stark or Dervla Murphy, and blogs weren’t even a thing. The travellers I saw were weather-beaten and bearded, their names Pete and David and Jack. One of the first real backpackers I met, the one who helped actualise my wanderlust, was also male.

So, without further ado, here are fourteen amazing female travel bloggers – they are travellers, they are businesswomen, they are photographers, they are writers, they are innovators, and, to me, they are inspirational. They also happen to be my friends.

While this is primarily a travel blog, I’ve never been shy about writing about other aspects of my life, including romance. If you’ve read this blog long enough, you’d know that I haven’t been in a serious relationship for a very long time. I’ve dated here and there, and met some absolutely lovely people. I have never considered myself unlucky in love, not at all; in fact, I consider myself extremely lucky in love, simply from the fact that I’ve had the chance to get to know some absolutely wonderful people from around the world. Because I don’t put much pressure on myself to get married or have kids (nor am I sure that I want either of those things), I’ve been able to date around, have fun, and figure out what it is I truly want out of a partner.

And then I met Scott.

Over the years, I’ve received a lot of emails from teenagers and/or students who have questions about travelling, mainly how to get started or how to decide where to go.

While I can’t possibly know where every teenager who writes to me is coming from, I can offer just a little bit of advice for the positive steps I took when I was younger in order to fulfil my travel dreams. As I was growing up I was unwittingly preparing for a lifetime of travel, and years later I am so thankful that I was so determined from such a young age. Here are a few things you might be able to do if you’re a teenager who wants to travel the world after finishing school (or really, for anyone who wants to travel).

I waded into the warm water, the shock of crushed corals and shells under my feet almost instantly turning into smooth, soft sand. In the distance I could spot the island of Koh Phi Phi, a dark green against the blue sky. A few other people were in the water, but not many, and on this little stretch of sand – aptly named Relax Bay – there really was nothing to do but laze around in the shade. And it was then, floating in the calm water, that I decided I’d finally found my favourite island: Koh Lanta.

I will be back in Nepal in less than a month. I’m actually in Thailand for about two weeks beforehand, and then in Bhutan for a week after, so I will have to pack accordingly. While I’m usually quite confident with what to pack, for some reason I keep humming and hawing about what to bring on this particular trip, perhaps because I’ll be in various climates (from the sunny beaches of Thailand to the chilly temperatures of the Himalayas) and because, well, I’m not backpacking. That’s right, I’m bringing a – wait for it – suitcase. This means don’t have to worry as much about trying to fit everything into a smaller space or wrinkled clothing.

That being said, when I started to think about what to wear in Nepal, and what to bring on this trip, I still thought back to the backpacking trip I took around Southeast Asia and the Subcontinent in 2011. I can’t help it – the clothes I wore then and the outfits I put together were some of my favourites ever.