"best in london"

I go through phases of blogging, just as I think that all people in creative fields do, whether their craft is painting or writing or singing or dancing. We all go through phases in life where we feel successful, where our output is high and our accomplishments prolific. This summer, for me, was definitely not one of these times. In fact, thinking about blogging often made me feel sad – sad because I love it so much and I wasn’t doing it, but also because I just couldn’t think of a damn thing to write.

The way I’ve travelled has evolved over the years. In the beginning, when I first strapped my backpack to my back and took off around Europe, I moved quickly, barely getting to know one city before hopping on a train to the next. While sometimes that is the most efficient way to see a lot in a short period of time, I don’t like to travel that way anymore. I prefer, at the minimum, a few days in each place, and to visit at least a few places per country. Of course, it doesn’t always work out that way – I recently only had time for four days in Italy, for example – but, in an ideal world, I would be able to travel slowly. Over the years of adapting a slower style of travelling, then, there have been a few places that have just completely captivated me, or, perhaps, captured me.

How quickly a place can feel like a home. I’ve been thinking about that a lot these days, especially as I’ve now lived in London for nine months, and I can’t imagine living anywhere else. I remember, years ago, reading the book Zeitoun by Dave Eggers while lying under a mosquito net in Thailand; in it, Zeitoun speaks of his travelling past, and that he knew he’d always settle down somewhere if he either found a woman he loved or a port that he loved. While I won’t speak on the former at the moment, I can certainly speak for the latter. I love London.

It’s become a bit of a tradition for me to post something on my birthday every year; even though it doesn’t really feel like my style anymore, I thought I had better not break tradition. After all, turning 26 was pretty good. Turning 27 was even better. By the time I was 28 I was loving my late 20s. After turning 29 my year was a challenging one in many regards, but the challenges led to exactly the kind of life I want to be living: happy and fulfilled.

There are so many reasons why blogging has been so important to me for, gulp, over a decade… it has acted as a personal account of my journey through young adulthood and through my travels around the world. Aside from that selfish reason, I am amazed at the community that I’ve become a part of, of all of the incredible bloggers, readers, and industry people that I interact with every day. While writing is in my blood, and I’ll never stop, it’s the community that brings me back to this blog time and time again.

If you’ve read this blog long enough, or have ever glanced at my Media/PR page, you know that I get very suspicious of companies. There is no paid advertising on this blog, nor are there any sponsored links (not even hidden ones, what you see is what you get). While I’m willing to work with companies and tourism boards for complimentary trips and tours (like my visit to London Cru a few weekends ago), I have no desire to participate in anything that does not keep up with the theme of This Battered Suitcase, or that I think would not be beneficial to readers. I also almost always turn down product reviews.

So when Tom emailed me, I responded politely but firmly. “I won’t write a post specifically about your bracelet, or even guarantee that I will put El Camino in the title of a post,” I wrote. And yet here I am, two months later, doing both of those things. Why?