"love"

Found in the Himalayas between China and India, Bhutan is a deeply Buddhist country. As I’ve written about before, there is no limit to how many tourists enter per year, as some people may believe; however, each tourist is required to pay a daily fee, part of the “High Value, Low Impact” policy of the country. And as I’ve written about before, Bhutan is worth every penny of that daily fee.

For starters, there’s the backdrop: the snowcapped mountains rising in the distance, the sweeping forests of green, the emerald rivers that run throughout. There’s the culture: the dance festivals, the archery competitions, the spicy, delicious food. There are the people, so welcoming, helpful, and enthusiastic about sharing Bhutan. And then there’s the architecture, the ornate monasteries, nunneries, and dzongs (similar to fortresses), each one beautiful and unique. The most famous of these? Taktsang Palphug, commonly known in English as Tiger’s Nest Monastery.

I try to remain positive every day, and to remind myself that the majority of the people on this planet do not wish harm against one another. But fuck, it’s difficult sometimes. It’s difficult when you hear about a person with so much hatred inside him that he feels the need to fire a semi-automatic rifle into a crowd of people dancing, that he feels the need to detonate a bomb strapped to his chest while surrounded by families doing their daily shopping, that he feels the need to wield an axe on a train of commuters just trying to get home, that he feels the need to drive a truck through a busy street filled with children. It’s difficult when you hear about young men being shot just for reaching for their wallet. It’s difficult when you hear about casual post-Brexit racism happening in your own neighbourhood, to your own neighbours. And I sit down, and I read all the news articles I can, and I debate whether or not hashtag activism is insensitive or not, and I talk to my parents about it, and I talk to my friends about it, and then I just feel hopeless. I feel like there is nothing I can do.

But, in a way, I suppose there is something I can do, and something you can do, too.

For those of you who don’t know much about Mallorca – often spelt Majorca – it is the largest island in the Balearic Archipelago of Spain, located in the Mediterranean. Perhaps you’ve heard of its neighbour, Ibiza. And the thing about these islands is… they’re known for their partying. For their stag-dos, hen-dos, their all-night hedonism. They’re known for amazing nightlife, for clubs and house music, for a really, really fun time… if that’s your definition of a fun time, that is. And that’s the thing – that’s not my definition of a fun time. I don’t want to go out and hit up clubs full of 18-25 year olds doing shots of unidentifiable liquid. I like to party, I like to dance, I like to drink, but, much as my friend Sam said, I’m not exactly a ‘Mallorca type’.

But yes, you guessed it, I was completely, 100% wrong. I am totally a ‘Mallorca type’. I just didn’t know the truth about Mallorca, and that the paragraph I just wrote only describes a very small part of the island. The rest of the island – outside the area of Palma/Magaluf – is absolutely gorgeous, filled with sleepy Spanish villages, olive groves, and secluded beaches, and I will be writing more about my time there (and how to spend the perfect week on the island) soon. It’s also home to some of the most beautiful villas I’ve ever seen.

I’ve made a lot of mistakes while travelling. A lot. I’ve been ripped off, I’ve lost things, I’ve spent too much money, and I’ve wasted valuable travel time on things that could have been avoided. There are certain mistakes I don’t think are worth making at all – things like spending too much on credit card fees, not checking if your phone plan covers data roaming, and drinking that damn glass of orange juice in Morocco – but there are a lot of mistakes I think are OK to make once or twice, or even ones I think that we should all make quite a bit in our travels. Here are a few of the “mistakes” I’ve enjoyed making over the past ten years of travelling, and some stories detailing when I’ve made them myself.

I’ve been thinking a lot about community lately, and about support networks. I’ve been thinking more and more about my blog’s tagline – “It’s not just the where and the how of travel, it’s the who and the why.” I’ve been thinking about what this blog is here for, and what on earth I aim to achieve from it beyond the (hopefully not but probably) navel-gazing stories about my travels, emphasis on the my.

And, of course, the more I think about it all, the more it comes back to this: the main reason I travel, the main reason I blog, hell, the main reason I get up in the morning, is because of the interactions with people I have from all over the world. Meeting new people and engaging with people from different backgrounds and cultures is the whole reason I am so addicted to travelling in the first place. I wrote a post recently about how I believe people are good, and in that I talked about how much I’ve gained and learned from interacting with people of all walks of life.

But I am just one person, and I represent just one kind of traveller.

If you’ve been following my Facebook or my Instagram accounts, you’d know that I’m not hiding the fact that I fell absolutely, head over heels in love with Cinque Terre, Italy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know – I can be quite promiscuous with my travel love. But how can you NOT fall in love with a place that looks like this, especially when the sun is shining and you have a glass of wine in your hand?

I’m still going through all of the hundreds of photos I took from my four days there last month, so I’ll be posting a photo essay soon, but I wanted to write a post about some of the logistics of getting around Cinque Terre, especially for those who are on a bit of a budget (like I was…er… always am). I had quite a few people write to me to say that they plan on visiting the region this summer, and so hopefully this guide can help, or perhaps it can help inspire you to plan your own trip there. It is one of the most beautiful places in Italy, if not the world, and I truly believe that Cinque Terre can be visited on a budget. Here’s how.