In December 1973 and February 1974 my then girlfriend Heather and myself spent two month’s hitchhiking around New Zealand when we took an extended break from our jobs in Sydney Australia.

It created many positive memories that remained with me for the next 50 years. It was where I made one of my first mountain hikes near Mt Cook but above all it was the friendliness of the people so proud of ‘God’s own Country’, and the incredible variety of the scenery and landscapes that remained in my mind. Continue reading →

Although I am writing these words in Thailand, with an outdoor temperature of 30 degrees centigrade, I am fortunate enough to have spent most of the time from early September 2021 to February 2022 in the mountain village of Mürren in Switzerland, as described here.

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I consider myself fortunate indeed that I have been able to experience the best part of a lifetime’s work in the travel industry. I chose that career path because of my own love of travel, formed very much on the foundation of my own  early travel experiences. Continue reading →

I have been posting articles and photo essays on my website for almost 10 years and observers may have noticed an absence of articles and images in regards to my home country, the UK.

There are two reasons for this.

Firstly I have never enjoyed the UK’s maritime and damp climate with so many grey and overcast days and prefer to spend most of my time in Thailand or South East Asia (winter), the mountains of Switzerland (summer) or in Canada. Continue reading →

I do not have a ‘bucket list’ of things I want to do or see before I die.

I do have many books waiting to be read (far too many to list!) and I do keep lists of those books I read each year as I try and reach my target of 50 books per annum.

I have lists of TV series to watch and again of those I have watched. Continue reading →

Remember when it was possible to travel almost at will? To go where we wanted to go and whenever we wanted? Finances and time permitting of course!

I always thought that one of the great delights when travelling was to stumble across somewhere or something which was totally unexpected and which, at the fear of sounding dated, totally blew my mind.

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Preparations

After spending pretty much all of 2021 in Thailand I returned to the UK in mid-December so that I was able to spend Christmas with my wife Sharron and three kids Sarah (36), Lisa (34) and David (32) because ever since Sarah was born in 1984 the three, then four and then five of us had spent every Christmas together. This was in either the UK, Canada or Switzerland and once each in Australia when Lisa was completing her PhD and could not get away, and once in Staunton, Virginia in the USA where Sarah and I had friends. This was just after my mother died and we wanted to go somewhere that had no associations with her to remind us of our loss. Continue reading →

I am sure that you have heard of the expression ‘It never rains but it pours’ (very apt for Thailand!) and as commuters say the world over ‘I waited 20 minutes for a bus and then two came together.’

Why am I mentioning this? Continue reading →

The most famous historic ruins in South East Asia are justifiably the magnificent and extensive ruins of more than three dozen often ornately decorated temples found amidst the dense jungle at Angkor Wat, near Siem Reap in Cambodia. And as a result Angkor Wat is a heavily visited destination, attracting visitors from all around the world. Indeed when I first visited Angkor Wat in 2006, I was also fortunate enough to visit the Great Pyramids in Egypt and Machu Pichu in Peru, also both for the first time the same year, and it was Angkor Wat that for me was by far the most impressive. Continue reading →