My top 10 travel experiences of the decade

In the last decade, it turns out I've been fortunate enough to visit 35 countries. Being a teacher has given me the chance to work full time while still travelling a few times a year, and I'm very grateful for that.

My memory, however, has always been terrible, which is why I'm very thankful that I kept so many journals, scrapbooks, blogs and photo albums over the years. Looking back at these, I've somehow managed to narrow an entire decade down to my top ten travel experiences.

Here they are, in chronological order!

2011 - Volunteer teaching in Cambodia

This trip is combined in my memory with a similar trip I took in 2009, volunteer teaching in Thailand.  These were my first two solo trips, and I got to meet so many kind people - kids, locals and fellow volunteers alike - and both experiences really cemented my desire to train as a teacher.  I’ve now been teaching for 8 years, so these trips were clearly life-changing!

Snapshots below: pupils at the school; the mural we painted; exploring the temples of Angkor; another photo with the kids!

2013 - Three weeks exploring America in a van with 12 strangers

It sounds like a cliche, but this trip genuinely changed me as a person.  I signed up for a three week tour of the US Rockies and the deserts of the southwest with Trek America, and found myself sharing a van with 12 other people who I just clicked with.  Some of us were teachers, others were still at university, but the bond we forged over three weeks culminated in a ‘Christmas dinner’ at a campground in Arizona - yes, in the middle of August - where we all chipped in to cook a rotisserie chicken, mashed potatoes and greens, made Christmas hats and sang songs about our adventures to the tune of ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’ much to the chagrin of the other campers.  It was amazing to me that 13 strangers could become so close in such a short space of time - the fact that none of us yet had smartphones to distract us probably helped - and I’ll always be thankful for what this trip taught me about how introversion doesn’t have to be an impediment to creating relationships.  I might not even have met my now-husband three months later if it wasn’t for this trip. 

Snapshots below: the trek group at Monument Valley; Forrest Gump point; Horseshoe Bend; Grand Canyon; Grand Teton National Park

2016 - Bear watching in Lake Clark and orca spotting in the Kenai Fjords

Having locked him down in marriage thanks to my newfound confidence, I persuaded Patrick to join me on another Trek America trip to Alaska. Clearly I was trying to relive my Trek experience of 2013, but by this point smart phones had really taken off and group bonding over the campfire seemed to take a backseat to keeping up with friends back home.   Still, Patrick and I decided to make the most of it and treat ourselves to two of the most incredible encounters with nature I’ve ever experienced.  First was a flight out to Lake Clark National Park, where we watched bears hunting for salmon and cubs frolicking while their mother stood guard.  Only a small group of visitors is allowed into the park each day, and the sense of solitude and unspoilt nature made me cry.  Secondly, we got to watch pods of orca and humpback whales in the wild, as well as hear the terrifying sound of a calving glacier as it crashed into the ocean in the Kenai Fjords.   We also got to meet Alaskan huskies at Denali National Park, go wild camping, visit the magic bus from the film ‘Into the Wild’, and explore the ghost town of Kennecott.

Snapshots below: bears in Lake Clark NP; exploring Denail NP; the plane that took us to Lake Clark; orca and humpback whale spotting in Kenai Fjords; the magic bus from 'Into the Wild'

2016 - Taj Mahal honeymoon

Some people claim that the Taj Mahal is undeserving of its title as one of the most romantic places on Earth due to the crowds it draws, so we decided to visit it the right way: at its least busy.  We’d booked a tour of the Golden Triangle - Delhi, Agra, Jaipur - for our honeymoon, and we had an awesome driver, Ravi, for the entire time.  We first set eyes on the Taj at sunset, after Ravi surprised us by getting us there from Delhi in time. Against all the odds, he dropped us off at the gardens across the river from the Taj just as the sun was beginning to set.  It was perfect.  The next morning, we arrived at the Taj before sunrise and met our local guide, who let us explore this wonder of the world while it was still quiet.  Then, when it got busier, he sat us down on a bench and told us stories about the love Shah Jahan had for his late wife that led him to build the Taj Mahal.  As a result, I can honestly say the Taj Mahal IS one of the most romantic places on Earth!

Snapshots below: welcome flowers in Delhi; the Taj Mahal at sunset; the Taj at sunrise

2017 - The music and hospitality of the Deep South

You can't beat an American road trip, so we took a road trip from Tennessee to South Carolina via Mississippi, Louisiana and Georgia.  It unexpectedly ended up being a wonderful music and literary pilgrimage, as we danced to country in Nashville and to the blues in Memphis; visited Elvis’ Graceland home and his birthplace in Tupelo; then stopped by Harper Lee’s hometown of Monreoville and the set of The Walking Dead in Senoia.  As you do, we’d chosen our AirBnBs based on how many dogs lived there,  and at every new town we were warmly welcomed by kind, generous hosts as well as excited canines!  At our stop in Senoia, our hosts gifted us a figurine of The Walking Dead’s lead character, after we told them about our tradition of collecting Christmas tree ornaments from our travels. Mini Rick now sits at the top of our Christmas tree each year, tiny gun in hand, guarding us from zombies! 

Snapshots below: a warm welcome in Senoia; exploring sets from the Walking Dead; following the Harper Lee trail in Monroeville; after listening to the blues in Memphis

2017 - Exploring by the light of the midnight sun in Iceland

This trip was a new experience for us, driving Iceland’s ring road and sleeping in a van that converted into a bed at night.  The most memorable parts of the trip were taking advantage of the midnight sun and exploring epic waterfalls long after everyone else had gone to bed, as well as thawing out each night at whichever local thermal baths happened to be closest at the time.  The diversity of the landscape here was truly mind-boggling: one day we’d be walking amongst chunks of ice washed up on a beach, the next we’d be gazing over vast purple fields of wild lupines.  Once we’d left the Golden Circle near Reykjavik, the sense of witnessing nature at its most unadulterated was so strong!

Snapshots below: basalt columns in northern Iceland; a midnight sunset; Myvatn hot spring bathing; lupines in the north; Jokulsarlon glacier lagoon; Fjaðrárgljúfur canyon; Seljalandsfoss waterfall; Reynisfjara black sand beach

2018 - ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was my favourite history topic when I was a kid: I remember treasuring a stone scarab beetle and a papyrus scroll with my name written on it in hieroglyphs, and pretending to be an archaeologist discovering treasures.  So finally getting to see the tombs of the pharaohs, the great temples of Luxor, and actual real life hieroglyphics painted in ink that had survived for over 2000 years was like a dream. Our guide was an incredible Egyptologist currently working on locating the tomb of a pharaoh called Ramses (I’m not sure which one!) and his passion really intensified my own enthusiasm.  My favourite moment was when he ran over, arms waving, to a tourist attempting the sacrilegious act of climbing onto an ancient stone column. That’s when we knew our Egyptologist was the real deal!

Snapshots below: Luxor Temple; the Colossi of Memnon; hieroglyphs in the tombs of the kings

2018 - The hills are alive in the Alps

The highlight of our European summer road trip was the Alps, where I got to give my camera a workout on some of the most stunning scenery I’ve ever seen.  Whether it was bright blue lakes, snowy peaks, solitary churches, wildflower meadows, or an incredible abandoned hotel on a switchback of Switzerland’s most dangerous mountain road, our time in the Alps was like a postcard come to life. 

Snapshots below: Spiez and Obergoms in Switzerland; Halstatt in Austria; the abandoned Belvedere Hotel in Switzerland; the Swiss mountains after a storm; a chapel in Switzerland; Oeschinensee in Switzerland

2018 - stranded in Norway on New Year’s Eve

We will never forget this trip, not because it was the best trip ever, but because it definitely makes the best story! We were staying at an idyllic cabin in the snowy mountains an hour from Oslo until New Year’s Eve, when we planned to drive to the western Fjords to a cottage on the water.  But our 7 hour drive soon turned into an ordeal when the mountain road we were driving was closed due to a snowstorm.  We had to backtrack to our original starting point, then begin another 7 hour journey on a different route, in terrifying weather conditions.  Long story short, we made it as close as 30km away from our destination and, as fireworks rang in the new year in the distance, we discovered the only road to our cottage was also closed due to snow.  We had to sneak our dog into the nearest hotel in a hold-all at 1am before returning to our cabin in the mountains near Oslo the next day! We drove for about 24 hours in the space of two days....but at least we got to see the fjords for a couple of hours!

Snapshots below: three shots from around our cabin near Lillehammer; the fjords the morning after being stranded!

2019 - exploring an abandoned theme park in Japan

I spent the best part of a year planning our trip to Japan during cherry blossom season.  The highlights were the cherry blossoms themselves, working our way through a food bucket list that had over 30 different Japanese dishes on it, and learning a new culture based on mutual respect and hospitality.  But the most memorable day of the trip was when we snuck into an abandoned theme park called Western Village.  The eeriness of seeing animatronic characters posed next to ramshackle buildings transplanted from the Wild West, as well as the thrill of being somewhere we shouldn’t have been - and yes, we did get caught! - make this an unforgettable one!

Snapshots below: the giant replica of Mt Rushmore; western buildings; animatronic characters left behind

2019 - Americana of Route 66

I don’t know when my fascination with Americana began - I think I was maybe 12 or 13 when I discovered what ghost towns were, and the rest is history - but the summer of 2019 was an Americana dream come true.  I got to explore old neon signs from the golden age at the Neon Museum in Vegas, ghost towns including Nelson in Nevada, and surrounded myself with 50s kitsch driving the longest surviving stretch of Route 66 through Nevada and Arizona, stopping at famous diners along the way.  Heaven.

Snapshots below: our motel on Route 66; the Neon Museum in Las Vegas; a 50s diner on Route 66; Delgadillo's famous Snow Cap Diner; an abandoned piano in Nelson ghost town, Nevada