My relationship with alcohol is complicated. I drink it but I couldn’t say I like it. Alcoholism runs in the family. There have been deaths, and it caused me terror in childhood. I once thought I’d steer clear of it for life, but it didn’t work out like that. I became a teenager in England; I joined the herds, I mixed horrendous concoctions, I binged and I was sick.
If you’re not English, perhaps this sounds outrageous Read more
The witches market in La Paz is one of the most popular sights for tourists. We were staying right next to it so walked past the women selling their wares every day. The most disturbing thing was the preponderance of llama fetuses hanging from every stall. People bury them under their homes for luck and prosperity. Despite her displeased expression, I promise I did ask the woman in the photo if I could take her picture!
“She doesn’t know”, “I don’t know”, “She really doesn’t know?”. My friends were shocked, on arrival in Porto, to find that I, their reliably prepared friend, had no idea what to do that weekend. I am that person – the one who finds the flights, fusses over hotels, and researches what to do. I’m the organiser – but this time, in Porto, between preparing for TBU and being at TBU, I just hadn’t done it. I’d got as far as finding a hostel, but beyond that all I knew was that there was port to drink and the stunning Lello bookstore to be visited.
Most surprising of all, I didn’t care that I didn’t know. Read more
We journeyed to San Pedro de Atacama partly in search of its promised cosmic vistas of our local neighbourhood galaxy. One night we took a guided ‘star tour’ out of the town to gaze through a dozen telescopes( ranging from the modest to the elaborate) at star clusters, nebulae, breathtakingly bright binary stars and saturn, rings and all. We set the camera on the ground and left it for the longest possible exposure to capture this picture of the Milky Way above us. This is our home.
TBEX Bloggers HQ at Equity Point Hostel
A couple of weeks ago, on the first day of the TBU travel blogging conference in Porto, I waxed lyrical about having found my passion and feeling hyped about being a travel blogger. I had been inspired by Dave and Deb of the Planet D‘s keynote speech.
Since then, things haven’t been so simple. I’ve had moments of despair, thinking no way do I want to do this if that’s what I have to do. The issue is marketing and monetization – two words that make me cringe. Read more
Sandboarding in San Pedro de Atacama is one of the most popular activities in Chile’s oasis in the desert. I wasn’t keen – my co-ordination is abysmal and I’ve never done anything like it before, but when the lady in the tour shop asked “why don’t you want to do it? It’s fun,” I had no good answer. So the next day I found myself, sandboard in hand, heading into the desert. Read more
We are Victoria and Steve, a writer/yoga teacher and filmmaker from London, who decided to start living the life we want to rather than the life we thought we should.
We’ve been working and travelling around the world since March 2012. Follow us for travel tips and inspiration as we journey, write, film, volunteer, couchsurf, retreat and ponder our way round this planet.
