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Ruth John
Welcome to my travelblog, a place where I can record my trips, write down my experiences, share my ideas and re-live my memories. I don't really know why I keep a blog; I think it is partly because I don't want to forget things but it is also for my friends and family to keep up to date with my wandering. I guess I'm also writing it to help out other travellers who are looking for tips or inspiration.Ruth from Wales
For as long as I can remember I have wanted to visit Latin America. After much planning and saving I was finally able to live the dream - a year in Latin America (Sept 2007 to Sept 2008), travelling from Argentina to Mexico. Below you will find my blogs from that trip as well as accounts of previous and more recent travels a bit closer to home mostly in Europe and parts of Africa.
Since our 2008 return we have (probably too easily) slipped back into working life in London and we are back to taking holidays when we can. I try to blog these as often and fully as possible but time is not always on my side!
Most of my travelling is done with my lovely boyfriend Barry who has his own travelblog.
Please feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions or just want to say hello. I love getting comments on my blogs and ratings for my photos!
Travel Blog Posts
72 hours in the Big Apple!
Published: July 7th 2011North America » United States » New York » New York
April 3rd 2011
When it comes to travelling, it all has to happen in my spare time. Working in the public sector is great in many ways, but does mean that trips abroad with work are as likely as a trip into space. Barry, however, is much luckier than me and was offered a month working in New York. Of course he said yes (can't blame him!) and off he went. I decided that if he was going to be away for that long, there was no chance I wasn't going to pop over for a long weekend to see him, so off I went! I was only away for three days, but managed to fit in a surprising amount, and somehow survived without suffering from any jetlag... Barry was in work on my first day in New York, ... read more
February 15th 2011
Sometimes Barry and I plan our trips months in advance, other times it is a matter of weeks. In this case, it was just 4 weeks beforehand when Barry read an article in Wanderlust magazine saying that this is a good time of year to head to Tromso. Roll on 12 February and we found ourselves on a flight heading from London Gatwick (latitude 51 degrees) to Tromso in Norway (latitude 70 degrees north – some 300km inside the Arctic circle, and a mere 2,000km from the North Pole). We spent 4 days enjoying the sights and adventures on offer in Tromso. During our time we experienced downhill skiing, cross-country skiing, hiking in the snow and searching for the Northern Lights. As the pictures show, we were pretty successful at all of these! We really enjoyed ... read more
The Dusts of Kilimanjaro (and Mt Meru and a Safari)
Published: November 11th 2010Africa » Tanzania » North » Mount Kilimanjaro
September 19th 2010
3 Day Safari: Tarangire, Ngorongoro Crater, Lake Manyara Whilst most people would probably leave a safari to the end of their Tanzanian trip, we decided to put ours first. This was mostly due to timing, but actually I was very happy with the arrangement. It gave us a few days to get used to Tanzania - to the climate, the food, the water, etc - before starting our big hike. We had a lovely guide - Gabriele - who was endlessly patient with our turning up late for him every morning (Barry is so slow at packing!), stopping for photos all the time, and being the only people on his tour. Because we didn’t have other people to worry about we were able to spread ourselves out in Gabriele’s 4x4 jeep, making it a very comfortable ... read more
November 30th 2009
As our feet got itchy again, we decided it was time for another holiday. This time we headed off to Paris for a long weekend (just 3 days). With the new Eurostar station at St Pancras in London, Paris is a crazily close 2 and a half hours from London. So we took full advantage, leaving early on Saturday morning and getting back late on Monday evening. Our time in Paris was everything that you might expect, lots of wandering, popping into cafes when the cold got too much. We also covered a good range of museums, visiting the Louvre, the Petit Palais and the Carnevale. All were good in their own ways but the Louvre is always going to be the most spectacular museum to visit. Even with the crowds, it was still possible to ... read more
October 4th 2009
As a treat before starting my new job, Barry and I took a nine day trip to Andalucia. We had been to this part of the world before but were keen to return to see the places we had missed, as well as to brush up on our Spanish. And to eat lots of nice food of course! We flew into Málaga and hired a car. As Barry can't drive, it was up to me to do the hard work whilst he sat back and navigated..! As always, it all went very smoothly. We stopped off at a little village near the coast called Frigiliana. This is a lovely place, with white-washed walls, quiet alleyways, and a nice place for lunch. It was amazing how easily we got into the Spanish way of life, with a ... read more
July 20th 2009
So, after our weekend in Dubrovnik, we got our hire car and headed for the Montenegro border. The border crossing was easy enough, although the sun pounding down did make the car turn into a bit of a sauna! Some 40 minutes saw us leave Croatia and enter Montenegro. I am guessing that most people don't know too much about Montenegro (the second newest country in the world), and I am happy to admit that until a few weeks ago I was one of those people. However, Barry saw an article in 'Wanderlust' magazine talking about how lovely Montenegro was and how nice the mountains were and our minds were quickly made up to head there for my birthday break. Bay of Kotor The Bay of Kotor is Europe's southern most fjord, and a pretty awsome ... read more
July 17th 2009
Time is not on my hands these days. I would love to be able to blog as much as I did when we were travelling for a year, but it is just not possible! Therefore, our recent few days in Dubrovnik, followed by a week in Montenegro will exist in these two short (but sweet?!) blogs... Some of the highlights of our couple of days in Dubrovnik included: * the weather! I loved the blue skies and sunshine. We had perfect weather for our entire trip. If anything, it was too hot, hitting around 35 degrees on most days. This meant that culture was mostly out of the question, so instead we found other sun-friendly ways to amuse ourselves. * walking the city walls at sunset. The perfect time to capture the light on the red ... read more
Snow Day in London!
Published: February 2nd 2009Europe » United Kingdom » England » Greater London » London City
February 2nd 2009
Whilst I do live in London and therefore this is not strictly a 'travelblog', I couldn't resist putting up some photos from today's pretty exceptional events. London rarely gets snow, and it very rarely gets snow that sticks for more than 5 minutes. This has been one of those rare days! Work was more or less called off, but I braved the cold and snow to walk in just to quickly turn on the computers before coming home again. On my way I took a detour to take some of these snaps. I even got to build a snowman which is something I had little chance to do when I was young as we pretty much never had snow on the Welsh coast. I named him Snowy (well, I did once have a fish called 'fishy' ... read more
September 3rd 2008
I have been home for over three months now, and it has taken this long for me to build up the courage to produce my final Latin America blog. I think it is a bit like an electronic-mental block. Once I complete this blog, then the trip is officially over. No more exciting adventures! But, such is life. Below is the final (for now) Latin America blog. We took a long, but sometimes fun, crossing from Flores in Guatemala to Palenque in Mexico. The journey involved a bus, a 20 minute boat journey along a river, and another bus. Oh, and bribing a Guatemalan border guard to leave the country. Our usual kind of border crossing then... Palenque Our first stop in Mexico was the town and nearby Mayan ruins of Palenque. The town didn't get ... read more
August 20th 2008
From Honduras we cheated a bit by taking a direct shuttle bus to Guatemala. This went against our usual method of cheap chicken bus travel, but even we need some luxury sometimes! The shuttle was significantly faster than the alternative, although still took nearly 6 hours. Distances here look so short on the map but seem to turn into mini epics every time we travel. Antigua Our first proper stop in Guatemala was the colonial city of Antigua. It is easy to see why this place has become a backpacker hot-spot, with its nice architecture, quirky cafes, bagel shops, etc. The problem is though that Guatemala seems almost too tourist-oriented. Where are we meant to go for just some normal Guatemalan dishes?! Still, we enjoyed our time in Antigua, wandering the streets, visiting a few museums ... read more
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