Tinker And Laura

Tink And Laura

Tinker And Laura

Welcome to our travel blogs! These blogs are written to share our experiences travelling around the world to friends, family and blog readers from around the world. Take your time and have a good read! We've split the blogs into the following trips:

India (2008) - A month long trip from north to south travelling to Shimla, Delhi, Agra, Pushkar, Jaipur, Mumbai, Goa and Kerala.

South America (2009) - A month long trip to Peru and Bolivia visiting Lima, Arequipa, Puno, La Paz, Custco and Puerto Maldonado.

South Korea (2010-2011) - A year teaching as a Native English Teacher in Boeun at the heart of South Korea.

Japan (2011) - A two week holiday to Japan visiting Fukuoka, Osaka, Tokyo, Hakuba, Kyoto and Hiroshima.

The Philippines (2011) - A week long summer break to the beautiful island of Siargao in The Philippines.

Central America (2012) - A three month voyage through Central America starting and ending in Panama. Join us as we ventured up through Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Honduras before looping back around via Guatemala, El Salvador and the countries that we'd previously visited!

California Here We Come!

North America » United States » California September 22nd 2023

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Tink And Laura

Dear Blog Readers, So begins our babymoon! Normally we'd try and get away in November (such as Barbados last year!) but brought it forward and decided to jet off to sunny California! Bookings were late but we had a rough idea of where we wanted to head out so let's take you on the journey with us! Firstly, the flight to LA was lovely, getting to experience BA's Club Suite was delightful - a fully flat bed and decent grub soothed the jet lag woes! Once at LA's airport, we found ourselves to the Avis rental car place, which had a queue nearly as long as the security/immigration, and our expected Ford Focus turned out to be a Dodge Charger! Quickly getting used to the automatic gearing and sheer size of the car, we found our ... read more

Beautiful Bulgaria

Europe » Bulgaria » Sofia City » Sofia July 31st 2023

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Tink And Laura

Dear Blog Readers, We'd been really looking forward to this trip, our first time visiting Bulgaria! We'd managed to use some Avios points and a free cabin upgrade resulting in business class returns for 55,000 points and £1 which felt like a steal! Flying this way, the holiday starts at the airport after going through business class check-in, fast-track security, and then straight into the lounge. At Terminal 3 there are several OneWorld lounges to choose from even though we were flying with BA - we decided to go to the Cathay Pacific Lounge. The main reason was that it has its own noodle bar so we could have some miso soup and Vietnamese pho before even taking off! Once in the air, we were treated to a meal and the three-and-a-half-hour journey flew by, landing ... read more

Kracking Krakow!

Europe » Poland » Lesser Poland » Kraków May 27th 2023

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Tink And Laura

Dear Blog Readers, A quick weekend jaunt to Krakow off the back of a work trip felt worthy of a short travel blog for the fans! Disappointingly, I fear the general audience heading to Krakow are stag and hen dos, which my Polish colleagues were quick to inform me, were, unfortunately, a tarnish on their wonderful city, so I'm hoping this reaches a new audience of tourists going to visit for different reasons! Firstly a couple of recommendations for evening drinks and food which are hopefully not too overrun with stag/hen dos! On Thursday evening, my colleagues and I went out to Hala Forum which is at the foot of what used to be the fanciest hotel (Hotel Forum) in the whole city and now lies deserted/ruined due to being closed over two decades ago for ... read more

Pining for the fjords!

Europe » Norway » Northern Norway » Bodø March 16th 2023

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Tink And Laura

Dear Blog Readers, I’ve been so looking forward to writing this travel blog! Norway has been an absolutely unforgettable trip, and comfortably exceeded our expectations! Maybe we have lucked out with the weather and opportunity out here but I’ll lay it all out for you and let you be the judge! I may have been swayed by the numerous pianos in cafes, hotels, restaurants, and the regular appearance of a shoe horn in establishments… Pretty much everybody we mentioned going to Norway to immediately goes where we did and recommends taking out a loan from the bank to be able to afford it - and there is no denying that it is an expensive trip, but save what you can, and it’ll be worth every penny. Flights out were with SAS as we needed to get ... read more

Beautiful Barbados

Central America Caribbean » Barbados December 4th 2022

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Tink And Laura

Dear Blog Readers, It had felt like a long stint since our last holiday in July, which went like a whirlwind, so we were so ready for this holiday! It was the first time using my British Airways perks too which was exciting as much as it was confusing about the terminology, process, constant checking on availability! However, tickets were booked, and flights were ‘confirmed’ to Barbados so off we went! Off to an absolute flyer as we were given the first two seats in First Class for the outbound flight. Laura was offered champagne before she’d even sat down! The seats were massive, the service impeccable and the food was outstanding. We could even sit together for our meals like we were on a date at 30,000ft. We barely slept, mostly because we didn’t want ... read more

A Break In Beautiful Belfast

Europe » United Kingdom » Northern Ireland » County Antrim » Belfast March 3rd 2022

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Tink And Laura

Dear Blog Readers, The last time Mum and I were having a holiday together was the well-rehearsed Manchester to Vienna trip that she'd been doing whilst I was working there. We were chatting over my birthday weekend about our next trip and there was a deal on British Airways for a return flight to Belfast and a 5-night stay at the Hampton Hilton hotel with breakfast for £594 - bargain! Our recent trip to the cinema to see the brilliant movie of the same name only made us more intrigued to learn more about the city and its history. Mum's trip to Heathrow was anything but easy with the tube strikes meaning by the end of the day she'd traveled on most conceivable modes of transport. Our flight was slightly delayed but went very quickly, felt ... read more

Blast from the Buda-past!

Europe » Hungary » Central Hungary » Budapest February 11th 2022

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Tink And Laura

Dear Blog Readers, A lot has happened since I was on the phone to the holiday insurance company on Friday 13th March 2020 (unlucky for some….us) as I was bafflingly being told we had to fly out to a country who had already closed their borders due to the COVID outbreak. Thankfully, 24 hours later, they’d seen some sense and we then began the arduous process of claiming everything back and have now waited nearly two years for the opportunity to finally do the trip we’d (sort of) planned. Our BA flight out on Friday evening was as smooth as ever. Laura began her week of boozing by getting a glass of wine, and we had the inflight entertainment of a hen-do a few rows in front (they even managed to get the pilot out for ... read more

China - Shanghai & Beijing

Asia » China » Shanghai September 3rd 2019

I Love Shanghai

Tink And Laura

Dear Blog Readers, The 20 hour train ride went surprisingly quickly. We slept really well, relatively few stops and no train conductors getting a free English lesson! We rattled into Shanghai around midday and decided to get one of their Oyster Card equivalents...although it didn't seem to make the journey prices any cheaper. After a couple of metro stops and a confusing walk, we eventually found the lovely Greenland Jiulong Hotel which had a nice view of the city. Unfortunately the weather turned against us just as we got to the outskirts of the city to explore and we'd forgotten our umbrella! We dived into some shopping centres and headed down the main street following the crowds until we got to The Bund. The sight in front of us is nothing short of one of the ... read more

China - Guilin & Zhangjiajie

Asia » China » Guangxi » Guilin August 29th 2019

Lovely tea set and view in the room

Tink And Laura

Dear Blog Readers, Arriving quite late at Guilin train station after the panda-infested train ride, we nervously waited outside trying to let down the baying taxi drivers down gently. Mercifully, our apologetic pick up from our hotel found us and hurried us to a nearby car park. There seemed to be some singing and dancing going on in the nearby car park - like an overenthusiastic flashmob without the impromptu audience watching. We were soon crashed out in our unbelievable hotel room at the Secret Courtyard Resort Hotel - it had a wonderful view of the mountains with a tea set already lined up. The roof turned into a huge sky-light too so we had the moon and stars beaming down on us as we fell asleep. We had a lovely cup of tea and breakfast ... read more

China - Chengdu

Asia » China » Sichuan » Chengdu August 24th 2019

Beautiful architecture

Tink And Laura

Dear Blog Readers, The people have spoken and both readers have commented on the lack of toilet thus far. I was going to save it for the the stomach issues faced in Guilin (spoiler alert) but I'll comment on thoughts so far on the bog front. In general, very impressive facilities - numerously scattered about the towns, especially in Beijing, where the houses in the hutongs rarely have their own toilet so the public ones are used. Often clean and we must have experienced some shockers as sometimes it was the locals that were disgusted with the facilities rather than ourselves! You must bring toilet paper - it's a luxury if there is some provided (often at the entrance rather than in the cubicle. Talking of cubicles, it wasn't uncommon for there not to be door, ... read more

Joined	September 3rd 2008	Trips	10
Last Login	December 2nd 2023	Followers	2
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