At the beginning of this year, as per tradition, I decided it was time to go travelling and get away from winter. I was to start in Miami again and this time move onto Central America with minimal planning and lots of excitement. Miami was a short 1 month visit this time and is a place I like to travel to in order to acquire new business and enjoy the Miami Beach lifestyle. The 1st challenge would be getting through customs as I usually get put into the 'random search, harass and prod with the white glove' category. When I get off the plane and go towards customs, there is a huge queue yet an officer at the foot of the queue looks at my passport and tells me to walk down another side path away ... read more

In July I decided I would go back to the UK during August to resolve some issues with properties I own. I didn’t know how long I’d need to be in the UK for so I decided it was a good time to come back with my car, making it easy to drive around without hiring vehicles. After researching into various route options, my mind was made up …. Let’s do a road trip all the way to the Eurotunnel port in Calais. For the first time I was going on a journey with no planning whatsoever, so much so that I didn’t even remember my passport until the final hour when I was reminiscing about another holiday and saw the passport in my head. All I knew is that I wanted to visit a few ... read more

After a lovely time at Iguazu falls, I debated whether to go back to Rio for my final week or go to Buenos Aires. I'd gotten into travelling mode and was thinking about hitting a few more countries within 1 week. I decided it was a silly idea and flew back to Rio instead. I returned to the hostel I stayed in originally and received a good discount for a room to myself. I actually had the whole hostel to myself, the place still being deserted. Not a lot going on outside either and even my favourite cafe had shut down for renovation. After 2 days I decided it was time to leave again ... I was getting lonely. Previously when I travelled from Rio to Parati I missed the famous stop-off island 'Ilha Grande' and ... read more

My time in Parati came to an end. I now had 2 weeks left in Brazil and despite initially wanting to stay in Rio for the month, I was in adventure mode. The more travellers I spoke to, the more I wanted to do. Others seemed to be doing the same journey as I was planning, however I missed a stop. After carnival in Rio people go to Ilha Grande on the way to Parati. I hadn't heard about this island so it wasn't in my itinerary. My next destination would be Iguazu falls, one of the modern wonders of the world. This was quite far away so I decided to break my trip into 2 and stop at Sao Paulo for a couple of days. The journey to Sao Paulo was 6 hours on the ... read more

Once I said goodbye to my Miami crew I hopped onto a plane headed for Rio. It was sheer coincidence yet I was to land into Rio during the heart of carnival .... a time where anything and everything goes. I didn't know what to expect but I had an idea from my research on youtube. Everything was going to be a lot more expensive for those 5 carnival days, that's for sure. Accommodation prices shoot up 5 times too and is quite hard to find. I booked mine in January from Miami, only to find nearer the time the booking didn't go through so I had to find another place last minute. Before I left Miami I did some research into how to get from the Rio airport to where I need to be and ... read more