To the beach! After much deliberation of East vs West, we decided to go West! In search of sunnier skies and nature’s beauty, we called our new friend Alberto and asked him to drive us to Playa Grande, about three and a half hours from La Fortuna. Along the journey, the landscape and climate changed dramatically. As soon as we drove over the crest of a hill and towards the coast, the land became dry and arid, bright sunshine and blue skies; such a contrast. I enjoyed conversing with Alberto and practising my Spanish. We arrived at Hotel El Manglar in the Palm Beach Estates of Guanacaste. Guanacaste ... read more

Not quite a ludicrous as the title suggests, but not far off. May 2015, and a grand adventure awaited! Two lovely friends of mine were getting married in the Catskills, upstate New York at the end of May, so as well as this being a wonderful thing, it was also a great time to create an adventure. Whilst on that side of the world, it would have been rude not to. (Catskills blog to follow soon).The main criteria for adventure were Spanish speaking, and easy access for the three of us reuniting from London and Hong Kong. En route to Costa Rican jungles and beaches, I stopped off in New York with the gorgous bride to be! After a sixteen hour flight, I got a train to Penn Station and emerged into Madison square feeling delighted, ... read more

I'm lucky enough to have travelled extensively in Asia, and Myanmar has been on my wishlist for many years, in particular Bagan. All I can say is it was well worth the wait... A one hour propeller plane flight from Yangon took us to Bagan, a very flat, green landscape with the most wonderful skyline. Within half an hour of landing, I was driving to the hotel and already seeing hundreds of pagodas peeking up above the trees. I would liken it to being in a National Park, where you are surrounded by a particular type of scenery - in this case, pagodas. I knew there were lots of them, but the number astounded me, along with how close to them I was. After checking in at the gorgeous Tharabar Gate Hotel, named after an ancient ... read more

Abergavenny If you’ve followed my blogs this year, you will have noticed that I went to New York in April. Before I go away I often do research on websites such as Tripadvisor. One of my favourite tripadvisor emails I received this year, was the one entitled “New York and Abergavenny are recommended for you”. Yes, I’d been researching both, but both are quite radically different! Different but equally valid destinations! Abergavenny provided me with a lovely holiday from a holiday! I wanted to spend some time with my Dad, and with the distractions and demands of being in London, we decided to head out on a road trip and my wishlist for the trip consisted of ‘green open space’. A three to four hour drive from London, crossing the river Severn took us into Wales ... read more

Seven years in Hong Kong, and you think you’ve done most things there are to do. Thankfully I still manage to surprise myself and discover more. Monday, that tricky day of the week when there’s a lot to do and it’s back to work after the weekend. Monday night is often one of those go to the gym, healthy dinner, early night kind of days. This particular Monday I was offered the chance to do something quite different. I left my desk at 6pm, raced home to change, and by 7pm I was in a taxi to the start of “The Twins” hike. Five of us began hiking in the dusk, heading up over the first hill towards the beach town called Stanley. It was quite a surreal turnaround. “The twins” are a popular hiking route ... read more