on travelling

I have always thought that I would like to create some sort of record for my love of travelling but as with most things that I do, the good idea did not materialise, until now. I suppose the spark that ignited ambition to travel to as many different countries and immerse myself into many different cultures started when I was serving in the British Army. Although, yes I went to places with the army, they were not all fun and even when they were, we were restricted to what we could do. Upon then meeting my third (and currently final) ex-boyfriend, another keen traveller, I was able to start off my dream with three weeks of inter-railing. More hardened travellers probably laugh as just a mere three weeks of inter-rail but alas I was still chained by the 'annual leave' prison imposed by my employer.

Either way, we got to visit a vast range of places that I have never had the luck to go to before. In order of march (army term) they included;

Paris

Amsterdam

Berlin

Prague 

(via several hours in Munich)

Venice

Milan

Barcelona

Madrid

A lot of places for such a short space of time you say, true indeed however, with early starts and late finishes, you can achieve quite a bit of distance. This all happened in 2013 so quite some time ago. To that end I am not going to go into depth about this very first experience of mine only that it was the first time I had used the eurostar, the first time I had slept on a sleeper train, the first time (self-imposed of course, I could have gone anytime but didn't) I was able to freely venture out into unknown places and do as I please.

So what is the purpose of this post? Well, not really for anything specifically other than to explain the very groundwork for why I like to travel and why I now have the confidence to travel alone without the need for a guiding military hand or indeed just a normal friend (or ex-boyfriend). I have been to a few places since but again I will ignore these due to memory lapse BUT.... This September (2016), I do my very first solo tour and the destinations of choice include Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo and Kyoto. This is where I will really start my travel journey. Trip Advisor tells me that I have only covered 9% of the world so there is plenty of time to amatuer blog.

Thanks for reading.