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When I first started travelling after spending nearly two decades in the education system, the absolute last thing I was interested in doing was any more learning. In my mind at the time, learning was something that you did from a dusty old book in a library or from a dusty old professor in a lecture hall, after which you forgot at least ninety percent of it before trying to write an essay or sit an exam on a topic of minimal interest and less relevance. Not so exciting. Once I got to the other side of the world, however, I soon realised that learning life lessons was far more interesting than sitting in a classroom – especially because I tended to learn them while doing something I loved. Travelling. Over the years it has taught me far more than anything else that I’ve done and, I’d like to think, made me a better person for it.

I’ll be back here again.

If travel was a pop song, this would be the catchy chorus that gets repeated half a dozen times throughout. Whatever other tangents the verses might take, no matter how unusual the bridge or solo might be, there’s no escaping the chorus’s familiar refrain.

My five awesome things to do in Paris, that may involve getting drunk, being solicited and breaking traffic laws. Amongst other things.

Back in February I spent several days doing a road trip around Tasmania where I spent most nights staying in hostels ranging from the pretty crummy through to one that was flasher than some hotels I’ve been to. What struck me at all of these places, though, was just how much technology has changed the way that backpackers travel in the last decade.

For the last year or so I’ve been living in Fitzroy, a mile or two north of the central city in Melbourne, Australia. Not to put too fine a point on it, I love it. Much more than anywhere I’ve lived in the past, Fitzroy and its surrounding area is a neighbourhood with personality. Melbourne’s first – and smallest – suburb, it’s crammed full of fantastic restaurants, bars, galleries and heritage buildings that thankfully haven’t been knocked down by over zealous developers, with a laid back mix of bohemian residents for whom anything goes.

From the crowded pavement cafes of Brunswick Street to the local pubs tucked away down quiet back streets, from the pumping live music scene to the wide open parkland of Carlton Gardens, I will – and happily do – spend hours just wandering round and enjoying everything the area has to offer.

Here’s my highly subjective tour of Fitzroy that takes in a few of the places that I return to time and again