Pssst. Over here. Come a little closer, for I have a terrible secret to admit.

I was once one of them. Sometimes I even still am. If you’ve spent any time in a train station in Europe or various tourist destinations around the globe, you’ll know who I’m talking about. Remember that girl who was struggling gamely to lift a pack bigger than she was? That guy swearing and cursing as he hauled that massive suitcase up another flight of stairs? They were fully paid up members of the ‘kitchen sink’ club – the people who just don’t know when to stop putting things in their luggage. Everything but the kitchen sink goes in.

I’ve been as guilty of this as anybody else, but I only realised it after purchasing a new backpack recently. My old pack had finally given up the ghost after a decade of being dragged around the world, and as I laid my shiny new one on the bed to fill it up with the ‘essentials’ it suddenly occurred to me how just how much I was putting in.

That third pair of trousers. Half a dozen travel guides and other books. A toiletries bag so full that I had to start putting things in plastic bags.  Here was me, supposedly an experienced traveller, fighting with the zips on my backpack. Every item had a perfectly good justification for why it was included – but unless I also planned to pack a donkey to carry it all for me, I just couldn’t take it all. And yet I still tried.

I’ve been asked many times over the years why it is that I am able to travel and move countries as much as I do, and the answer invariably comes down to one simple fact. I don’t accumulate stuff. Keeping my life free of unnecessary junk – and being happy to dispose of what little there is – provides the mental and physical freedom to drop everything and travel on a whim.

If you would also prefer to spend your life on the road rather than your new leather recliner, here’s a few simple ideas that can help.

Thanks to the good folks at indietravelpodcast.com, my first travel article has now been published online. It’s a basic guide on how to travel safely when you’re out there on the road.

The summary is below – follow the link to read the full article in all it’s glory…

Of all the things that can turn your dream trip into a nightmare, being left stranded in a foreign country with nothing except the clothes on your back ranks very highly on the list. Even losing your wallet, ipod or camera with all of those irreplaceable shots on it can be a major problem.

Who wants to spend their valuable travelling time giving statements to police or on the phone to the credit card company back home when they could be hiking the Inca trail or sitting on the beach sipping cocktails? Follow this guide and you’ll have a better chance of being able to enjoy -– and pay for — those pina coladas.

Read article

Well who would have thought, it’s been just over a year and sure enough, the call of the travel gods has indeed become too much to resist.  For now it’s just in the form of this website, but I know there’ll be some time on a plane coming before much longer.

In any case, I’ve registered this site and hope to use it for a few interesting things in the future.  To start with I’m going to focus on getting the design right, followed up getting some photo albums set up and then writing some travel articles about places I’ve been and any other travel related stuff that comes to mind.

As far as blogs go, I’ve imported my waffle crap very interesting posts from last year’s travels and cleaned them up, so that’s a start at least.

Anyway, I’d be really interested in hearing your feedback on anything and everything to do with this site.  Obviously it’s a work in progress and probably will be for a while, but if you’ve got any ideas, thoughts, suggestions, abuse or anything else, I’d love to hear it.  Send me an email or comment on this post.  Best suggestion gets a free chocolate fish.  Depending on how far away you live, it may be a very squashed, very melted and somewhat disgusting chocolate fish but hey, you can’t have everything in life, right?

The last few days of the trip seemed to pass very quickly, and in somewhat of a blur – and not just because I was drunk for most of them.  I spent the remaining time in London seeing a few friends that I hadn’t managed to see the first time round, including catching up with Andrea and going to see Hairspray (the musical) at the Shaftesbury theatre.  It was really good, despite the nose-bleed seats, and reminded me just how good the shows in London really are.  Other than that, I had a few drinks with Richard (an old workmate) at Canary Wharf, spent an afternoon chatting with my grandparents (with no mention of any specific food items at lunch, Do…) and continued to set the world to rights with Bec & Craig.  I think we’ve got world poverty, the financial crisis and the state of several African economies pretty much sorted now.