In 2015 I was fortunate to be invited to Venice for a few days with my sister, Rachel, and her husband. He was on a work trip and so they were both paid for, but it meant I was in the Generator Venice Hostel whilst they stayed in a five-star hotel. The hostel was pretty good though, and one of…
The sudden hot spell just after Easter 2015 happened to coincide with a bike touring holiday in Scotland with a close friend, so we had an incredible week cycling in the sun instead of Scotland’s usual mist and rain. The route was around the Eastern edge of Skye then across to the top of Uist and back on the Western…
The second overnight hike was up to Lac du Muzelle and back down the following day. One of the best bits of advice I can give for getting comfortable hiking and camping in the mountains is to do a couple of overnight trips up to the top of a valley. Camp as high as you can whilst still having water…
The holiday started in Sauze d’oulx (Italy) where we spent some time with my cousin who lives there. We then spent two weeks hiking in Parc National des Ecrins. I’ve summarised where we went and camped at the end. This post covers the first six days. For the first overnight walk we left the car in Valloise and walked up…
These photos are from my Gold Duke of Edinburgh expedition in Snowdonia, in 2013. The hike up to the Aran Ridge and then along the top is one of my favourite walks in Wales. I hope to return one day without the restriction of being part of a school group. The first day was an ‘acclimatisation’ walk up to the…
This is the second part of my 2012 backpacking trip in the French Pyrenees (first part here). I’m looking at the photos roughly seven years later so its rather heavy on the photos and light on the details. The second multiple night walk talk us past a series of lakes and then we camped high up the valley beside large…
I’m writing this post in 2019, roughly seven years after actually doing it in 2012! This means its slightly light on specifics and location details. We arrived in the French pyrenees to find the mountains covered in cloud, obscuring the peaks and making us wonder if we had made the right decision. We camped at a nearby campsite and spent…
In 2011 we did our last bike touring trip as a family through Jura in France (all future family holidays were to be backpacking). It had lots of waterfalls, grottos and quite a few lakes, using a few records I’ve written up a quick account for you to enjoy. I somehow lost a chunk of the photos so these are…