Category: Travel writing

‘We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe whose riches are differently dispersed. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again – to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more.’ 

Pico Iyer

The above quote from travel writer Pico Iyer eloquently expresses some of my thoughts on why I enjoy travelling. Everytime we head off in our campervan I feel happy knowing I am setting off on a trip that will give me many chances to open my heart to new places and people and most certainly fall in love over and over again.

Travelling to new and familiar places I uncover different ways of living and new perspectives. Travel keeps alive my fascination and interest in people, history and nature as I see places, observe interactions and learn languages. These things encourage me to make connections and enjoy our differences.

For me being away from home is always a liberating experience. My brain is stimulated by seeing the everyday differently as well as seeing new sights and learning new stories. In my own four walls I am safe but I also become tethered to a schedule and travel injects the unexpected. The sights, smells and tastes of a different place open up new possibilities for my own life and stimulate creativity and interest. I don’t witness a shining light of revelation but by witnessing other people and observing that there is more than one way to be, I gradually understand humanity just a little bit better.

I am not suggesting that coming home is unpleasant. I like where I live and returning to Lancashire I will spend a few days adjusting and thinking through everything I have seen. This is my travel-wise state and it often results in tiny shifts in my life as I follow up on something I have questioned or learnt while I was away. I might remember how much better I feel from being outdoors all day and try and include being outside more in my day; I might increase the amount of language learning I do after being embarrassed with how little I know; or I might research further a period in history I had learnt about on our trip. I try and cling onto the open-heartedness of travelling as long as I can as I move around my local area and I resist getting back into habits. Eventually I will become comfortable in the workaday again and I know it is time to get back on the road.

Travel might feel like an indulgence but it has value. It is an annoying cliche but we often think of life as a journey and it is the travelling in my life that gives me the resources to make my way along that journey as the best person I can be until my big trip on this planet ends.

‘Travelling through the world produces a marvellous clarity in the judgement of men. We are all of us confined and enclosed within ourselves and see no farther than the end of our nose. This great world is a mirror where we must see ourselves in order to know ourselves. There are so many different tempers, so many different points of view, judgements, opinions, laws and customs to teach us to judge wisely on our own, and to teach our judgement to recognize its imperfection and natural weakness.’  

Michel de Montaigne

Hello blog readers! I am so glad you have come along for the ride. I am certainly not a serious blogger; my blog posts are published irregularly and my subject matter is all over the place. I am happy if just a couple of people read my blog posts and I am amazed when it is often many more. My blog has had some ups and downs during the Covid-19 pandemic but once people were getting out and about again and starting to plan, 2021 was a pretty good year for attracting readers.

I would probably get more blog readers if I wasn’t a tad lazy. During 2021 I only publishing 36 blog posts, not even one a week! This was mainly because we were either in lockdown and there was nothing new to write about, or we were travelling and I didn’t have time to post or I was writing a travel article for a magazine and also didn’t have time to post! The posts I did write varied from recipes and what was going on at home to traveller tales as we toured all four nations of the UK in 2021, spending time in Scotland and England and making our first visit to Northern Ireland and returning to Wales after a gap of a few years. In 2021 we even spent a short time abroad when we crossed the border into Ireland!

I’ve been blogging since 2009 and, although I cringe when I read those early blog posts, I can see it was useful writing practice for becoming a campervan travel writer. I currently write two different blogs, this one and my memorial benches blog, but posting to both these blog has to take a back seat when I am working on a paid article.

My blog is put together via WordPress and this platform generates all sorts of data for those who are interested. On a wet day in January I checked the stats for 2021 and was interested to see that the post that received the most attention was one I wrote back in 2019 about our trip to the amazing Shetland Islands. Making a return trip to Shetland niggles in my mind regularly, so I am not surprised that other campervan and motorhome owners are planning trips to those northerly islands.

Next up in the rankings [down from number one in 2020] is a post from a few years ago about cooking with an essential piece of kit in our campervan, our RidgeMonkey grill. I am pleased to see that this wonderful cooking pan is gaining popularity and seeing plenty of sales, I wouldn’t be without mine.

Two travel writing posts have remained in the top five since I wrote them. One focusing on my thoughts on the quote, ‘Normality is a paved road; It’s comfortable to walk but no flowers grow‘ feels particularly relevant during the Covid-19 pandemic and I looked at this post again last year and added to it. During lockdown I couldn’t wait to leave the mundanity of normality behind! The second is titled, ‘One’s Destination is Never a Place but always a new way of seeing things.’ This is a Henry Miller quote and in the post I considered how travel keeps my wonderment muscle supple. Since I wrote this piece two years ago I have had to exercise those muscles closer to home and I have learnt that, although I don’t have to travel far to be filled with wonder, I continue to have a need to keep filling my life with new experiences.

A remarkable post that remains popular is one from my long-running Surprising Salford series. This is a post about the astonishing and amusing Gnome Island. This island of gnomes [what else] in Salford Quays received little attention from the public until the new tram line to the Trafford Centre opened and suddenly it was much easier to see the gnomes from the stop near Old Trafford and, if you search for Gnome Island in Salford my blog is one of the few resources that pops up. I am glad Gnome Island hasn’t been cleared away by the corporate giants around Salford Quays and that its creator remains, as far as I know, a mystery. If you’re in Manchester or Salford go and take a look.

The pages where visitors can download articles I have had published in MMM and Campervan Mag are also always popular too and the lists just keep getting longer. The top download for 2021 was my fun piece I wrote from our campervan’s point of view about a trip to Wharfedale meeting the Blue Bus’ siblings [other Devon Conversions vans] and fellow campervans. This was published in Campervan Mag during 2021. Writing this piece was a blast and maybe this comes through in the words and is why people enjoy reading it. The second most popular download was the RidgeMonkey article in Campervan Mag. After that it is my reports on our Devon Tempest in MMM and Campervan Mag that attract most readers who, presumably, are researching what campervan to buy.

I am hoping that 2022 takes me, my partner and our Blue Bus to some fabulous places in the UK and across the Channel. I have no goal for the number of posts I will write on my blogs but I hope you keep reading about the things that inspire me and enjoy joining me back on the road.

I was so excited when, way back in 2011, my name topped my first article published in MMM. Although it has happened many times since, the thrill of seeing my name in print still remains. Having sharpened my pen working as a volunteer on a community newspaper in Preston and writing my own travel blog, I dipped my toes into paid writing. That first article was a short light-hearted piece about campsite showers. It was the following year that I had a full article published about our campervan and my first travel article was published in 2013. From this slow start I gradually became a regular contributor for MMM and more recently for Campervan Magazine and occasionally other publications.

As well as contributing, I also subscribe to MMM and Campervan Magazine and I continue to read them cover to cover every month. I read with interest what is new in the campervan and motorhome world and I am constantly inspired by the wonderful trips other travel writers make in their ‘vans. If someone else’s trip sounds like just the sort of thing we would do I will scan and keep a copy of the article for future reference before the magazine goes into the recycling box.

Although digital copies are available, I spend so much of my time looking at screens editing photographs, writing and reading some of the excellent blogs out there, I prefer to get a hard copy that I work my way through over a mug of tea. I might curl up in a chair in the afternoon and read MMM or Campervan Mag but I most often read them during our leisurely retirees breakfast time.

For me, writing and reading go hand-in-hand. This isn’t so that I can copy other writers although I do find that reading good travel writing sparks ideas in my head. I will make connections about places and themes to write about next; I might get ideas for how I can structure an article or construct sentences differently in the future; and I learn how I can improve my writing to interest or inform readers better. Every writer has their own voice that shines through the pages and I can only be myself as I write but that doesn’t mean it isn’t useful to see how someone else does it.

Reading good travel writing inspires me to be a better writer but bad writing can help me recognise where I might make mistakes too. As Anne Lamott pointed out:

One reads with a deeper appreciation and concentration, knowing now how hard writing is, especially how hard it is to make it look effortless. You begin to read with a writer’s eyes. You focus in a new way. You study how someone portrays his or her version of things in a way that is new and bold and original.

Writing is never effortless. Typing just 2,000 words that are coherent, absorbing and represent an authentic experience for a travel article takes considerable time and effort and I don’t always meet the standards I set for myself. I am in awe of anyone who has the ability to write enough words for a whole travel book and I am grateful that many wonderful authors have the imagination to write novels. Although I think I still have something new to say, I am clear about and happy to accept my limitations and I don’t intend to put myself under the pressure of writing anything longer.

Travel writing is more than having an engaging style and good grammar, it also has to take readers to a place and give a flavour of the destination. I enjoy telling stories from places we visit, sharing nuggets of history that interest me and I include a variety of activities so that each article and blog post is relevant to different readers. We would happily spend an entire holiday walking and cycling but I try to be inclusive and varied. The starting point of each of my travel articles is a trip of our own, I pay my own way and the priority is that we have a good time! So no matter how much readers might like to vicariously experience sky-diving or deep water swimming through one of my travel articles I won’t be giving those things a go just for the sake of good copy!

If I make mistakes, I am sorry but few people are perfect. If my writing looks effortless then I have done a good job. And always, thank you to everyone for reading!

2020 started ordinarily enough. We took our campervan away in January and February to various corners of the UK. In March, as we walked around charming Cheltenham, I noticed that the shops were running out of hand sanitiser and people were buying face masks. When Lock Down One came we were in Scotland and had to race back home to Lancashire feeling sad and frustrated. My pessimistic inner voice mithered inside my head, insisting that this coronavirus wasn’t going to leave our shores without a fight. A pandemic would surely be a long haul and I wasn’t sure I would come out the other end still working as a travel writer.

In March I wrote about these anxious lock down feelings. With no possibility of travel I had little else to write about and sharing my worries helped. Walking and cycling our local paths every day eased the anxiety and helpful and caring readers gave me support after my heartfelt and desperate post when I felt about as useless as one of those proverbial chocolate teapots.

I had planned a busy year of writing in 2020, penciling in more travel articles than ever. So much for plans! With little paid writing through the spring I had more time to spend on blog posts. I have continued to write regularly, although posted less than in 2019. I still prefer to write 600 – 800 word posts that readers don’t have to invest a stack of time ploughing through but in 2020 I have experimented with writing some longer posts. These are designed as detailed guides for an area, particularly for walkers and cyclists. This is information I haven’t had time to arrange and share before and from comments I have received these posts will be useful long-term. As I have got to know the corners of Morecambe and Lancaster I have shared my local knowledge on the blog too.

Since I started this blog five years ago the readers have steadily increased each month. Not surprisingly, there was less interest in a blog that focusses on travel early in the spring of 2020 and views plummeted in March. Readers gradually returned through June and I am quietly relieved that I’m not talking to myself and that the number of views over the year has held steady and reached slightly beyond 2019’s stats. That said, this blog is never about the numbers, what has been fantastic is the lovely comments and feedback I have received from readers, the blog has been a more interactive space in 2020 and with much less contact with actual people through the year this has been important.

My other blog, Memorial Bench Stories, has had its best year ever! This is nothing to do with people being drawn to my writing, it is the power of the media. The blog and I were featured on Radio 4 in a piece about memorial benches in January and this directed new readers to that blog. I have been recording memorial benches that catch my eye since 2012 and that blog continues to be driven by respect and sympathy, the media interest won’t go to my head!

While I have been writing for MMM for many years, in the last couple of years I have also been paid for writing for Campervan Magazine. Looking back, in 2019 I wrote 16 articles for these two wonderful magazines, whereas in 2020 I have only managed to pull together nine [and four of those were pre-Covid-19 trips]. There is always a time-lag between my completion and submission of an article and publication so I have still seen quite a few articles published in 2020, although about four less than expected. Peering into my 2021 crystal ball it is clear that this side hustle income will not recover to 2019 levels at least in the medium-term.

2020 laid on many surprises but an exciting one was being asked to contribute to a book of world-wide cycling routes by a large international publisher. Writing for a book, rather than a magazine, was an interesting learning experience for me and I felt out of my depth at times trying to understand their lingo and ways of working. Although it only paid a similar amount to writing for magazines and so won’t make me rich, you can’t put a price on a new experience. The editing process distracted me through lock down, as my copy pinged to-and-fro between me and the editor, who ‘marked’ my writing with a big red pen [otherwise known as track changes]. This felt like being back at school and was often frustrating, particularly when I was being asked to change something back to the way it was the first time! I gritted my teeth and accepted the challenge. Unlike in a magazine, I also got the chance to proofread and comment on the final page layout, including the photographs chosen.

For the past six years most of my free time [in between campervan holidays and seeing friends] has been spent researching and planning the next trip, writing travel articles and blog posts and editing photographs. 2020 has given me more free time than I have ever had before. I haven’t learnt how to play the saxophone or become fluent in German in that time but I have read a lot [over 50 books] and got stuck into a lot of DIY and gardening. 2020 has given me the chance to experience proper retirement!

There is now news of the first vaccines, hints about rapid tests and I am starting to get hopeful that the freedom to travel will once again be something we can take for granted by the summer of 2021. I am hesitant to plan or book anything yet but I truly hope we will get to visit mainland Europe again. If not, I hope I will be allowed to find joy exploring the UK in our campervan. My fascination in uncovering interesting stories and histories and finding beauty in unlikely places hasn’t diminished but I’m still not sure if my short travel writing career will survive this interruption.

If you have some extra time at home during lock down, you might have used some of this time to spring clean or de-clutter.  Being able to combine some small steps to having less stuff with sharing something with friends is a win-win.  I certainly have plenty of friends I am missing meeting up with during the pandemic and some of them are struggling with their own isolation or have helped me get through my anxiety in some way.  Clearing out and distributing old postcards to some old friends turned out to be a really positive lock down project.

Despite being an enthusiastic de-clutterer, having down-sized to a small flat, sold everything to go travelling and recently moved house, a cardboard box full of postcards, all sent by friends from their holidays over 40-plus years still remained as clutter / treasure in our small home.  There is something about letters and even postcards, perhaps because they are handwritten communication, that makes them special and I had looked at the box every time we moved, thought about discarding its contents and on each occasion gave the collection another chance.

These days we don’t receive many postcards, there are just a couple of friends who hang on to this tradition that I remember as quite a holiday chore back in the day.  I would sit in a cafe or at the campsite with a pile of colourful postcards in front of me, trying to think of something new, interesting and appropriate to say about our current destination to our address list.  These days a WhatsApp message, text or blog post reaches everyone more reliably but through the 1980s until well into the 21st century we received plenty of postcards from the UK and more exotic locations as friends found their wings and travelled.

We would display our friends postcards for a month or so on the mantelpiece and then pack them away in a box that originally held a couple of bottles of Christmas-gift wine.  I rarely looked at them over the years but when I did there was plenty of joy, the years rolled back and I was hearing again memories of friend’s holiday stories they had shared with us.  Many of the postcards reflect the varied characters of our friends; some are informative, giving us a detailed itinerary and telling us about the must-do sights in their chosen destination; others are funny and even surreal, bearing little relationship to their actual trip.  A few poetic friends sent us pithy and yet evocative word portraits of their destination.  Some postcards were written neatly and others arrived on our doormat covered in uneven rows of spidery handwriting that took hours to decipher.

Early in lock down I took the box out of its resting place in the highest cupboard in our low bungalow and began the process of sorting them into piles, one for each of the different senders.  I was somewhat surprised how many postcards some friends had sent us over the years; from just one very good and old friend I counted 52 postcards!  These were sent from across the world, from Australia and Japan to Iceland and North America.

A Zoom conversation with another friend put the idea into my head of sending these postcards back to their original sender.  What better thing to do while none of us can take a holiday or travel than to remind friends of trips they took in the past.  I hoped that by sharing these saved postcards I could rekindle some happy memories as well as make space in our limited storage cupboards.

After reading them one last time, the pile of each friend’s postcards were carefully packaged, along with a new postcard from ourselves explaining why we were returning them.  I didn’t want anyone to receive their parcel and think we had decided to enigmatically end our friendship with a dramatic return of our correspondence!  Or worse, they might assume that we had died and this was a tidying up of affairs.

Up to now, our friends have been thrilled to receive their package of holiday memories.  Many were amazed, thinking they knew us so well, that these postcards had survived our many moves and clear outs.

I have just one small pile of nine postcards left that I need to send to one more friend.  One reminds me of his family trip to Ireland and I notice another isn’t even addressed, so I think he handed it over in person when he returned!  This latter postcard is a photograph of some typical caves in southern Spain, which he thought would be great to live in and save on window cleaning bills!  Another is a night scene of Porto in Portugal and I can hear his voice when I read, ‘I have a full glass of port in front of me now and it’s very nice.’

Have we kept any?  Of course!  In the box were a few postcards that we sent to each other before we were married and a couple of precious ones from our son and daughter-in-law.  These hold a few special personal memories, but are not enough to merit using the box, this has been repurposed …

All in all, through the darkness of lock down, this project has been a small particle of joy.

 

 

I am sure most of us had plans for the spring that involved something more exciting than staying at home; everyone’s plans for celebrations, days out, weekends away and long holidays have all turned to dust.  So much upbeat anticipation of exciting places to visit and people to meet has vanished in a storm of viral infection.  As soon as lock down came into force the internet brimmed with advice on how to stay positive during a pandemic and I am working on staying in the present and co-operating with the inevitable, a wonderful saying that a loyal reader gifted me.  My mostly outward calm hides my inner turmoil where I feel trapped and the waves of anxiety that this will never end wash over me, as sure as the sea fills Morecambe Bay twice a day.

‘Set a routine,’ is the mantra of many self-help gurus.  My partner is good at this but I have never been one for regularity.  I like to think of myself as spontaneous and living in the moment, although you might see me as hopelessly restless.  If it is a sunny day I want to make the most of it, on the off-chance that it is my last, and I am the one who is always ready to drop any other plans and go camping or walking.

In an effort to endure this lock down stoically and with fortitude, I have tried to add some structure to my day to see if the gurus are right.  The daily strength exercises and tai chi are helpful, our morning coffee and daily outdoor exercise are all positive and there is some sense of adventure in going to the supermarket to see what they do and don’t have on the shelves.  I find I can fit these things into my day randomly, mixing them up to give me some sense of impulsiveness.  Our daily exercise from home can be hiking to the sea or the countryside, sometimes we take an evening walk along the sands to see the sunset over the bay, other days we take a morning cycle ride along the river Lune or the canal, taking best advantage of the tide or the weather.  We have a variety of supermarkets nearby and we can choose which one to patronise.  And still the days merge and seem almost the same and the happiest days for me are when we ditch the routine and do something different!

Like many in the campervan community we had plans for 2020.  Each trip we make it our campervan requires some planning and days of research for the travel articles I expect to write after each trip.  In January this year I, foolishly it now turns out, had the first six months pretty much mapped out and it was going to be a busy time.  I had at least eight trips and corresponding travel articles planned and I was working hard, doing the preparatory research as the virus began to lurk.

Never having the patience to wait for spring or summer, we go away in our campervan all year and I have never been more glad that we were away camping in January, February and early March on different trips.  From early-March we were planning to be in Scotland for a full month; this was a trip we were both happily anticipating.  As it turned out we were in Scotland for a shorter time before we had to return home.  I am pleased we got there at all but still can’t bear to even glance at, never mind edit, the photographs from that trip; they remind me too much of what I am missing.

Last week I had to ring the ferry company to cancel our ferry to Europe in early May.  A small and fairly simple action that was distressing because it put me face-to-face with the reality that we wouldn’t be travelling around mainland Europe this spring, never mind summer and probably autumn.  My brain had been protecting me by compartmentalising; one half optimistic and ill-advised, thinking this was all a bad dream, while the pessimistic section is over-actively creating apocalyptic scenarios!  This simple administrative call shattered my fragile equilibrium.

The pile of guidebooks, phrase books and maps I had purchased and sorted for our springtime European trip sat on the living room floor taunting me for four weeks.  I would look over at them hearing my pessimistic brain area banging on about how much money I had wasted and that they needed putting away but in the background my optimistic brain put its hands over its ears and sang, ‘Don’t worry about a thing
‘Cause every little thing gonna be all right.’  It wasn’t until lock down was extended that I caved in and packed them all onto the book shelves where they still mock me quietly when I dare to glance across.

There are more bookings to cancel / postpone but small steps and one day at a time is what the internet recommends!

 

 

 

 

 

I am feeling discombobulated and not particularly useful at the moment. No one wants to read a travel writer’s blog in these days full of coronavirus disease [Covid-19]. We are all feeling confused and worried in different ways; some of us are concerned about elderly friends or relatives; some motorhomers are wondering whether to stay in Spain, Portugal or France or come home; we might worry about whether we washed our hands enough and why we can’t stop touching our faces [or is that just me?] and others are wondering where they can buy toilet roll or dried pasta.  In this period of social distancing a full lock-down is only a matter of time and even though my fear of when this will happen doesn’t help, the fear remains.  On top of this global apprehension, the campervan and motorhome community is arguing amongst itself about whether anyone can follow social distancing rules in a ‘van and what essential travel actually means.  The only certainty is that very few people are looking ahead and planning holidays and trips away.

I am not alone in living during a time that just a few weeks ago seemed fairly humdrum, I was blogging about being a frustrated travel agent and also busy writing and planning my own campervan trips for the year.  Those days seem very carefree and distant as uncertainty has mushroomed and I am finding this increasingly difficult to deal with.  I am sure I am not alone in wishing that I knew how long this state of emergency was going to go on for.  Last night we watched an episode of Countryfile from a few weeks ago, it was in many ways a calming escape to a world before all we thought about was a virus but as soon as we switched off the TV I remembered and the dread returned.

I long for the pandemic to be declared over, returning some stability to everyone’s lives but I realise that isn’t going to happen soon.  It may be that we never return to how things were but I hope that eventually people will begin to look to the future with confidence again.

In addition, of course … and this is only a minor worry … I am also aware that if I can’t get away travelling and camping then I will have no income.

Please don’t think I am feeling sorry for myself. Although we are both over 60 years of age, we are both in good health and have every reason to feel confident that Covid-19 will make us poorly but not kill us … but as apparently we are all going to get Covid-19 eventually, if it is my time than I have had 60 good years.  It is not for myself that I am anxious, what I dread is anyone across the world suffering unnecessarily and I fear for my close friends and relatives.

I Know that I am not alone in feeling anxious and fearful about the difficult and stormy future road ahead, so I am no expert but here are …

… My ideas for coping with coronavirus anxiety

1. Although I have a strong need for information, too much news consumption is more than I can handle. Limiting my access to the news and Facebook does help to keep me on an even keel. I try hard to be aware of what is factual and what is conjecture and keep a reasonable perspective.
2. In contrast, the social media that is supportive is Twitter. My Twitter friends for the most part keep me positive and are kind – thanks guys!
3. I have always been an obsessive hand washer after too many years in the NHS and the annual infection control talk, so we are washing our hands thoroughly.  We are maintaining social distance and keeping a check on our own health.
4. While we will miss our tai chi classes, closed during this social distancing period, we keep practising most days.  Tai chi is fantastic for focusing the mind and relaxation.
5. I might not be sure when I will once again be able to travel to mainland Europe but at the moment I continue brushing up my German so that I am ready for when those borders open. This half an hour a day of language learning is time when I am not worrying about any end-of-the-world scenario.
6. Reading is always my favourite relaxation and I have sought out uplifting and funny novels to get me through. This is not the time to read Lionel Shriver’s The Mandibles: A Family, 2029-2047 – save this roller-coaster novel for happier times, although it has been haunting me this last two weeks.  Instead I have been re-reading Magnus Mills and getting lost in his comedic and fantastical world and I have a Neil Gaiman on my reading pile.
7. After living in a small village for 25 years I am accustomed to always keeping well-stocked kitchen cupboards and what might be stockpiling for some is my normal. We could live for a couple of weeks at least on the food in our house and yet I have to admit to a real fear about the shortages and I struggle to keep this in any kind of measured perspective. For example, as a bread maker we are down to our last two bags of flour and haven’t been able to buy more as the whole country appears to have taken to baking bread! While I am pleased everyone has discovered the joy of homemade bread, when I think about running out of flour I want to weep and I have to remind myself that at the moment we continue to eat well on healthy home-cooked food.
8. We are keeping in touch with friends and family, making sure everyone is coping and keeping the love and care flowing between us.
9. It might be twee but I count my blessings, knowing I am so lucky to live with my wonderful partner in the amazing town of Morecambe with the sea and the bay only down the road. We get out for some fresh air every day which helps my mental health and my sleeping.
10. I am not naive, I know that everything will not be okay in the short-term but I try and make myself step back and give myself space to reflect on what the numbers of cases and deaths and the shortages of essential items actually means and why they are making me feel so anxious. With effort I can think it through, sort out the speculation from the facts, calm my brain and remember that this too will pass.

What are your own tips for avoiding overwhelming anxiety?

All in all, this seems like the right time for me to take a short break from travel blogging, although I might try and conjure up some light-hearted content in the near future.

Take care everyone, stay kind and we’ll catch up soon.