The Past, Present and Future of Journeys Through Pre-World War 3 Britain and a Thanks

I started this with a different vision to other travel blogs. Where most are interested in getting you decent deals, suggesting places to travel, giving general advice for travellers or people in certain areas, mine is really about the experience. You won’t find any articles that are designed to give you specific advice or which recommend what to do where. This, both in my first series, In The Swamp and my second series, The Lake District and the Highlands, is about trying to pinpoint the transcendent moments you have with friends when you’re free in the world. It’s also an attempt to capture the vibes of these places and things.

A photograph can show you a perfect representation of a thing exactly as it was in that moment but that’s all it can do. It doesn’t give voice to the unspoken, vaguely spiritual or visceral joys of the journey. That’s what this is all about.

The initial idea was, I’d post a snippet of a journey each week so that in the end, you’d have a complete story or narrative of the trip. It wouldn’t just be sketches of locations, and it would involve a lot of my general rambling and philosophising. There would be a touch of Hunter Thompson pursuing the American Dream to it, except it wouldn’t be the American Dream, it would be ours, whatever that looks like, and what works for us and worked for Hunter probably ain’t gonna for you.

The only advice I could give on travelling; plan as little as possible.

In the time since I started publishing old travel logs (some of this work is five years old now but there’s lots of new stuff coming) I’ve received a modest but decent amount of interest from other bloggers and a few randomers, to whom I’m grateful. In the near future I’ll be opening a new travel series; possibly looking at some lesser known spots in England, going far deeper into the remote wilderness of the Highlands, or possibly visiting Wales or Amsterdam for the first time.