‘Ey up.

I’m Jack, a thirty-something year old from the north of England, pleased to meet you and thanks for stopping by. I’m dry, sarcastic and I complain a lot about the most trivial things. I’m going to try my best to not make this sound like a generic “OH MY GOD I QUIT MY JOB TO TRAVEL YOU SHOULD DO IT TOO” kind of post, because you’ve heard it all before, right?

The obligatory “backpack on the doorstep” photo!

In March 2013 I packed my life into a backpack and boarded a one way flight to Australia to travel indefinitely. Sadly, that trip was cut short and I returned home much sooner than I would have hoped or liked, but did I have any regrets?

Absolutely not.

Travelling to Australia opened up so many doors for me and taught me many things. Most of all, it taught me what I always suspected: I love travel. Whether it’s crawling the seedy strips of Magaluf, Ayia Napa and Ibiza or discovering stunning temples and forts in India, I just love being out and about seeing the world.

When the opportunity arose to travel Australia after my brother Mike’s wedding, I thought long and hard about the pros and cons. Could I really travel to the other side of the world, go to a wedding and come back and sit at my desk again after two weeks? It was a no-brainer.

A rather important start to my Australian adventure!

So that was that, the nights out were reduced and the saving began.

I had never travelled solo before, so it was as new to me as it would be to any other backpacking novice. Hopefully by documenting my travels, people can learn from my experiences and, almost certainly, my mistakes.

After that shortened trip, I was well and truly bitten by the travel bug – so to speak – and have since spent almost all of 2014 in Asia, before returning home for a brief while to complete a CELTA course and heading back out for a year teaching English in Japan. That year quickly turned into two, and was followed by two years in the Basque Country before landing in my current spot in Dalian, North-Eastern China.

What’s next? Who knows! That’s the best part.

Thanks for reading, and well done if you’ve got this far!

Jack