A bit of background

People keep asking me how do I plan a trip around the world. Well, I use my usual approach of daydreams, pipedreams, tenuous grasp on reality and a list of everywhere in the world I want to go. Which is basically everywhere I haven't been to, with a few places that I have, thrown in.

The truth is that I have never planned a trip like this one before. I lived in England every year of my life until November 1998. Mum had taken us into Europe many times as children and I guess that either a) spoilt us or b) gave us an appreciation of other cultures and a deep seated love of travel. So when a friend suggested that I join her and her boyfriend for a year long trip to Australia it would have been churlish to refuse. I spent six months with them and six months on my own travelling up the east coast and down through the centre. We passed through Greece and Thailand on the way to Oz and I spent a very enjoyable day in Bali on the way back, though I was so sunburnt I had to stay in the shade all day.

Arriving back in England in December 1999 I knew that I wasn't there to stay for long. With a slightly less ambitious idea, I had decided while in the tomato fields of Bowen, North Queensland, that I would move to Ireland just as soon as I could. Must have been the heat or something. Obviously I had debts to pay off when I got home to England and I guess that going to America for a fortnight didn't help pay those off.

I got a job and worked for a while in my home town. Which was scary only because my boss was one of my old classmates and it is hard to have respect for someone you have seen turn a funny shade of red during the childbirth video in Biology class. One day I went into town to buy some clothes for work and accidentally bought a ticket to Amsterdam for a week. I knew then that I was lost.

I came back from Amsterdam and a couple of weeks later departed to Ireland. With very little in the way of cash or clues. I stayed there for nine months until someone told me I should go to South Africa so I went. I met my friend there and pootled around having an amazing adventure for six weeks.

we saw some amazing things

When I came back I got a job managing the hostel that I had been living in. I only stuck that out for three months before running off to Turkey.

I got offered a job there too but it was too hot so I went home to Dublin.

A couple of months later, newly acquire TEFL certificate in my hand, I came to Korea. I have attempted to leave once but came back after eleven weeks and two weeks in Italy.

And now I have been in Gangneung for nearly two years. Tomorrow I will tell you how to plan the escape-- or maybe tonight. And, in case you were wondering, yes this was just an excuse to show some old photos!