DESTINATIONS

WHERE I'VE TRAVELLED
South Africa - Zambia
Find the best places to travel in South Africa and Zambia with travel stories and travel tips: from the ultimate South Africa road trip itinerary to near-death experiences white rafting the mighty Zambezi and Victoria Falls.
Find the best places to travel in the USA, Central America and South America with travel stories and travel tips: from an unsavoury experience of the salt flats in Bolivia to taking an internship abroad in the capital of Honduras.

WHERE I'VE TRAVELLED
Brazil - Bolivia - Chile - Costa Rica - Honduras - Peru - The Caribbean - USA

WHERE I'VE TRAVELLED
China - India - Japan - Mongolia - Thailand
Find the best places to travel in Asia with travel stories and travel tips from Bangkok to Beijing, from Ulanbataar to Goa.
Find the best places to travel in Australia and New Zealand with travel stories and travel tips: from the best New Zealand road trip itinerary to a tale of a night spent camping out in the Australian bush.

WHERE I'VE TRAVELLED
Australia - New Zealand
Expat life: Christmas in Amsterdam
Christmas. That time of year when everything is sparkly, people are merry, and bank accounts are empty. Since moving to Amsterdam 6 years ago, I have never put up a tree. Why? I don’t know… Christmas feels like something for England, in the home of my parents. Christmas in Amsterdam just always felt a bit strange and why-am-I-doing-this… The Dutch definitely do not celebrate Christmas the same way the British do. The absolutely absurd holiday of Sinterklaas is more of a big deal in the Netherlands, taking place on the 5th December every year. (Google the ongoing controversies of the Zwarte Piet… the, ahem, ”soot” faced helpers of Mr Sinterklaas himself.) But, regardless of being surrounded by the low-key version of Christmas in Amsterdam, this year, I did it. I got a tree. Maybe it’s because my studio in the Jordaan is a place that I finally feel is my own, and after six years in Amsterdam, everything really feels like home? Or, again, maybe it’s just because my 20s are slowly slipping away and cushy Sundays stringing up Christmas trees are now going to be my thing… Who knows. But we got a tiny little fake tree, tiny little glass baubles, and a loooong, long string of fairy lights and spent Sunday afternoon stringing up the petit pois of a tree.
Okay, we spent 10 minutes of the afternoon doing it. It’s a tiny tree, after all. #Amsterdam #Europe #Sinterklaas #Home #Tradition #Sunday #Happy #Christmas #Expat #TheNetherlands #ChristmasTree
