My first night in Koh Phi Phi for my 30th birthday was a bit of a fail: after briefly checking out the busy Ibiza Pool Party in the late afternoon I was too exhausted to function without a nap; unfortunately I was then too tired to get up and instead just turned off my alarm… Read More Koh Phi Phi for my 30th birthday
Over the last three years I’ve begun a pattern of 4-5 short trips a year to South-East Asia and Australia, replacing a previous and common tactic of one longer trip per year. People at work often laugh when I tell them I will soon be on another trip again – perhaps not realising that I’m… Read More Why I now prefer more frequent short trips to long trips
I had been planning yet another trip to Thailand for my 30th birthday, at least in part with the fully conscious intention of soothing the inevitable psychological trauma of entering my third decade with being mistaken for someone in her early twenties by twentysomething backpackers. This was to be a solid 2.5 week trip, so… Read More Don’t be Krabi in Ao Nang, Thailand
In a dramatic and unprecedented move, The Phillippines’ president, Rodrigo Duterte, has shut the entire island of Boracay to tourists for six months from April 2018. It is therefore more than high time I reported on my June 2017 trip there – a blog entry I have been putting off for a long time.
What more could I possibly have to say for yet another blog entry on the wonderful little party island Gili Trawangan (Gili T), Indonesia, in April 2017; a place I had loved so much on my first visit that I had booked this third trip before even getting there a second time? Plenty, but I’ll… Read More Demolition, rain and timing: new insights from my third trip to Gili T, Indonesia
I had so loved Gili Trawangan during my first time there in 2015, and then regretted listening to others’ pleas and trying somewhere different for the following Christmas/New Year period, that I knew long in advance I would make Gili T my Christmas/New Year destination for 2016. And having since been there a third time,… Read More New Year’s Eve on Gili Trawangan
Well, I’ve had to do it – I’ve had to remove the ‘a twenty-something’ from my tag-line. I just turned 30 on Thailand’s Koh Phi Phi, during an all-day party cruise. I thereafter headed to my favourite Thai Island, Koh Phangan, to have yet another amazing five days of partying before, during and after the… Read More Reflections of a backpacker who turned 30
In chapter two of my adventures copying international backpackers travelling the Australian east coast, I set off for Rainbow Beach, Queensland on the Greyhound from Brisbane City Backpackers; where I was basing myself for a good week and a half while working, as well as partying and enjoying Brisbane over the two surrounding weekends.
This was my third trip to the beautiful Thai island of Koh Phangan for the famed Full Moon Party (FMP), all within two years (this one wasn’t initially planned, but stemmed from a last-minute desire to leave Cambodia and fortuitous timing).
As I shared a ride from the dock with three friendly Dutch guys, we ruminated on how booked up the island was and what we were going to do about accommodation. It was August – one of the busiest months of the year due to northern hemisphere summer holidays – and a few days before the… Read More Koh Tao 2016