Below is a growing collection of travel blogs about some of my experiences from more than 100 countries around the world. The people I’ve met, the cultures I’ve encountered and the enterprises I’ve engaged with all inform my advice, speeches and writing about creative entrepreneurship and how to achieve success in the creative, digital and cultural industries. My international experience enriches my knowledge about creative entrepreneurship, international business and the way people achieve success in different ways.
My work is integrated with my passion for travel. This unique mixture of business consultant and international traveller makes me what I am. I love travelling and I hope it makes me wiser too, so that I can be even more helpful to the businesses I advise.
As a keynote speaker, my international experience informs my entertaining and inspiring presentations about international business, marketing, the travel industry, creativity and creative entrepreneurship.
In these travel blogs, I reflect on various business issues and different approaches to life as a creative entrepreneur as I travel around the world:
One thousand little kindnesses
It’s headline news on the BBC when a British tourist, backpacker or student is killed in the Far East, Latin America or Africa. But the good news doesn’t get reported.
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A first class train ticket to Varanasi
I had booked myself a berth in a first class sleeper compartment for the overnight journey on the Indian railways from New Delhi to Varanasi. But it didn’t work out as I’d planned…
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A lump in my throat in Alice Springs
I found it intensely moving to think about the unspoken solidarity and the loyal comradeship between people separated by geography, but bonded by humanity.
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Going back to the Murder Capital of the World
It was Sarah Dodd who told me that the city I’d chosen to visit next was the “murder capital of the world”.
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Stranded in Saudi Arabia without a passport
Would you dare enter Saudi Arabia without a passport? No, me neither. But I did.
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Getting around the islands of Cape Verde
There are many worse places than Cape Verde to be without transport, but it’s more likely to happen here than most other countries.
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Kidnapped in Mexico
Travelling solo gives you freedom to move just as you please. It also makes you more vulnerable.
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What I Learnt from a Birthday Party in Shanghai
Culture shock can be much more profound than coping new a new country, language and culture. It can wrong-foot you just when you don’t expect it.
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A Decision at a Spanish port
Sometimes we are at a junction and the path we choose takes us in a direction that changes our life irreversibly.
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Kyoto in the Snow
A snow covered orange temple in Japan helped me to learn to choose to see things differently.
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On an active volcano in Sumatra
Woken by explosions whilst camping on the slopes of Volcano Merapi in Indonesia.
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Coming home in Beirut
Becoming familiar with Lebanon’s capital city while travelling and working as a digital nomad in Beirut.
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A Sense of Place
A world traveller’s perspective on my home town in the north of England.
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From Mount Errigal to the Blue Ocean
Choosing the path less travelled, in the mountains, and in business.
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A Postcard from Malin Head
International communications from the edge of Europe, then and now.
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Surviving without wi-fi in Papua New Guinea
Coping with the stress of being digitally stranded in Port Moresby.
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Observing Timor Leste without taking photos
I am inspired by the acute observation and travel writings of Robert Louis Stevenson.
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Finding a route over the mountains in Macedonia
Without proper maps or paths, there are still some small signs to if you look for them…
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The Great Little Tongatapu South Pacific Ocean Drive
Pioneering a new classic road trip in the Kingdom of Tonga.
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Marooned in the Solomon Islands
Getting away from business ‘busy-ness’ on Dolphin View Beach.
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A run before dawn near the international dateline
When you arrive, destinations (and business goals) are never quite as you had imagined them.
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More travel blogs, coming soon…
Climbing above the clouds in the Arctic Circle
A different kind of New Year’s Eve in Bali
Exploring Galicia as a teenager
Estonian eResidency: a walk in the park
How Angels meet, in hostels and elsewhere
Travel quotations
Sometimes, at the end of my travel blogs, I post travel quotations that I think are apt. There is also a page containing many more travel quotes, some of which link directly to relevant travel blogs. I’m still adding more so please send me any more that you would like me to include.
“To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.”
– Aldous Huxley
This is a photo of the Peters Projection world map on the wall of my home office, with pins in each of the 100+ countries I’ve visited.
Travel photos
I’m not a photojournalist. I deliberately I don’t add photos to my travel blogs. Why? Because I’m not usually writing about the normal photogenic tourist things. In any case, my photos generally aren’t good enough to do justice to what I’m writing about. Also, I don’t want my writing to be just a description or explanation of the available photos. In the end, I’ve decided to keep all my travel blogs photo-free. Having said all that, I do have photos from my travels all over the world, so I’ve published some of them on a separate ‘travel photos’ page. In some instances, if they connect directly to a travel blog, I have added a link.