Below is a growing collection of travel articles 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.
They all inform my advice, speeches and writing about creative entrepreneurship and how to achieve success in the creative 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.
That’s why these travel articles are on my business website.
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 articles, I reflect on the experiences that have shaped my approach to life and insights into various business issues.
Exploring Galicia as a Teenager
My first overseas trip, at seventeen, was a ten day hiking expedition, learning about the culture of north west Spain.
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Climbing above the Clouds in the Arctic Circle
Hiking at the end of a week working with creative entrepreneurs in Tromsø, Norway
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A New Year and a New Chapter in Bali
Backpacking and travelling alone by motor scooter around Indonesia’s Hindu island at the end of a difficult year.
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The Great Little Tongatapu South Pacific Ocean Drive
How Liina Metsküla and I pioneered a new classic road trip in the Kingdom of Tonga.
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My lightbulb moment was in Albania…
I was backpacking around the Balkans but also carrying my laptop for work, stressing because I didn’t have enough time for my online work as well as spend time touring the country before returning to my office in England to work, er, online.
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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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Kidnapped in Mexico
Travelling solo gives you freedom to move just as you please. It also makes you more vulnerable.
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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 a fellow backpacker, 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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What I Learnt from a Birthday Party in Shanghai
Culture shock can be much more profound than coping with a new country, language and culture. It can wrong-foot you just when you start to become comfortable and 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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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, can result in exceptional success.
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A Postcard from Malin Head
Pondering international communications, old and new, from the western edge of Europe.
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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
Inspired by the acute observation and travel writings of Robert Louis Stevenson, I chose to observe as he did, without a camera.
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Finding a route over the mountains in Macedonia
Without proper maps or paths, there are still some small signs that appear when needed, if you look for them…
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Marooned in the Solomon Islands
Getting away from business ‘busy-ness’ on Dolphin View Beach, with nothing to distract me from my own thoughts.
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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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Reflections of a Locked-Down Digital Nomad
Working from home in January 2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic, I reflect on the contrast to (and similarities with) my normal digital nomad lifestyle.
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More travel articles, coming soon…
– How Angels meet, in hostels and elsewhere
Travel quotations
Sometimes, at the end of my travel articles, 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 articles. 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 generally don’t add photos to my travel articles.
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.
Having said all that, in some instances, if they usefully add to the narrative of the article, I have added photos.
I do have photos from my travels all over the world, from backpacking adventures or business trips, so I’ve published a random collection of them on a separate ‘travel photos’ page.