Spain: Lanzarote, Part 1

Wow, it’s been a long time since I scribbled about travelling! Since the move to the Netherlands, travel has been less regular for sure. However, part of the motivation for moving here was ease of access to travel spots and recently my partner and I decided to escape the Dutch December (cold, wet, and grey) for a few days and hit the warmth. Our criteria were that it had to be warm, reasonably priced, relaxing and not too commercialised and full of tourists. We took […]

12 Reasons Why I Love Amsterdam

If you’ve ever asked me what my favourite country is, other than my home country of New Zealand, you would have been answered with the Netherlands. Over the last wee while I’ve had several conversations with locals, who are equally intrigued as to why I rate this little flat piece of land so highly. As I haven’t thrown a post on here in a while, I thought I’d elaborate! There is no shortage of blog posts on why this is a great country, and they […]

The Global Mental Health Issue

As many will know, Chester Bennington of Linkin Park recently committed suicide. This triggered a train of rambling thoughts, so I thought I’d write some of it down. Linkin Park – In The End This is one of my favourite LP songs. I remember when I was learning to drum, I would put on Linkin Park at maximum volume on my headphones and smash away on my $500 Ashton kit (probably part of the reason why my hearing is now on par with a 50 […]

A Two Week Tour of New Zealand – Part 2

Following on from Part 1 here, here is the second instalment of my blog of our two week tour of New Zealand! Making our way from Wanaka towards Queenstown, we decided that rather than spending three nights in Queenstown, we’d crash instead for one night in picturesque Arrowtown. Arrowtown isn’t far from Queenstown, which was good because we had a big activity lined up there next day. We spent the night in Arrowtown and had a walk around the next morning before heading off to Queenstown. […]

A Two Week Tour of New Zealand – Part 1

One of the things that I realised while travelling through Asia and Europe was that, comparatively, I hadn’t seen enough of my own country, namely, the South Island. When talking abroad about New Zealand and what it has to offer from a tourist’s perspective, most of what makes up the attraction for foreigners is the scenery the south has to offer. So when my other half nabbed a couple of weeks off work and booked flights to pop over to this hemisphere, it was a […]

The Interim

My first ever post on this site was aptly named, “Pilot;” the first post of many to come, documenting the journey I’ve been on since I left the land of the long white cloud. The journey ended up being, well, fuckin’ awesome. I began this blog for several reasons. Firstly, I enjoy writing, and I wanted to keep that part of my mind ticking over while I was gone. Another reason is to keep one element of routine to routine to my life while I […]

Germany: Berlin, Part 2

Following on from my previous post, I dedicated the next day to exploring the eastern side of Berlin. Occupied by the soviets following the end of WWII, I’d heard of the contrast between the other half and couldn’t wait to explore it for myself. Structuring the path of my day taking tactical cafe visits into account, something I recommend any coffee enthusiast do in this city, I followed up a visit to Ben Rahim coffee and Father Carpenter’s with a gander at the DDR Museum. Although […]

Germany: Berlin, Part 1

It’s hard to deny that Berlin has a reputation. And not just in one sense, either; be it partying, history, culture, coffee, Berlin has a lot to offer in many different respects. I didn’t originally plan on heading to Berlin on this trip, but I ended up joining a group heading to Berlin for New Years. Berlin also has a bit of a reputation for being a wild place to be at this time of the year, so why not combine culture with a bit […]

Portugal: Porto and Aveiro

As I mentioned in my previous post about Lisbon and Coimbra, one of the great things about visiting Portugal is how you can see a lot of it in a short time frame due to its size. Travelling from Coimbra up to Porto was a matter of around 13 Euros and another couple of hours on the train. We arrived on Christmas Eve to more great weather. Porto has a metro network making it very easy to get around. After checking in to our AirBnB, we […]

Portugal: Lisbon and Coimbra

When I was younger, I remember that whenever it got to Christmas time, my Mother would always secretly wish that the weather wasn’t great. I know, right? This was because, unlike a typical Christmas day in the land of the long white cloud, it reminded her of home, where there was a good chance of having a white Christmas. However, the same does not sit true for me, and I would much prefer sitting on a warm beach. This isn’t easily achieved in Europe in […]