Anna April 2024 Update

Hi there! Anna here.

Here’s my travel update for the first part of 2024. It follows on from my January update.

Transitioning back to normal life

After my year of travel in 2023, I’ve spent the past few months adjusting back to normal life. Working a 9-5 week is a bit of a change from backpacking, but I’ve enjoyed getting back into familiar rhythms, sleeping in the same bed every night and of course getting in quality time with the cats.

I’m living at home for the foreseeable. Spending time with my family and building up my savings again has been pretty good!

Weekends away: February

Now that I’m working full time again, I am back to being a 9-5 girlie with the associated annual leave constraints. Gone are the days where I could extend my time in Thailand on a whim; now I plan my time off.

February brought the excitement of a weekend away in Amsterdam. Lou and I had planned this since last September as this is when Maisie Peters was performing in the Netherlands. We missed her UK tour due to being in South-East Asia, so going to see her in Amsterdam was the perfect excuse to visit a new city in Europe!

Amsterdam wasn’t quite as pretty as I was expecting. I’m still a little numb to beautiful places after seeing so many stunning places last year. But it was great to catch up with people we met whilst travelling and see the sights in such a friendly and safe city.

Weekends away: March

Meanwhile, in March, I took a trip to Northumberland with my family for a long weekend. I’d only been as far north as Newcastle within England, so was very excited going up further.

We were based in Seahouses and spent our time visiting nearby beaches and admiring the many castles. There was a lot of joy in visiting Lindisfarne – an island connected to the mainland at low tide – and seeing the film spots that featured in Vera!

Talking of film spots, we schlepped over to Alnwick, although we didn’t make it inside the castle (which featured as Hogwarts in some of the scenes the Harry Potter films). We did however get to explore Barter Books, a large secondhand bookshop set inside a former railway station, which was a dream.

Plus, we made a stop near Barnard Castle to see High Force, England’s biggest waterfall. Having never seen an actual waterfall in the UK, this was a treat. 

Days out

These past few months have been a great time to visit some familiar sights, as well as discover some new ones.

I took a trip to London to see a friend and visited a place I’d never been to – Greenwich. The park was surprisingly peaceful against the big city, despite the cold January weather.

I also made some trips to the Peak District, which is around an hour’s drive from my house. I returned to Edale, which was much nicer than I remember from when I was doing Bronze Duke of Edinburgh as a teenager. I walked near Ashbourne and saw tiny lambs, as well as walking through a 350 m former railway tunnel (I was nerdily excited about this!). I also took a trip to Tittesworth Reservoir in Staffordshire, a favourite spot for walking with my family.

Updates to the blog

Elsewhere, I have been adding more articles to In Search Of Everywhere. As I was travelling, I took a lot of notes and wrote articles for the places we visited, so I’ve spent some time editing these into the guides you see on this blog.

I love the process of editing the drafts and adding in photos, although with most of the articles I post being 2000-3000 words, they take a fair bit of time! As I write reports for a living, my brain barely functions enough to open this blog during the week, but I’m keen to keep developing this tiny corner of the Internet.

In the next three months I hope to see more articles going up, including guides from my year of travel as well as 2024 trips.

Conclusion

The past three months have been a good start to the year. The next few months look quiet but I am excited for going to Glastonbury Festival at the end of June.

Have a good spring and see you soon!