An Englishman abroad in the time of Covid and Brexit.
How Coronavirus and Brexit have shaped my travels and plans for the year ahead
Tag: Africa
Africa as a destination for history
Apart from North Africa the continent is rarely seen as a destination for lovers of history, that needs to change. Like me you’re probably enduring the interminable state of lockdown, wondering when it will ever end, perpetually scrolling through social media in search of more crumbs of distraction. Well, help is at hand travel fans. The BBC have kindly posted to YouTube a fifteen part documentary on the history of Africa that will comfortably use up over eleven hours of…
Fragility, life and the traveller
Friends and the fragility of life for the long term traveller The life of the long term traveller isn’t all cocktails by the pool, surrounded by beautiful people. In fact, on my budget it’s never about that and besides, the last thing the beautiful people want is some shabbily dressed, ugly old git like me hanging around cramping their style. Not that I’m trying to say it’s a shit life but after six years mostly on the road, the prospect…
Jamaica and why I’m never going back
Failing to understand Jamaica and why I’m never going back. Originally this was going to be a story of my regret at failing to gain a real understanding of Jamaican life but by the time came to leave, regret had descended into really not giving a fuck at all. So here’s my new story of trying to understand Jamaica. The first hurdle in trying to understand Jamaica is language. If you only looked around you this would seem like a…
Biker babes of Burkina Faso
Motorbikes, Muslims, fashion and the modern woman in Burkina Faso. When your brain does a Google image search on the terms Muslim women, African women or African Muslim women, what comes to mind? I won’t be so presumptuous to think that my regular readers are the kind of people to jump immediately to the stereotypes of poverty and oppression, or at the very least to move on from them after a moment’s reflection – after all there are many…
Racism and the making of an English traveller
The traveling community is hardly packed with racists, it would seem almost contrary to the basic spirit of the thing. That’s not to say we always get race relations right, navigating an ill defined path through the confusion of a multitude of different cultures. As an Englishman our past shows quite clearly we got it wrong a lot more than right. My school was white, very white, which probably accounted for the fact that it wasn’t until the age of…
Inspiration for travel bloggers
Staring out over the broad, arid plains of the travel blogosphere, strewn with Twitter inanities and rehashed Google searches, a few eruptions of brilliance pour lava flows of inspiration into the barren surroundings. Alas, none of them are mine, destined as they are to remain muddy pools of indifference in the shadowy recesses of the genre. It is however, these moments of volcanic intensity which should remind us its time to up our game and strive, at least for a…
