The idea of exploring the world has been with me from an early age. My dad was a construction engineer in the oil industry and travelled his entire career. On occasion we were able to go with him and I was lucky enough to spend a year in France (when I was 3), a year in Nigeria (when I was 5) and a year in Dubai (when I was 12). Obviously there are large gaps in my memory of some of these places but it all helped we be interested in other parts of the world.

My travels continued when I was at college with holidays in Thailand / Hong Kong as well as Israel and Egypt. Once I was married we spent nearly 3 years working in USA where we were able to visit many parts of that amazing country.

Once our children came along, our holidays became closer to home – UK, Ireland, France and Spain in the main – due to financial and time constraints as well as an easy life!

Once the children left home and now we are approaching retirement, we have the time, money and enthusiasm to travel further afield again (not least because our son now lives in Australia)

My hope is by documenting our travels and adventures, it will serve as a reminder to me about what we have experienced (its easy to get countires confused) as well as offering any readers tips based on what we have learnt.  Let me know if you find it helpful.