After wrapping up a sailing adventure around the South Pacific, where I got the opportunity to visit New Zealand, New Caledonia, Fiji, Vanuatu and Tonga, I’ve got travel updates to share from the last 5 months!
Following a 5-day pitstop at home to shake off the jet lag, I set off for Portugal for a month long yoga teacher training course, and I don’t mean to be dramatic but it changed my life. Connecting with 20 people sharing our passions of yoga and spirituality in the most magical setting of northern Portugal’s forest, we slept in wooden cabins and swam naked in rivers, it was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life and my personal self discovery. Once my transformative experience ended, I spent some time in Lisbon before returning home for a month, sharing yoga skills with friends and family, reconnecting with those I hadn’t seen for a while and enjoying the elite British summer of festivals, I was ready for the next adventure, my compass pointed to the Middle East.
My heart had been longing to go to the Middle East for a few years, particularly Israel. After meeting some incredible, free-spirited individuals from there, I finally embarked on a journey that turned out to be one of the most memorable trips of my life. I don’t know why I felt so connected to the people and to the land and I probably never will, but it felt like home. I was volunteering in a hostel there called Roger’s House and teaching yoga there too to save money as Tel Aviv is notoriously expensive. I visited the desert, floated in the Dead Sea, went scuba diving on the boarder of Egypt and danced almost every night. Crossing the border into Jordan was another adventure in itself, and if you want to know more about that, I’ve shared it in another blog post.
After teaching yoga in gyms and enjoying time with my mum back home, my plan to return to work on a yacht didn’t quite align with the timing because of grief of the Middle East. Instead, I went to Poland, part of the world I had never visited and was pleasantly surprised. Initially I went there to get some paperwork and documents to work, when this got denied, I cried for a while on a park bench in Krakow before deciding to check into the best party hostel I could find. Sometimes, the best decisions are the unplanned ones. I ended up having a great time with only a small backpack with a few change of clothes, no laptop to work remotely, a visa rejection letter and no fight home, I really made the most of it. During my time in Poland, I learnt a lot more about Judaism, the fourth religion I had deeply studied, and I walked around a lot alone deep in my thoughts about the next steps for my life. The journey was seasoned with a fair share of vodka and the discovery of a newfound love for Polish cuisine. The soups and pierogi’s became personal favourites, and I’ve even ventured into Polish supermarkets back home to recreate dishes. Having explored Krakow for a few days, I caught a bus to the mountains of Zakopane to inhale mountain air while hiking. In a hostel that felt more like an apartment, surrounded by only Polish men, I made a friendship with a girl named Cait. The two of us spent time hiking the Morskie Oko trail and going to thermaspas, before finally deciding it was time to fly home and get a job on a new boat.
Now I am in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, sailing from Europe to the Carribean. It’s a job I had been hoping for for a long time, I just had to wait and trust in timing. Since joining, I have seen pods of dolphins dance on the bow of the boat, seen a million stars in the sky and double rainbows over the ocean. This journey takes 14 days and we are half way through. The Carribean is a destination I have been wanting to visit for years and I am excited to share my honest thoughts of these islands when we arrive.
Most of the journeys I’ve embarked on over the past 5 months have been personal, which is why I chose not to document them in writing. Thank you for taking the time to read this brief update on my rather chaotic life!
Bevs Backpacking📍 
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