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Celebrating Holi as a tourist in Jaipur

Celebrating Holi as a tourist in Jaipur

Holi is a Hindu festival of colours, love and spring which is celebrated according to the lunar calendar. As soon as we found out that Holi was just over a week after the wedding we were attending in India it made deciding our travel dates an awful lot easier. We’d both heard of Holi and had seen pictures of the colourful festival, so naturally we were keen to explore it ourselves. It didn’t disappoint, and will certainly be an experience to stay with me for a long time.

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A few days in Sydney

A few days in Sydney

Sydney is one of those cities that almost everyone has heard of. It’s always been somewhere that’s interested me  because it is on the other side of the world and always looks so sunny and glamorous in photographs. It’s the place that everyone looks to for a fabulous fireworks display at new year and confuses people everywhere by not being the capital city of Australia. When we decided that we were going to Australia for a week (an extremely limited time for such a large country), I knew I wanted to see somewhere iconic. Think of Australia and a lot of people think of the Great Barrier Reef, Ayers Rock or Sydney – and I wanted to go to one of them. Sydney seemed like the simplest option and I’m so glad we went as I loved this city more than I ever thought I would.

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Park life

Park life

There’s definitely something to be said for just sitting in a park and soaking up the sun. Often when I travel somewhere I’m too eager to fit in as much as possible, to see as many places as I possibly can whilst I’m there, in case I never return and have the same opportunity again. I feel like this is sometimes a good way to travel, but sometimes it’s best to take things at a slower pace.

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A day out in Amiens

A day out in Amiens

Last week I was lucky enough to visit the wonderful country of France. If anyone follows my Instagram feed you’ll be able to tell that I was particularly taken by the pastries and sweet treats on offer. However, my love of France goes further than the food. I also love the language, and although I’m still not particularly confident speaking French, it was a huge delight and surprise to discover how much I could understand. I also quite like the way of life. The experiences I have had at least have proven it to be family-orientated, traditional and fairy easy-going. Certainly the town of Abbeville where I was staying felt very french and unused to foreign tourists, which made it all the more impressive that my friend has made it her home for the past year. Anyway, whilst Abbeville was lovely (and we were certainly blessed by the weather!), one of…

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Being a tourist in your own city

Being a tourist in your own city

Not nearly enough people have acted the tourist in the city in which they live. Main attractions are always brushed off as “I’ll get round to it” or “I can do it whenever I like”, and then when suddenly you find you are moving elsewhere, they either get done in a last minute rush as part of a bucket list, or never visited and you spend the rest of your life wondering why. Since exams finished a few weeks ago, pretty much everyone I know has been going out in a frenzy trying to pack in as many sights and experiences as possible before we leave York. Whilst this is great, and means some people have had a lot of fun, it is also a very expensive way to try and fit everything in. It can also be a lot less enjoyable when you know that you only have a…

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