Stories | The Travel Natural

Here you'll find a collection of my travel stories - tales of confusion and elation from a couple of misfits on the road. They are personal, ocasionally unintelligible and sometimes a little unforgiving of cultural differences.

Go easy on me.

On the road to Mandalay

Ever heard the name of a place and decided that you were just going to love it? Well, that was Mandalay for me. I knew before I even set...

Can I still call myself a travel blogger when I don’t travel?

My life these days is pretty ordinary. I go to work. I cook dinner. I watch T.V. I sleep. For the last three years I’ve been living a...

Yangon and me

Arriving in a new country after dark is always an unsettling experience. The echoing airport, the weary taxi drivers, and the dark city...

A day in the life of a backpacker in Colombia

I tend to romanticise travel. On this blog I write about the all highlights, while conveniently skipping over the days spent on over...

Offbeat New Zealand – orbiting Lake Waikeremoana

Like all the best places in New Zealand, Lake Waikeremoana is a little tricky to reach. East of Lake Taupo and sitting pretty in the...

Let the journey begin

“See my teeth?” Our taxi driver proclaims turning in his seat to smile broadly at us, “I brush after every meal! No smoking, no alcohol,...

Idle days in Pai

It’s my first afternoon in Pai, a little town in Northern Thailand and I’m already considering extending my three night stay to five,...

Thailand round two

Khao San Road It’s 3.59am here in Bangkok. There’s a tropical thunderstorm raging over the city and the strikes are so close that barely...

Street food and the art of eating at plastic tables

Can you feel homesick for a foreign region? After leaving Southeast Asia I missed it something terrible. I threw myself into my work and...

A day in the life of a solo backpacker in Indonesia

Solo travel is very in vogue. Bloggers sing its praises, Instagram is crowded with shots of a lonesome backpacker standing before a vast...

Love where you live

I’m a firm believer that you should choose the city you want to live in first and then pick the career you’d like to have. When you...

This boy in my life

Some recollections of my travels across South America remain vivid several years later. Deep blue skies without a cloud, the foggy breath...

Sleepy Munduk, the alternative to Ubud you didn’t know you were looking for

It’s 3.30pm on a stifling Indonesian afternoon and I’m sitting in the tiny but tidy garden of my guesthouse. To my left sits the owner,...

Back in Southeast Asia, where it all began

It’s 7am here in Ubud, Bali and the thermostat is already nudging 25°C. I’m Solo again, untethered from my life and wandering Bali...

The first night is the worst

A solo trip is remembered as a great adventure. The daring scooter rides around rice paddies in Vietnam, or navigating the alleyways of...