Backpacking In Belgium: How To Get From Brussels To Charleroi Airport I have visited Belgium five times now, having first backpacked it in 2007. However it wasn’t until 2023 that I first had a flight out of Charleroi Airport. On other adventures, I was in Brussels, Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp and some small border villages with…
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After getting my visa on arrival in Guinea-Bissau, I was ready to explore this smaller African country. Guinea-Bissau houses just over 2 million people, and its capital city, the eponymous Bissau houses a huge 500,000 of that. However, when backpacking in Bissau, it feels like a calm over-sized town. On Christmas Eve 2023, particularly, the…
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Backpacking in Guinea🇬🇳: This Is Africa’s Northern Ireland 🔴✋️☘️“Move closer; set my mind in fire” – Tim Wheeler. You know the drill when you grow up in the outside-monikered country called “troubled Northern Ireland”. You’re asked where you’re from and you tell everyone “I’m from Northern Ireland”. At least I did, I made a point…
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“It’s coming home. It’s coming. Football’s coming home” – The Lightning Seeds. Sheffield FC are widely regarded as the oldest club in world football that have been continuously playing. They were formed in 1857 and as much as I hate FIFA, they are the governing body of world football and they recognise Sheffield FC as the world’s…
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“You come in on your own and you leave on your own” – Richard Ashcroft. My latest trip back to England threw up undoubtedly more surprises than my backpacking glory days in that country. I spent a few days back in Birmingham. It’s a city I’ve been to many times of course, mostly to visit…
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“The air coming up to the boil; rubbing up against walls and lamp-posts trying to get rid of it. Old women clack their tongues in the shade of crumbling concrete bus shelters” – Jarvis Cocker (Pulp – Sheffield: Sex City). Sheffield FC are widely regarded as the oldest club in world football that have been…
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“My tea’s gone cold, I’m wondering why” – STAN! (By Eminem Featuring Dido) Firstly this is no raconteur rhetoric, it’s just a reflection of a journey which took me 17 years from the first Stan (Stansted) to the last Stan (Pakistan). Yes, Iran-borderic Pakistan 🇵🇰 was the last of my FIFA ðŸŒðŸ†⚽️Stans when I finally…
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“What you leave behind, you don’t miss anyway” – Paul Hewson. Friday 26th September 2003. That’s twenty years ago today. Madness. This was the day when life unknowingly all changed for me. It did for me and it could for you too and you will never expect that. I certainly wasn’t ready for a new…
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“I don’t know what tune that the orchestra played but it went by me, sickly and sentimental” – Crowded House. Here I was, 203 countries deep into my wacaday adventure around the world and I was finally in The Isle of Man!! This lesser ventured country is the fifth closest country to my home country…
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“Stand in the place where you are” – Rapid Eye Movement. My first ever night in Kazakhstan was a cold and memorable one way back in December 2015. Life was pretty good then and I knew what I wanted. I was on a journey through the Stans (I’ve now visited them all) and on that…
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