If you have followed the blog for what is now 10 years, you might be aware I have a passion for the obscure and absurd. Backpacking places like Rome, Paris and New York just didn’t excite me any more. It has to be a little bit off the wall, off the map, somewhere lots of…
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“Where do you go? Buttoned in your favourite coat, stepping out to a different world. And you might be home late” – Ocean Colour Scene. Get ready for a death trip – 22 hours of mayhem. This was no pleasure cruise, this was an absolute backpacking journey from a lunatic asylum. How about a border…
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Crossing world borders still has intrigue for me. It’s the adrenalin buzz and excitement of it all. As a Northern Irish nationalist, I love separatism and I detest land borders like Belgium to Netherlands. Where basically you have no idea which country you are in – you even use the same currency and don’t get…
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Are you serious? There are five countries that border the United Kingdom/Queendom and we have never heard of them? What are they? How can we get there? Do we need visas or passports? I decided to head on a journey round 5 unrecognised nations within the British Isles, whackpack them and write about them! OK…
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“Isn’t it a lovely day? My patio’s on fire” – Gorky’s Zygotic Mynchi. When I returned to London in April 2016, it was time for another trip to an unrecognised country – the Kingdom of Lovely. Yet again, people are wondering where it is, and indeed whether it is a legitimate country or not. The…
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Reading yet more travel blogs recently on travellers backpacking through the usual suspects (Tieland, Oztrail E-a, Calm Bow Dea and Untied States) just doesn’t do anything for me anymore. I’m totally bored by it. And I’m completely bored by the whole “is it a real country?” question. So on my latest adventure, I headed with my…
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On this adventure through Central Asia, I have already written about my wonderful stay in Pamir Lodge and the spontaneous live article from Khorog. This is a region known as Gorno Badakhshan and you need a separate permit to visit, away from the main part of Tajikistan, so pick up your Gorno Badakhshan permit and…
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Wow, wow, wow! That is all I can say about the wacky Republic of Karakalpakstan if you read my Wacaday report of my journey there, you’ll know this was lunacy turned on its head. This autonomous region within Uzbekistan that probably should have been its own country. To see what Karakalpakstan was all about, I…
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“Let’s play mallet’s mallet” – Timmy Mallet, Wacaday (1980s). Well I thought I’d had some crazy journeys in life but this one topped them all for ridiculous wackiness. I half expected Timmy Mallet to come out and whack me on the head at any moment and shout “Wacaday” at me! This could be lunacy on…
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Believe me, this was another crazy journey on this ball. I mean, for a start how many of you have heard of Karakalpakstan? Sorry where? Karakalpakstan!! I travel full-time and until last week, I also hadn’t heard of it!! It’s an autonomous region within Uzbekistan. But they have their own language, people, culture, borders, road…
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