The latest in my World Travellers series is Paul from A Luxury Travel Blog. Paul is a highly experienced traveller and looks at a different niche from myself. While I search for the cheapest beer, the easiest city to get a visa in and the least attended hostel dorm, Paul is writing about the luxury side of travel, with some aplomb.
World Travellers: Paul from A Luxury Travel Blog
Who are you?
My name is Paul Johnson and I am Editor of A Luxury Travel Blog ( www.aluxurytravelblog.com ) which I have been running for just over 10 years now. I am also a Director of an internet marketing company that specialises in marketing for the tourist industry, as well as a Director of a vacation rental business (www.kendalcottages.com )
Where are you from?
I am originally from Manchester in the UK.
Where have you been?
I have travelled extensively around Europe and covered a a fair amount of Africa and Asia. Recent trips have been to China, Germany, Greece, Japan, Maldives, Morocco, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa and United Arab Emirates.
World Travellers: Paul from A Luxury Travel Blog
Where are you now?
I am currently in Cumbria, UK, sandwiched between the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales National Parks.
What are the top 3 places you’ve visited?
Tanzania
Maldives
South Africa
What is the best travel experience you’ve had?
Our honeymoon in Tanzania – we spent the first week or so on safari in the Serengeti, at Lake Manyara and Ngorongoro at the height of luxury, and then followed that with a blissful stay on a private island off the north-east coast of Zanzibar, called Mnemba Island.
What is the worst travel experience you’ve had?
As a teenager in Morocco, I once got dehydration and felt terrible, losing all sense of time of day. I felt really ill and missed out on a camel trip in the dunes as I just wasn’t up to it. That same trip, I also recall us passing through a village where a young child had just been involved in a fatal road traffic accident and his body lay covered at the roadside – an awful moment but a memory that has stuck with me ever since.
World Travellers: Paul from A Luxury Travel Blog
What is the funniest travel experience you’ve had?
There are many, but I have fond recollections of breakfast in a hotel in Ireland one (you’ll be able to relate to this one, Jonny!). Anyway, we were a table of two families so quite a lot of food ordered which, 20 minutes or so later, was brought to the table by the waitress. After placing a couple of omelettes in their appropriate places, the lady said “Who ordered the turd omelette?” You should have seen the look on everyone’s faces at the thought of a turd omelette. Of course, she had just said “third” with an Irish accent – I guess you had to be there!
What is the scariest travel experience you’ve had?
In the mid-nineties I worked in Greenland. There were a few moments there when I was certainly a little out of my comfort zone – crossing ice-cold meltwater streams with a reasonably strong current in barefoot (so as not to get footwear wet), working in caves under the ice sheet as the sun beat down from above, and climbing to the top of a precarious cliff of ice that could calve at any time.
World Travellers: Paul from A Luxury Travel Blog
What is the most random job you have had on your travels?
I’m not sure if it’s the most random but I was recently hired to cover the opening of a new restaurant in Frankfurt and flown there by private jet.
How do you fund your travels?
As a professional, full-time travel blogger, I am in the very fortunate position that I am hired for marketing campaigns with a number of major brands (both travel and non-travel related) as part of my work.
World Travellers: Paul from A Luxury Travel Blog
What 3 tips would you give a new traveller before they set off on their adventure?
1. Travel as lightly as possible
2. Research and plan, but not to such an extent that it becomes restrictive
3. Don’t forget your passport!
What are your future travel plans?
I head to Istanbul in a few weeks and have plans to visit Iceland soon after that trip. I shall also be spending some time in the Cantabria region of northern Spain this Summer for a sailing event. A number of other trips are currently still in the pipeline.
World Travellers: Paul from A Luxury Travel Blog
Links to follow Paul:
http://www.aluxurytravelblog.com/
https://www.facebook.com/luxurytravel
https://twitter.com/luxury__travel
https://plus.google.com/106483048508230954628/posts
Thanks to Paul for being the latest in my series of World Travellers! If you travel the world and run a travel blog or are a travel writer, please get in touch, you can be featured, either e-mail jonny (at) dontstopliving (dot) net or head to my contacts page and get connected! You can also subscribe to Don’t Stop Living by filling in the form below! Safe travels!