Year Abroad: My Travel Highlights

For today's post, I'm looking back at my Year Abroad (which I can't believe was 8-9 years ago!), and specifically showcasing my travel highlights from those 15 months.

During that time, I travelled to eight countries across Europe and South America, and visited some of the world's most famous tourist destinations, like Paris, Vienna, Venice and Florence. I used my weekends to take various day trips and mini breaks to places in the countries I was staying in and in neighbouring countries.

Though I had a great time in every place I visited, these were the trips that left the biggest impression on me...

Travels Around the South of France

Following a difficult start to my Year Abroad, when an au pair placement I took on in the south of France turned out to be a nightmare, I returned to the UK after just 10 days. However, just a matter of days later, I was back in the same region, this time spending a few weeks at a language school in Montpellier. Fortunately, this experience was completely the opposite, and I had a wonderful time. I stayed with a really nice lady and her cat in a lovely flat and had the opportunity to travel to various places around the area on weekends and Wednesday afternoons. Those weeks were one of my favourite memories from the entire year, and gave me confidence after the initial setback to keep going with my Year Abroad plans.

Read more here!

Udine, Italy

The second part of my Year Abroad took me to the south of Austria, where I worked as an English teacher in two secondary schools for four and a half months. As I was living pretty much right in the centre of Europe and worked four-day weeks, I had amazing opportunities to travel all around the continent, without even getting on a plane. I visited four neighbouring countries, including Italy on three separate occasions. The first trip I took was to the small city of Udine, close to the borders with Austria and Slovenia. It was a city I'd never heard of before seeing it on a train map, but it turned out to be one of my favourites - it has so much beautiful architecture and none of the crowds you get in the better-known Italian cities.

Read more here!

Vienna, Austria and Bratislava, Slovakia

The following month I, along with the other British Council English language assistants in Austria, was invited to an afternoon tea at the British Embassy in Vienna. The event was nowhere near as fancy as it sounds - it was literally just us passing round packets of Mr Kipling cakes and making tea from a hot water urn! However, it was interesting to visit the embassy and hear from the ambassador about what it's like to work in diplomacy. Of course, I used the event as an opportunity to stay in the city for a few days and see its many sights. I also took the train over to Bratislava in Slovakia (a journey of less than an hour), which was a great experience. The two cities are very different, but there's a lot to like about both, from Vienna's grand palaces and elegant streets, to Bratislava's fairytale castle and quaint streets.

Read more here!

A Weekend in Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein

Later on in the semester, I went on a trip that incorporated destinations in three different countries: Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. First, I took the train to Innsbruck for one night before travelling to the small town of Sargans in Switzerland, which I used as a base for exploring the tiny country of Liechtenstein, before stopping off in Innsbruck again on the way home. This was a long weekend filled with mountains, castles and a real feeling of adventure.

Read more here!

Valparaíso, Chile

In February 2018, I headed over to South America to start the third part of my Year Abroad: a semester studying at a university in Santiago, Chile. This was the most daunting but also the most exciting part of the year. During the first couple of months, I got to know my new city, but didn't travel much outside of it, other than a trip to a vineyard with the university and a weekend at the beach in a group. Before going to Chile, I'd been given a lot of warnings not to travel around Latin America on my own, but when my plans for one weekend fell through, I spontaneously took the bus to the coastal city of Valparaíso by myself and joined a group walking tour, taking in all the sights of the city. Valpo is full of steep hills, colourful buildings and street art, and has a Bohemian atmosphere that really draws you in. Almost five years later, I had the chance to go back, this time with Claudio, and I enjoyed it just as much the second time around.

Read more here!

Huilo Huilo, Chile

The first three months of my time in Chile were filled with ups and downs. While I fell in love with the country, its landscapes and culture, I also invested myself in an unhealthy relationship, which ultimately ended in heartbreak. In the days that followed, I was strongly tempted to book the first flight back home, but forced myself to stay by booking a spot on a group tour to the south of the country towards the end of the semester. By the time the trip came round, I'd unexpectedly met Claudio (my now-husband!) and life in Santiago was better than ever. Though Claudio wasn't able to join me on the tour, he did turn up at the bus station to see me off, which was a lovely surprise! After an entire night on the coach, I emerged into a landscape that was much colder than Santiago, but also much more tranquil. The following two days were spent visiting lakes, volcanoes, waterfalls, forests and thermal springs. It was an incredible experience and one of my favourite memories from the year.

Read more here!

The Year Abroad was a big project for me and something I felt really nervous about beforehand, as I'd never done anything like that before. Though I experienced some difficult moments, it also changed my life in the best ways.

In terms of travel, it helped me leave my comfort zone and become more confident about living in and travelling to different places around the world, often by myself. It inspired me to seek similar experiences in the future, starting with 10 days teaching English at a summer camp in Poland after graduating from university, and then moving back to Chile for 15 months after the pandemic, followed by a three-month internship in Malta. 

We're now settled in our life in the UK and plan on staying here for the foreseeable, but I have to admit that part of me still craves the prospect of spending a few months, or even longer, in a different part of the world. Maybe sometime in the future!

That's all for my Year Abroad Series for the moment. But please check out the other posts in the series right here:

Year Abroad: Dealing With Problems

Year Abroad: The Best Bits

Planning a Year Abroad

Year Abroad: The Most Popular Destinations

More April Travel Adventures: Battersea Power Station, Japan House, and the Thames Lido (300th Post!)

Here are a few other April travel adventures I'm yet to write about - as usual, in and around Reading and London!

Battersea

Battersea Park is one of our favourite London parks, and on a recent visit there, we decided to see a bit more of the area, by visiting Battersea Power Station. This is a prime example of the regeneration that has taken place in certain areas of London, as it was once a coal-fired power station spitting out smoke, but has now been converted into a very fancy and modern shopping mall.

When we visited, there was an art trail of painted elephants, and we had fun trying to spot as many as possible in and around the mall!

Kensington and Chelsea

Our next trip to the capital took us to the other side of the river, where we started our day out in Kensington, visiting Japan House. This cultural centre is a museum, shop, café and restaurant all in one, and is a beautiful space to visit. Japan is a country we'd love to visit at some point (I'm interested in the temples and cat cafés, and of course Claudio would love to see the cars!), so we had a great time looking around and enjoying a matcha. One weird thing that I would recommend doing there is visiting the bathroom, as they have authentic Japanese toilets with heated seats!

As the tube to Kensington from Paddington had been absolutely packed, we decided to walk to our next destination: Chelsea. We passed by this interesting building called Michelin House, which used to be the headquarters of Michelin (unsurprisingly!) but now has other uses. The actual building was closed, but in the entrance there was the most beautiful flower market.

Our final stop of the day was Claudio's choice! We went to the exit of the Salon Privé car event to watch some of the supercars leaving. We got to see a large range of cars: Aston Martins, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, McLarens, and even a Bugatti in the distance, so Claudio was pretty happy!

Thames Lido

We're planning on moving away from Reading in the coming months (though we're not sure where to yet!), so have been making a list of all the places we want to visit around the town and making the effort to visit as many as possible before we leave.

One of these places was the Thames Lido. We've had our eye on going there for ages, as we both love swimming, but it is rather pricey. However, the prospect of moving away from the area convinced us to finally go one Friday evening in April.

The building looks quite unassuming from the outside. You could easily miss it when walking past.

However, the inside is something else entirely! The lido is so beautifully decorated and contains a swimming pool, jacuzzi, sauna and steam room. The ticket gives you access for two hours, and we had a really enjoyable and relaxing evening there, finished off with a drink at the poolside bar.

While the tickets are expensive (£25 from Monday to Thursday and £30 from Friday to Sunday), you definitely get a very different experience to what you'd get at a standard leisure centre swimming pool - it's a much more picturesque and relaxing environment and much less crowded. We really felt like we were on holiday at a fancy hotel in a warmer country during the few hours we were there.

Staines-upon-Thames

We've been looking at various potential places to move to over the last couple of months and recently visited the town of Staines-upon-Thames in Surrey. Though we didn't particularly like the town centre and don't see ourselves moving there in the future, there were some nice areas, particularly by the river, that we enjoyed exploring.

That's all for now, but I'll be back soon with more travel content, right here on this blog.

I want to finish off this post by marking the fact that this is actually my 300th post on Charlotte's Travel Adventures! I've now been posting here for well over seven years and don't plan on stopping anytime soon, even though I don't post as often these days as I did in the past. 

Since my 200th post three years ago, a lot has happened in my life! I spent three months living in Malta, before returning to live in the UK in late 2023. In 2024, Claudio and I got married in Chile (with a later celebration in the UK), and after successfully applying for a spouse visa, we moved into an apartment together in Reading in 2025, and are now working in Surrey and London.

Over the last three years, I've travelled in 11 countries, 4 of which I hadn't visited before. Our travel highlight definitely has to be our honeymoon in Thailand; it was our first time visiting Asia, and we had an absolutely brilliant time.

Hopefully, we'll have lots more exciting adventures to post about between now and post number 400!

An "Australia and Singapore" Staycation From Reading

Claudio and I had planned to be spending a large part of this month on a dream international trip. We were going to fly out to Singapore for a couple of days before travelling to Australia. Our first week was going to be spent seeing the sights of Sydney, and from there, we planned to take an excursion to the Blue Mountains. For our second week, we were going to stay on the Gold Coast, where we were going to hire a car and visit places like Brisbane and Byron Bay. After that, we would fly back home, stopping for another 24 hours in Singapore en route.

Unfortunately, we'd booked our flights to and from Singapore with Gulf Air, transiting through Bahrain, as this was by far the most affordable option. A few weeks after we'd booked our flights, the war in the Middle East started, and Bahrain airspace was closed. The situation did not improve over the following weeks, and our flights were inevitably cancelled. I tried hard to get the flights changed to another airline, but it wasn't possible. So instead, we've traded sightseeing and beach trips for online help centre chats, trying to get as much money back as possible.

However, we didn't want to spend the days of the cancelled trip feeling miserable (though I admit I've looked at Flightradar24 a couple of times with some sadness, and it seems we can't go anywhere without being targeted by adverts for holidays in Australia and Singapore!). So, I had the idea of trying to recreate some of the aspects of our trip that we were most looking forward to by taking day trips from our home in Reading. I remember back in the pandemic, when I was stuck in my parents' house unable to move to Chile as planned, I used day trips around my local area, including to places that were reminiscent of other countries, as my own way of travelling the world, when it wasn't possible to do so. 

So, I've taken inspiration from that strange time to do something similar in April 2026, and recreate some of the exciting experiences of Australia and Singapore, all in places reachable from Reading via public transport!

Recreating Singapore in Reading: Tropical Gardens and Hawker Centres

Singapore is known as a "City in a Garden" thanks to its large number of green spaces, including the Botanic Gardens (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) and Gardens by the Bay. Even the airport has a garden inside it!

When I talked to Gemini to get some ideas for my day trips, I mentioned that I wanted to visit some kind of tropical garden. I was thinking of London's Kew Gardens, but Gemini gave me a free, local alternative: the Harris Garden on the campus of the University of Reading.

You can even get there for free from central Reading if you don't mind a long walk (it's also reachable by bus). Though it is quite an uphill route, I personally really like the walk to the university, as it takes you past some nice old buildings.

The Harris Garden specifically has a "jungle garden" section that Gemini recommended to me. It's full of exotic plants, like palm trees, and did make me feel a bit like I was in a tropical rainforest - except for the English weather!

The rest of the garden also had some other really pretty areas to explore - right now is a great moment to go, because you can see all the beautiful cherry blossoms in bloom.

After exploring the garden, I walked back to the town centre and went to find some lunch in The Village Global Food Destination. This arcade is a bit of a hidden gem right in the middle of town, and contains restaurants and cafés serving food from various Asian countries, including Vietnam, India, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, China and Korea. This is a little similar to the Hawker centres that Singapore is famous for, where you can find various vendors selling Chinese, Malay and Indian food.

We've been there a few times previously and really enjoyed it, as we love all kinds of Asian food. On this occasion, I opted for a pancake sandwich with egg and avocado and a mango matcha from Fluffy Fluffy, a Japanese dessert café.

Recreating the Gold Coast in Pangbourne: Australian Wildlife

Australia is known for its unique wildlife, and we planned to see some of its native animals during our time on the Gold Coast, by visiting the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary and the Coombabah Lake Conservation Park.

Fortunately, we had the opportunity to see some emus and wallabies closer to home over the Easter weekend, when we headed to Beale Wildlife Park, which is around a 25-minute walk from Pangbourne railway station.

We particularly loved seeing the wallabies. We got to see a few of them jumping about, and one of them even had a little joey in her pouch!

Another somewhat Australian experience was seeing a giant snake!

Other cute animals we saw included rhea (or ñandú), a happy llama, otters, a sleepy sloth, tortoises and capybaras.

The park itself is very picturesque, featuring a few lakes, an Italian fountain and even a little swimming pool (currently closed, which is why it's not very clean)!

There's also quite a sizeable Japanese garden, which was a very tranquil place to sit for a while in the sunshine. 

One of the most fun parts of the outing was getting to ride the little colourful train around the park!

Recreating Sydney in London: Coffee Culture, Iconic Landmarks and Harbourside Life

I wanted to recreate the experience of visiting Australia's biggest city here in the UK's biggest city. The most obvious area to visit for this purpose would be Clapham, which has the largest Australian population in London. We've been there in the past and had a great time visiting an Aussie café, but this time I wanted to visit somewhere with an aesthetic that was similar to Sydney. So I took the Elizabeth Line over to the east of the city, getting off at Canary Wharf.

First of all, I wanted a coffee, so headed to Grind. While this isn't an Australian coffee chain (it was founded in Shoreditch), it does a great flat white, and the pain au chocolat I had was also really good. 

Next, I returned to the Singapore staycation theme by visiting the Crossrail Place Roof Garden on top of Canary Wharf's station. This garden is located right on the prime meridian and each side has plants from its hemisphere!

Being inside really feels like being in a tropical jungle and there are lots of beautiful plants to see. To make it even better, it's completely free and much less crowded than similar places in the City of London like the Sky Garden and the Garden at 120.

I next took the tube over to the Greenwich peninsula in order to do part of the Line Art Walk. This is a walk that covers a large area of East London and takes you past various sculptures. I did the part that goes around the O2 Arena and takes in three different modern artworks.

The walk also has some great views of the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf and the cable car.

After finding some lunch in the O2, I took the tube back over to Canary Wharf and then transferred to the DLR, getting off at East India station. The DLR is one of my favourite modes of transport in London, as it almost feels like being on a little toy train and always has great views.

From East India station, it's a short walk over to Virginia Quay, from where you have the best view of the O2. 

This area of London has always reminded me a little of Sydney, especially in the sunshine. The O2 may be quite a different building architecturally to the Sydney Opera House, but they have some similarities, both being big concert venues on a peninsula surrounded by water, with skyscrapers behind them. You can also climb over the O2 like you can over the Harbour Bridge!

And I was lucky that the day I went was a sunny day with temperatures of 25 degrees, meaning I almost felt like I was really in Australia!

Obviously it was really disappointing to have to cancel our holiday at the last minute, after feeling hopeful for weeks that it would still go ahead. However, in a way, things actually worked out for the best - around the time we would have been starting our trip, I was offered a new job. I've been searching for months and finally found the right role that puts my skills and experience to their best use. So, 10 days later, rather than exploring the Gold Coast as expected, I found myself starting work in a very aesthetically pleasing office in a great area of London. It's funny how things work out sometimes!

Of course, we plan to rebook the trip for sometime later this year. We put in a lot of work and had to spend around £100 for Claudio's visa (UK citizens can get a free tourist visa that's very easy to apply for, but unfortunately it's more complicated for citizens of countries like Chile). As the visa is valid for a year, we definitely want to use it before it expires. We also have a credit (rather than a refund) to rebook our Sydney - Gold Coast flights, which we don't want to waste either. So, if all goes to plan, we'll have lots of adventures to look forward to in several months' time!

However, it has been over 6 months since we've been abroad now, and we're missing travelling in countries that aren't the UK! So we're going to try to book a long weekend away sometime soon. I'm looking forward to blogging about that in the near future and all about our travel adventures closer to home in the meantime!