Here's to a More Adventurous 2022

There's no way of denying it; 2021 has been a very disappointing year for me. When I said goodbye to my boyfriend Claudio at Heathrow Airport on the 3rd January, we both thought it would only be a few months before I would be able to get my visa for my job in Santiago, and move out there to be with him. But unfortunately, the Chilean border and consulate didn't open until October, so I couldn't even start my visa application until then, and completing it has been a very long and slow process. Therefore, I'm still living in England with my parents, and I haven't seen Claudio in nearly a whole year.

It's also been a rubbish year in terms of travel, as I haven't been abroad at all (a first for me since 2009). Obviously I love exploring new places (hence why I write this travel blog!), and I try to visit at least one new country every year (something I did from 2014-2020). But of course, now that streak has been broken, and I'm really really missing foreign travel. 

So, all in all, this year has been tough, a lot tougher than 2020. But I want to end it on a positive note, by reflecting on some of the good things that have happened to me over the past twelve months...

1) I built up a more steady base of students in my job as an online English teacher, completing over 1000 teaching hours, and also qualifying as an IELTS teacher. I continue to really enjoy my work, and it's helped keep me sane over the last couple of years!

2) I successfully underwent laser vision correction surgery, which is something I'd wanted to do for a long time. It's great to be free from glasses and contact lenses, and it will definitely make my future travels a lot easier.

3) My parents and I completed the local travel "bucket list" that I'd created in 2020. We visited lots of interesting nearby places between April and August this year, my favourites being Westbury Court Garden (a Dutch water garden), Batsford Arboretum (a Japanese-style arboretum), and Sezincote (an Indian-style palace). These places really gave me the sense of being in a different part of the world for a little while, and they inspired me to write a post about my favourite UK alternatives to foreign destinations. We also managed to squeeze in a short sunny beach break this summer, which I very much appreciated!

4) This year I achieved a flight-free year for the first time since 2009! Obviously this was unintentional, as I'd planned to travel to Chile this year, and my mum and I were also going to take a trip to the south of France, which had to be cancelled. But I still think it's something to celebrate. Between 2017 and 2020, I was taking 6-9 individual flights every year, and I did feel a bit guilty about that, because I care a lot about the environment. So this year was a little way of making up for it. And although I won't be doing a flight-free year in 2022, I'll always try to find alternatives to flying whenever possible.

5) Blogging here has been a form of escapism during this rather monotonous year. Even though I haven't been able to travel abroad, I've tried to keep this blog as international as possible, through my Travel Tips and Country Guides series. It's been a nice way to reminisce about past travels and also to dream about the amazing places I want to visit in the future.

6) This month I've had a couple of little successes with my travel content. A piece of writing I did about my travel wishes for 2022 was included in an issue of Jack's Flight Club: The Detour, and two of my photos have been featured on the photography website Pexels. 

So it definitely hasn't been all bad! But of course I'm hoping that next year will be much better, and I'm cautiously optimistic that it will be. I was finally able to apply for my visa at the start of December, and I should be offered an appointment to collect it any day now. Which means that I will hopefully be able to go to Santiago in January! 

Once I'm there, Claudio and I plan to travel a lot. I've made a list of places for us to visit all over Chile, and we also want to go to Brazil, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. So I'll hopefully have lots of exciting things to write about here on this blog!

Finally, I would like to say thank you to everyone who's read Charlotte's Travel Adventures over the last year. I wish you a Happy New Year and many happy travels ahead!

Image by Djordje Vezilic from pexels.com

Pexels

As you may have noticed, I sometimes use photos from the website pexels.com when I want to illustrate posts which are about more general topics rather than specific destinations, and also to depict destinations I haven't been to yet, or that I went to before I had a phone with a camera. It's a really good website for finding stock photos that you can use for free.

You can also upload your own photography onto the website for other users to download, which is something I've been doing over the last few months. Pexels also regularly run challenges based on a particular theme, offering cash prizes for the best photos! Recent challenges that I've entered are the Passport to the United Kingdom challenge and the Year in Review: Your Passport challenge (in fact, I was able to submit some photos in both categories, given that I haven't been able to leave the country this year!). 

Uploading my photography was something I was just doing for fun, but I was very happy to receive an email this week telling me that one of my pictures has been featured on the website! 

By the way, it's this one I took of the Neptune Fountain in Cheltenham.

Photography is a hobby I've grown more and more interested in since I first started travel blogging back in 2017 with very few camera skills whatsoever. I've always just used my smartphone to take my photos for this blog, as it's the easiest option when travelling around, but I'd like to learn how to use a proper camera, and would definitely consider taking some photography lessons in the future.

It was a nice surprise to be featured by Pexels, especially just a week after being featured in Jack's Flight Club: The Detour. This year been quite disappointing for me overall, both in terms of travelling and life in general, but these two little achievements are something positive that I can take away from 2021. ☺

Finally, if you're interested, you can check out my Pexels profile here!

Update: 30/12/2021

I'm very happy to say that I've now had a second picture featured on Pexels! It's this one I took of Parroquia San Francisco de Asís in Montevideo, Uruguay.

I'll continue to update if more of my photos are featured in the future!

Update: 20/01/2022

Now I've had a third photo featured! It's this summery one of a palm tree in Colonia del Sacramento, also in Uruguay.

I hope to update again soon!

Update: 28/01/2022

I've just had a fourth photo featured, and it's this one I took of Laguna Tebinquinche in the Atacama Desert!

I feel like I'm on a bit of a roll with these photos now, and I'm looking forward to getting stuck into some more photography on my travels this year!

Update: 02/04/2022

The fifth photo I've had featured on Pexels is this one that I took in La Laguna, during me and Claudio's recent trip to the beach.

I hope to be featured again soon!

Update: 14/05/2022

Sixth photo featured! It's this one I took in Iquique. 

Iquique was a really great destination for photography. I'm looking forward to visiting some other exciting places soon, and taking more photos!

Update: 17/11/2022

It had been a long time since I'd had a photo featured on Pexels, and I was beginning to wonder if I'd lost my touch! But then today I found out that one of my recent photos has been featured: it's this one of Machu Picchu in Peru.

I'm really happy to have had a photo featured from this trip of a lifetime!

Update: 05/04/2023

My latest featured photo is this one of Paseo La Villa, here in Santiago.

This picturesque little area is a great place for taking photos!

Update: 06/04/2023

I certainly didn't expect to have two photos featured in two days, but that's exactly what's just happened! I'm very happy that this photo from our recent trip to Valparaíso has now been featured too.

 

Let's see how long it takes for me to get another one featured!

Movie Travels

This weekend's post is something a little different! As the title suggests, I'm going to be writing about a few places I've visited that were used as settings in famous films. Although I've visited plenty of filming locations (being based near the Cotswolds makes that an inevitability!), this post will specifically focus on locations that were also the setting of the films in question.

The following three films all have a strong sense of place, and actually inspired my travels in the places where they're set. And as a bonus, they're also great movies which I would highly recommend watching!

Movie: The Sound of Music

Setting: Salzburg, Austria

Clockwise starting from top: Mirabell Palace, Hellbrunner Allee and Schloss Leopoldskron (all located in Salzburg)

When it comes to films set in Austria, the Sound of Music is definitely the first one that comes to mind for most people. This classic musical is well-loved, not just for its memorable songs, but also for its scenes featuring beautiful mountain landscapes and architecture in and around the city of Salzburg. 

I spent a couple of days in Salzburg at the start of the Austrian part of my Year Abroad, and as I've always been a big fan of musicals, I took the opportunity to go on the Sound of Music bus tour! This was a really fun trip around all the filming locations in the city, as well as in the nearby town of Mondsee. During the tour, we learnt about the real story of the Von Trapp family (which, unsurprisingly, isn't exactly as it's depicted in the film!) and also sang some karaoke!

Read more about Salzburg and Mondsee here!

Movie: The Motorcycle Diaries (Diarios de motocicleta)

Setting: South America

Clockwise starting from top left: Valparaíso, Chile; the south of Chile; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and the Atacama Desert, Chile

The Motorcycle Diaries follows the journey that a young Che Guevara took with his friend Alberto Granado across South America, during which he forms the political views that he became known for. The film mostly takes place in Argentina, Chile and Peru, though there are a couple of short scenes in Colombia and Venezuela at the end. Che and Alberto's journey starts in their home city of Buenos Aires, and they then travel down through Argentina and cross over the border into the south of Chile. They make their way up the country, passing through Valparaíso and the Atacama Desert, before crossing into Peru and visiting Cusco, Machu Picchu, Lima and the Amazon.

I first saw this film as part of a module I studied in my second year at university. At the time, I was planning my Year Abroad, and was still a bit undecided about the Spanish part of the year. But seeing all of the amazing places featured in the Motorcycle Diaries inspired me to want to travel to South America, and definitely influenced my choice to spend a semester studying in Chile, which was probably the best decision I've ever made! During the semester, I ended up visiting two of the destinations in the film (Valparaíso and the south of Chile), and on subsequent trips to South America, I visited the Atacama Desert and Buenos Aires. When I'm back living in Chile again (which should be very soon), I hope to go on a trip to Cusco and Machu Picchu to complete my Motorcycle Diaries bucket list!

Read more about Buenos Aires here!

Read more about the south of Chile here!

Read more about Valparaíso here!

Read more about the Atacama Desert here!

Update: 12th November 2022

It's been 11 months since I published this post, and I'm very happy to update it by saying that I have completed my Motorcycle Diaries bucket list, by visiting Cusco and Machu Picchu! Cusco is a beautiful city, and it was a dream come true to finally visit the incredible Inca citadel of Machu Picchu.

But, to be honest, my trip to this part of Peru gave me even more Wanderlust to explore the country, and now I'd also like to visit the other two Peruvian places in the film: Lima and the Amazon!

Read more about Cusco here!

Read more about Machu Picchu here!

Movie: Amélie (Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain)

Setting: Paris, France

Clockwise starting from top left: Notre-Dame de Paris, Sacré Cœur, Café des 2 Moulins, and a view of Montmartre (all located in Paris)

Paris is one of my favourite cities in the world, and it's also the setting of many great films, including the Aristocats, Ratatouille, Anastasia, the Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Les Misérables, and Moulin Rouge, as well as the polarising but fun TV series Emily in Paris. But my favourite of all of the films set in Paris has to be Amélie, or Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, as it's known in French. It's such a funny and magical tale that really draws you into its little world, and I'd say it's probably my favourite film of all time. I've even been to the theatre to see a musical version of it!

When I was in France for the final part of my Year Abroad, I spent a short amount of time in Paris, and used that time to visit some of the locations from the film. Most of the action takes place in the pretty neighbourhood of Montmartre, where you can find the beautiful Sacré-Cœur basilica and Café des 2 Moulins, the café where Amélie works. It's a lot smaller than it looks in the film, but it has lots of memorabilia inside, which is very cool!

Read more about Paris here!

Travelling to movie locations is a lot of fun, because it's so interesting to experience the places we've seen on screen in real life. These three movie destinations are the ones that have been the most memorable for me so far, but I'm sure I'll discover some more in the future!

Jack's Flight Club: The Detour Newsletter

I'm just writing a quick post today to share some exciting news!

I've been a member of Jack's Flight Club (a mailing list which sends out lists of cheap flight deals) for a couple of years now. Unfortunately, because everything has been so uncertain over the last two years, I haven't yet taken advantage of any of the deals, but I'm sure I will in the future!

The club, which has over one million members, also sends out a weekly newsletter called the Detour, which is filled with travel stories and tips. Recently, they asked readers to send in their travel wishes for 2022, and so I wrote a little bit about my South American travel plans. And then yesterday morning I received an email telling me that it had been chosen for publication! Later in the day, the newsletter was sent out with my little piece included, along with some great travel tips about Ecuador and Colombia, which should definitely come in useful! In addition to the travel wishes, there's some useful Covid-related info in the newsletter, as well as some travel inspiration, and links to interesting travel-related stories, so it's a great read. 

Here's the link, if you'd like to check it out!

Image by Monstera from pexels.com

Country Guide: Portugal

Name: Portugal

Continent: Europe

Capital (and Largest) City: Lisbon (in Portuguese: Lisboa)

Language: Portuguese

Currency: Euro

Drives on the: Right

Time Zone: Western European Standard Time

Adaptor Types: Type C and Type F

Description: Portugal is located on the Iberian peninsula in the southwest of Europe, bordering Spain and the Atlantic Ocean. It's a popular tourist destination amongst Brits and other Europeans, thanks to its warm weather and many sandy beaches. And it's also famous for port wine, Fado music, and for being successful in football.

Why You Should Visit: In addition to Portugal's beaches, there are various interesting cities to visit, most famously Lisbon and Porto. I have only visited Lisbon so far, but my trip there really stayed in my mind, because of its beautiful architecture and cultural attractions. I would definitely go back there and to other Portuguese destinations in the future.

Fun Fact: Portugal is the oldest country in Europe, having existed since 1139!

My Blogposts About Portugal

Charlotte's Travel Adventures

- The Night Train From Madrid to Lisbon

- Lisbon

- The Belém and Ajuda Neighbourhoods (Lisbon)

- Castelo de São Jorge (Lisbon)

- Travel Tips: My Ten Favourite Cities (Lisbon)

- Travel Tips: My Ten Favourite Castles and Palaces (Castelo de São Jorge, Lisbon)

- UNESCO World Heritage Sites (Monastery of the Hieronymites and Tower of Belém in Lisbon)

- Travel Tips: My Top Five Colourful Cities (Lisbon)

- Charlotte's Travel Adventures is 5 Years Old! (Lisbon)

Clockwise starting from top left: Belém Tower, Sala Thai Pagoda, panoramic view from Castelo de São Jorge, Igreja de São Domingos, Tram 28 (all located in Lisbon)

Check out the rest of my Country Guides here!

Travel Tips: My Top Ten Historical Destinations

This week's blogpost is going to focus on my favourite historical destinations. Now, of course, nearly every town or city in the world has some kind of link to the near or distant past, and could therefore be counted as a historical destination, meaning there are various places I could have included in this list. But the ones I've chosen to write about today are the ones that really seem to bring history to life, and which have given me an insight into different periods of the past...

Avebury, England, UK

This prehistoric stone circle, along with the other nearby stone circle, Stonehenge, are probably the closest thing we have in the UK to a site like Machu Picchu or the Egyptian pyramids. And both happen to be located in my home county of Wiltshire, which is pretty cool! Stonehenge is definitely the more famous and popular of the two, but I personally prefer Avebury, as it's much much bigger, and access is less restricted. No one knows exactly why the circle was built, but it's amazing to look at it and think about how long it's been there for. 

Read more here!

Bath, England, UK

Bath is another historical place that I'm lucky to live quite close to. This beautiful city was very important during the Roman era, and you can still find many Roman columns around the city centre, most famously at the Roman Baths (pictured above). The Roman Baths was a spa and temple complex that attracted visitors from far and wide, and now it's a museum that brings in tourists from all over the world.

Another reason to visit Bath is for its more recent, Georgian history. It was a very popular city amongst the wealthy during that time period, and was famously written about by Jane Austen. You can find many examples of Georgian architecture around Bath today, including the iconic Royal Crescent.

Read more here and here!

York, England, UK

York is another British city with a long history and many beautiful old buildings. Like Bath, it's known for its Roman history, and you can still see some of the architecture from that period today, including the column pictured above. York was also a Viking city in the past, and was known as Jórvík during this time. In fact, one of the city's most exciting attractions is Jorvik Viking Centre, a museum which literally takes you on a ride through a recreation of this era.

Read more here!

Oxford, England, UK

The final English city in my list is Oxford, which has some of the most beautiful architecture in the country. It has many historical buildings, some of which were built hundreds of years ago. Radcliffe Camera (pictured above) is actually one of the newer ones, being completed in 1749. Some of the the even older ones include St Michael at the North Gate tower, which was built between 1000-1050, and Oxford Castle, which was originally built in the Norman era.

Read more here and here!

Chepstow Castle, Wales, UK

The last UK destination in this list is Chepstow Castle in Wales, located right next to the border with England. Construction on the castle first began nearly 1000 years ago, in 1067, and it's still looking in pretty good shape for its age! Actually there are many amazing old castles in Wales - it's the country with the highest number of castles per square mile - but Chepstow's one is actually the oldest, so it's definitely worth a visit.

Read more here!

Nîmes, France

Now I'm moving on to international destinations for the last half of this list, starting with Nîmes in the south of France. This isn't one of the best-known cities in the Hexagon (I don't think I'd heard of it before I went!) but I believe it should be, because it's really an incredible place to explore, featuring various Roman artefacts that have been unbelievably well-preserved. Two of the most impressive are the Arena of Nîmes (pictured above), which is very reminiscent of the Colosseum in Rome, and Maison Carrée, a beautiful temple.

Read more here!

Berlin, Germany

For me, Berlin is an interesting city because of its more recent history. It wasn't that long ago that it was divided into two parts: the democratic West Berlin (comprised of British, French and US sectors), and the communist East Berlin (originally a Soviet sector, and later part of the GDR). There are still many reminders of this period that tourists can visit, including the East Side Gallery (painted sections of the Berlin Wall), Checkpoint Charlie (pictured above), and Tränenpalast (Palace of Tears), a former border crossing which is now a museum.

Florence, Italy

The capital of Tuscany is one of the most popular destinations for those interested in history of art, as it was the birthplace of the Renaissance movement, which took place during the 15th and 16th centuries. Many great artists, such as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, lived and worked in the city, and you can see examples of their artwork there today. Two of the most famous galleries are Galleria dell'Accademia, where you can find Michelangelo's famous sculpture, David, and the Uffizi Gallery (pictured above), where you can see The Birth of Venus by Botticelli.

Read more here!

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Image by veeterzy from pexels.com

This medieval walled city on the Adriatic Sea, which was at one point an independent country, seems to have barely changed in hundreds of years. It's also incredibly beautiful, especially when viewed from above. I went there on a family holiday nearly ten years ago, so my memories of the place are slightly vague, and I didn't have a camera phone at the time, so I have no photos from my trip there. But I do remember really enjoying exploring the city, and I'd definitely go back there in the future.

Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay

This picturesque town in Uruguay was at times a Spanish colony, and at other times a Portuguese colony, before becoming part of Brazil, and then finally Uruguay. It has a blend of Spanish, Portuguese and post-colonial architectural styles, and has been recognised by UNESCO for this reason. Going there and seeing its old buildings and cobblestone streets really does give you the feeling of stepping back into the past. 

Read more here!

I think it's really fascinating to learn about different periods of history and about how life was in the past, but it's even more interesting when you can actually explore history in a more literal way, by visiting historical destinations such as these.

I definitely plan to visit more historical places in the future; when I'm living in Chile again (which should be very soon!) I would like to visit the Chinchorro mummies in Arica (Edit: Saw them in June 2022!), and possibly Rapa Nui (Easter Island). I'm also planning on visiting Machu Picchu in Peru (Edit: Made it there in October 2022!), and maybe Ciudad Perdida in Colombia. The other historic sites I'd most like to go to around the world include Chichén Itzá in Mexico, Rome in Italy (Edit: Made it there in March 2024!), Athens in Greece, Petra in Jordan, and Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Hopefully, I'll have one or two to write about within the next few months!

Check out the rest of my Travel Tips here!