Life, Travel and Blogging Update

Hi all!

This might be my last time writing on this blog for a while, so I just wanted to post a quick update about what's going on with me at the moment and my future plans for Charlotte's Travel Adventures.

Life in general

I would describe my life as having been in a somewhat transitional phase for the last year or so, but the good news is that things are finally moving in the right direction. After a lot of paperwork, money, stress and patience, Claudio's visa to live in the UK has finally been approved, and he's planning to come back next month! We did use legal assistance with our application, which helped a lot, but it was still a hugely challenging task, and we're so relieved it's finally done and our hard work has paid off.

Our next step, once he's here, is to look for our own place in the London area, but that may not happen as soon as we originally hoped. At the moment, my parents are both having some health issues, so I need to help out more in the house and possibly stay here a bit longer than planned. On top of that, the visa application and our upcoming wedding and honeymoon are all making a big dent in our finances, so it doesn't really make sense for us to move until Claudio has a job here and starts earning too.

Maybe it won't happen until 2025, but we're moving in the right direction now, and we're both really happy to be on the pathway to setting up a more permanent life together.

Our wedding!

Our wedding is coming up now in only a few months, which is hard to believe but very exciting! We can't wait to be properly married - though we're grateful that our civil union allowed us to get our visa to be able to live together, it's left us in the strange situation of kind of being "married" without actually being married. We always said that the civil union was basically just a legal process, and that our wedding and marriage would be the real event, but most people we know viewed the civil union as us getting married, and maybe that's meant there's been a bit less excitement among people we know surrounding our engagement and wedding than there would have been otherwise. (Of course, if governments didn't make it so difficult for couples from different countries to live together, we wouldn't have had to have a civil union in the first place!)

But I think that once the big day comes, it's going to feel very special for us, and hopefully for all our family and friends too. Our venue is exactly the kind of beach wedding setting I've dreamed of since childhood, and now the planning of the event is really coming together. We've got our date set, the photographer booked, my hair and makeup stylist booked, and I've bought my dress and had it altered. There are still more tasks to do, but we're feeling much more on top of things than we were, especially now that we don't have to think about the visa application anymore.

Another big task we've ticked off is booking our flights out to Chile and also reserving a gorgeous Airbnb in Santiago, where we'll stay in the days leading up to the wedding and for a couple of weeks afterwards, including over Christmas. I'm really looking forward to being back in one of my favourite cities and going back to something like the old lifestyle we had while we were in our little apartment in Ñuñoa, which I still miss. It's also going to be great to have a proper summer together, as Claudio went back to Chile on the 1st June and won't be back here again until late September, so he's basically missing the entire northern hemisphere summer. As for me, I haven't really done any fun summer activities since he left - I haven't had a holiday, set foot on a beach, or even been to a swimming pool. So our time in Chile is going to be a great opportunity to do all of those things we love, and I'm very excited about it!

Travel

Aside from visiting Westonbirt Arboretum in July, the only other day trip I've had in the last few months was when I went to London with my mum for a theatre day.

After a delicious lunch at Côte, we saw Frozen at Theatre Royal Drury Lane, which was fantastic. Although there were quite a lot of noisy kids in the audience, we really enjoyed the show (the quick change in Let It Go was a real highlight!) and the theatre was beautiful to look around.

Afterwards, we walked through Covent Garden, where there was an event going on with Nissan electric cars. One of the things I love about London is that there's always something happening!

Our day in London made me really excited to hopefully move there soon - it is one of my favourite cities in the world and both Claudio and I can imagine having a great life there.

Blogging

The final thing I want to write about today is this blog itself. 

I have a confession to make: I have lost a lot of motivation and interest in blogging and making travel content on social media recently. This loss of interest has been a gradual process that I've noticed particularly over the last 18 months or so, though I have had sporadic bursts of inspiration.

I fell in love with travel blogging during my Year Abroad, which led me to create Charlotte's Travel Adventures, a project that has been a huge passion of mine. During the pandemic years in particular, this blog was such an important outlet for me and I loved every minute working on it. Then life got more exciting and busier for me, and the blog took a bit of a back seat, but I always thought that the old passion would come back once life got quieter. However, since finishing the visa application, life has got quieter, and yet blogging kind of feels like work these days. I started writing a post last week that I thought would be really interesting to write, but the inspiration just didn't take me, and after having written just a couple of short paragraphs, I ended up deleting the draft - the first time I've ever done so. In addition, Google has been steadily de-indexing my posts and refusing to index any new ones since around September last year, which is quite demoralising.

My passion for travel is still as strong as ever, but while it used to go hand in hand with an equally strong passion for travel blogging, that's not really the case anymore. My other great passion in life, musical theatre, has come back into my life in a big way since January 2023, and maybe that's partly responsible for the lack of interest in blogging I'm now experiencing. Furthermore, after work and at the weekend, there are lots of other things I want to do more than I want to blog, such as watching musicals, movies, series and documentaries, reading books, singing, and working out. Stepping back from the blog will free up more time for me to do those things.

From now on, I won't be publishing anywhere near as many posts here as I do currently, and perhaps I might go months at a time without blogging. But there's no way I'll be closing this blog altogether - I absolutely want to post about our wedding and honeymoon and any other exciting trips we take in the future. And if inspiration takes me, perhaps I'll post about other travel-related topics occasionally. But I'll definitely be taking a break for the time being.

Thanks to everyone who's been reading here over the last several years. I hope to see you back here in the not too distant future! 😃

The Best and Worst Things About Travelling

I wouldn't write a travel blog if I didn't love travelling, but I have to admit that sometimes it can cause some annoyances! 

These are the five things I find worst about travel - and the five best...

The Worst Things About Travelling

Costs

This is the most obvious disadvantage of travel, especially now that we are going through a cost of living crisis. Long-haul flights have always been expensive, but nowadays it's also a lot harder to find cheap short-haul flights than it used to be five or ten years ago.

Additionally, some countries are very expensive destinations in terms of train travel, hotels, restaurants, etc. The UK is certainly one such country, which is frustrating for those of us living here, as we can't even save money by having a holiday here rather than abroad!

Of course, there are always great deals to look out for, but if you've got your heart set on a particular destination at a particular time, generally, you have to be prepared to spend big.

Queuing/Waiting

I'm quite an impatient person, so I don't enjoy having to queue for a long time to get into attractions or waiting around at boarding gates in airports. Fortunately, most of the time, it's worth the wait!

Delays/cancellations

This particular issue is one that can really wreak havoc with your travel plans. Be sure to have travel insurance in order to avoid any extra costs.

Uncomfortable flights/Busy trains

I do think that often the worst thing about travelling is the actual travel part itself. So many modes of transport can be crowded, uncomfortable and unpleasant. 

It's annoying how airlines get away with charging so much for flights and cramming people in like sardines. Train travel in the UK can also be just as bad, with trains regularly filled with people standing in the aisles and corridors.

Often, it's a case of just having to grit your teeth and get through it, in order to be able to arrive at that destination you've been dreaming of for so long.

Crowded destinations

One of the worst things about travel is when you do finally make it your dream destination, but it's too crowded for you to really enjoy it. This has become a bigger problem in recent years, especially since the rise of social media. We all have our bucket lists, and sometimes it's worth putting up with the crowds in order to experience somewhere really special, but other times, it can leave you feeling disappointed. 

In my own experience, Venice, the Vatican City and the Blue Lagoon were places that were a little bit spoilt by the sheer amount of tourists there, though I did enjoy my time in all those places. In big cities with lots of tourists, like London and Paris, it's actually surprisingly easy to find nice, peaceful spots to take in famous landmarks - it's mostly just the museums that get uncomfortably busy. 

So, it's a good idea to combine busy and quiet attractions within a trip, or to alternate between taking trips to popular, touristic places and going to more off-the-beaten-track destinations.

The Best Things About Travelling

Discovering new cultures

One of my favourite things about travelling is visiting countries or regions I haven't been to before, whether that means going to far-flung places on the other side of the world, or simply somewhere new in my own country. I really enjoy experiencing different cultures, cuisines and languages, which is what drove me to study modern languages at university. It's just really exciting, as well as educational, to broaden your horizons through travel.

Seeing beautiful places

Of course, one of the main reasons people love travel is because they love to see beautiful places, from areas of natural beauty, like beaches, mountains, rainforests and waterfalls, to the man-made beauty of grand cities and charming villages. I think that as humans, we're quite aesthetic creatures, and it can really restore the soul to take in beautiful sights when travelling.

Exploring sites of historical and cultural significance

From Machu Picchu to the Colosseum to Avebury, I absolutely love visiting historical wonders. It's really a special experience to find yourself in these places that have such a long and incredible story. They don't even have to be places from hundreds of years ago - I also find it fascinating to visit places from more recent time periods, such as the Cold War era nuclear bunker we recently visited. Physically being in such places can bring their history to life much more than simply reading about it.

Having new experiences

This is something I recently wrote a post about! Whether you're having a go at an adventure sport or simply trying a new cuisine, travel is all about having new experiences, and creating memories that will last a lifetime.

Going on an adventure/escaping from the everyday

Quite possibly, this is the very best thing about travel, in my opinion. Most of us have quite repetitive and often mundane daily routines, even when we are happy with our jobs and lives, and travel is a way to get away from all that and refresh the mind. Of course, it's fantastic to spend several days or even weeks exploring a bucket list destination or relaxing on a beautiful beach, but even a day trip can have a similar effect. In fact, during the pandemic, going on short outings to places around my local area was something that proved to be a huge help to me in getting through what was a very long and tough time.

Overall, I believe the benefits of travel far outweigh its disadvantages! Although there have been times during trips when I've felt stressed or frustrated, travelling is still one of the things I love most in the world. There are definitely things I'd change about the tourism industry if it were up to me, but that doesn't change the fact that there's really nothing like the feeling of being somewhere absolutely incredible! 

Image by Kelly from pexels.com