Hello Again!

...and we're back!

It's been exactly four weeks since I last posted, and to be honest, I didn't see myself coming back to blogging this soon, but for some reason, today, for the first time in months, I felt compelled to post a story on Instagram and inspired to write a little post here.

Part of me has missed blogging over the last month - I do feel a bit of nostalgia for the period of time in 2021, where I couldn't wait to sit down in front of my laptop every weekend with a mug of tea or coffee and create something that really sparked joy in me, whether that was a recap of somewhere I'd visited locally, or something else about the topic of travel in general. Funnily enough, that was a very difficult, dull and uncertain period in my life, and a time when I didn't travel much at all, but was also the time when I was most passionate and full of ideas and inspiration for this travel blog.

On the other hand, it has felt freeing to give myself a break from blogging. I've realised that writing blog posts somehow, and without me noticing, turned from a weekly joy and escape into something that felt almost like an obligation at times, which is bizarre, because it's absolutely not an obligation in any way!

I've been thinking about how I want to move forward with this blog, and I think the answer has come to me over the last week or so. I want to enjoy writing here and for it to feel like a fun hobby again, and in order to achieve that, I definitely need to move away from trying to post to a regular schedule and instead only choose to post when I'm actually inspired to do so.

The other key change I want to make going forward is to write shorter posts - think the written equivalent of TikToks/Instagram reels, as opposed to YouTube videos! While I still want to write the occasional longer post (the lengthier ones I wrote recently about the places I've lived and the places I'd like to live are actually by far the two posts I've enjoyed writing the most this year), I generally want to keep my posts much more concise from now on. 

I was quite attached to the idea of fully recapping each big trip I've been on day by day in order to really give a proper sense of what it's like to visit these exciting places, but those posts are actually the ones I find least motivating to write. Going forward, I'm going to find new, more concise and hopefully engaging ways to recap my longer adventures.

And in the near future, I'm looking forward to bringing back my Country Guides series - I've got a few more guides to make and need to update some of the existing ones - and I also want to try some other shorter post ideas, including quizzes!

A Little Travel Adventure

Before I sign off, I want to highlight a new local place in Wiltshire that I visited with my parents this morning: Sustain Farm Shop and Café. It only opened recently, so it was our first time visiting, and we were impressed. Not only did it offer very generous portions of coffee and cake, but it also has a little farmyard with some gorgeous and friendly animals! It was a lovely experience to say hello to them. And if you've got kids, there are climbing frames and even a bouncy castle to keep them occupied.

I've said this before, but it's worth repeating: sometimes even a morning out in your local area can give you a little bit of the same escapism that going further afield for a longer period of time does.

I'm an ordinary person with an ordinary job, and I can't replicate the sheer volume of travelling that some of the better-known travel bloggers can. But I can present something realistic and achievable on this blog: the act of fitting travel adventures into your life as much as possible, whether that's through weekends exploring your local area, or the occasional bucket list trip to an exotic, far-flung destination. That's really become the ethos of my blog and I plan to continue in that vein for hopefully many years to come.

I'll see you back here soon for more travel adventures - big and small!

Bye for now!

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! 😃

Westonbirt Arboretum

Time to write about another local trip!

Last weekend, I went off for an outing to Westonbirt Arboretum with my parents, who have a membership there. It was the first time I'd been there since I was a child and I didn't really remember it, so it basically felt like visiting somewhere new.

It's a very big arboretum with a lot to see, but on this visit, we went to the Old Arboretum, as well as the Treetop Walkway.

One of the most fun features of the arboretum is the Gruffalo trail, where you can find six animal characters from the famous children's book. 

Some of the more nature-based highlights for me included the giant Californian trees and the Chilean araucarias.

The Treetop Walkway was also fun to do, and a different and interesting way to see the trees.

And as always, it was great to end the outing with a tasty coffee and cake in the café!

Although I'd say I prefer Batsford Arboretum, as I find it more picturesque and love its Japanese theme, I still had a very nice time visiting Westonbirt. Spending time in nature is always a good idea, and it's a great place to do just that!

Travel Tips: The Best Destinations to Live in - Part Two

Welcome to Part Two of Travel Tips: The Best Destinations to Live in!

In my previous post, I wrote about the places I've lived so far, and what I liked and disliked about each of them.

And in this one, I'll be writing about the places where I'd most like to live, and also taking a look at the cities that have been judged to be the most liveable in the world.

To be honest, there are a lot of places around the globe I'd be happy to try living in for a few months or even a year, but when it comes to choosing somewhere to put down roots permanently, it's a much harder decision. Everyone has different preferences, and I'm pretty sure about mine at this stage. I know I'd like to live in a big, global city, preferably somewhere not too remote from other countries. It would also be nice to be located close to the sea, if possible.

Here are six places that I think fit the bill pretty well!

My Dream Places to Live...

London (or the surrounding area), UK

Pros

- One of the centres of the world, both in terms of business and culture

- Lots of job opportunities

- A beautiful city, filled with incredible historic landmarks, modern skyscrapers and plenty of green spaces

- So much going on there - West End theatre is what excites me most, but there's something for everyone

- Close to mainland Europe - France, Belgium and the Netherlands are only a train ride away

- Huge public transport network

- Several airports make it easy to travel abroad

Cons

- Cost of living is the obvious one!

- Crowded and over-touristed

Why I'd Like to Live There

Hopefully, this will be where I live next! If my partner Claudio's visa application is approved, we want to make a go of things in London. We plan to work within the city itself, but we're thinking that we'll probably choose to live either on the outskirts of Greater London or a little further out. Living just outside London is not as expensive as one might imagine, and the extensive public transport network makes it easy to get into the city.

Growing up, I actually always wanted to live in London (and work as a musical theatre performer - that sadly didn't happen!), but then in my later teenage years, I became really interested in the idea of living abroad. And then as I got older, I was lucky enough to have some chances to both live and spend long periods of time in various foreign countries. I've really enjoyed all those experiences, and I hope that I'll have other similar opportunities in the future. 

But as a couple from two different countries, it's hard enough bureaucratically for Claudio and I to be able to live together in one of our own countries, let alone in a different one. London is quite a good compromise for me, as it's such a big, exciting, global city, and so different from the rest of the UK, that it kind of feels like being abroad.

Should Claudio's visa application be successful, we'll have 2.5 years in the UK. I hope that by the end of that time period, he'll have an Italian passport and I'll have an Irish one, so we'll have more options open to us. But I think we could potentially end up spending our lives in London - I feel a real excitement about the prospect of living there that I certainly didn't feel before moving to Bristol. 

Who knows what the future holds, but we're really looking forward to (hopefully) starting our London adventure very soon!

DACH region (especially Vienna) or Benelux region

Pros

- Better infrastructure and standard of living than in the UK

- Salaries are better aligned with cost of living

- Good work-life balance

- Central position within Europe makes it easy to travel all over the continent

- Lots of beautiful places to visit, from charming cities to lakes and mountains

Cons

- Not the best weather - either the same weather as England or very cold and snowy in winter, depending on the country/region

- Culturally a little less warm and welcoming than other parts of the world, so harder to integrate into

Why I'd Like to Live There

Along with the Nordic countries, the DACH and Benelux regions of Europe are considered to have some of the highest living standards in the world. While the Nordic countries are a bit too cold and dark for me, I think I'd be quite happy living somewhere like Austria or Switzerland. In fact, I did live in Austria before and made it through the winter more easily than I thought - it helps that the milder climate of the Mediterranean is only a train ride away!

Though I lived in a more rural area of Austria before, Vienna would definitely be my first choice of city in this part of the world. Other places that intrigue me are Geneva (speaking French rather than German would make life easier!), Zürich, Munich and Brussels (also French speaking).

However, Claudio is not quite so enamoured with the Germanic parts of Europe as I am. He has felt much more at home visiting the UK and France than visiting Sweden and the Netherlands, for example. So we probably won't end up living in this part of the world in the future, but I still think it's a nice option.

Spain (especially Barcelona)

Photo by AXP Photography from pexels.com

Pros

- Warm, sunny weather most of the year

- Lots of nice beaches

- Good infrastructure

- Lower cost of living than in the UK

- More relaxed lifestyle

Cons

- Lower salaries than in northern Europe

- Very unwilling to hire foreigners

- Heatwaves in summer, which are getting worse due to global warming

- Many cities, including Barcelona, are very over-touristed

Why I'd Like to Live There

People have often suggested that Spain would be a good option for me and Claudio, as it's not far from the UK and it's a Spanish-speaking country, which would suit both of us.

Although I've been to Spain several times in my life (to Menorca, Málaga, Valencia and Madrid) and enjoyed all those trips, I've never loved it the way I have other countries, like Italy, for example. However, I've always felt it would be a good place to live - it's a country that has invested a lot in its infrastructure, so has very good public transport, among other things. Plus, I speak the language, and enjoy the warmer weather.

Though I've never been to Barcelona, it's the city in Spain that appeals to me the most as a place to live. (I did once take a connecting flight there, and saw the W Hotel and Barceloneta Beach (pictured above) while coming in to land at the airport - it looked amazing!) What I like about it is that it's a big, global city with some beautiful neighbourhoods to explore and plenty of great beaches. I really like the idea of living in a city right on the beach, and being able to go swimming and sunbathing after work!

However, although Claudio and I both applied for various jobs in Barcelona, neither of us managed to get even one interview. I actually spoke to a careers advisor about this, and she explained that Spain (followed by France) is probably the European country that is least open to hiring foreigners, particularly in the kinds of industries that we work in (marketing and finance). She said that our best bet would be to get our EU passports (easier said than done) and actually go out there and look for jobs within the country itself. Even then, it would be a challenge, as they would still choose to hire Spanish people in most cases.

Maybe a digital nomad visa would be a good option, but with our plans to live in London now pretty much set in stone, it's an idea we've put to the side for the time being.

France (especially Paris)

Pros

- France is a beautiful country with many different types of landscapes, from snowy mountains to Mediterranean beaches, and Paris is one of the most beautiful cities in the world

- Known for its good food and cultural influence

- Good infrastructure compared to the UK

- Good work-life balance

- More relaxed lifestyle

Cons

- Not as efficient as countries like Germany (there are often train strikes, for example)

- Very bureaucratic

- Not very willing to hire foreigners

Why I'd Like to Live There

When I first started thinking about living abroad, France was the country at the top of my list. While studying for my GCSE in French, I fell in love with the language and culture, and dreamed of one day living in a cute apartment in Paris or a villa by the sea in the south of France.

Then I went off to study languages at university, and spent time in both the north and the south of the country for my Year Abroad, which I wrote about in my previous post. The French part of my Year Abroad was a bit of a mess - I wasn't able to get a decent work placement through my university, and so had to resort to finding more casual kinds of placement by myself. In summer 2017, I went to work as an au pair in the south of the country, and a year later, I started a placement at a holiday park in the north. For different reasons, both were pretty awful experiences, and I had to leave early. Both times, my mum quickly sorted something out for me using Halsbury Travel (now called Blue Stamp Travel) - in 2017, I did a language course in Montpellier, which I absolutely loved, and in 2018, I did two work experience placements and a language course in Rouen, which I didn't enjoy quite so much. Prior to that, I also spent a week in Paris, unsuccessfully looking for a placement and accommodation. 

The chaos of that year, and the fact that it was so difficult to find decent work, did make me a lot less enthusiastic about living there in the future. But then last year I started my current job, in which the work itself is based in France, although I work from the UK, and it made me start thinking again about moving back to France someday. And then in December, we had a wonderful trip to Paris, and I couldn't help dreaming about what it would be like to live there.

Unfortunately, France isn't much better than Spain for hiring foreigners, but I haven't quite given up on the idea just yet!

Australia

Photo by Belle Co from pexels.com

Pros

- Great weather

- Beautiful beaches

- Huge country with unique flora and fauna

- Good base for exploring places like Southeast Asia, the South Pacific and New Zealand

- High standard of living

Cons

- Very difficult to emigrate to

- High cost of living (though salaries are also high)

- Very far away from most of the rest of the world
- Danger of climate-related disasters, like wildfires

- Spiders!

Why I'd Like to Live There

Again, as with Spain, I'm really attracted to the idea of living in a big city by the beach somewhere hot. (Sometimes I wonder why I ended up being born in a rural area in the west of England!) Sydney is the Australian city that appeals to me the most, but I also like the idea of living in Melbourne or Perth. Australia is known as the lifestyle capital of the world, and I definitely have this image in my head of living a really active, outdoorsy kind of lifestyle there and spending lots of time at the beach.

I think, if I hadn't met Claudio, I probably would have gone out there after university, either to travel around for a few months or to do a year's working holiday. In fact, we were thinking about doing a working holiday there together at one point, but unfortunately, Chileans have to be under 30 in order to get a working holiday visa (pretty unfair, given that British people can get one at under 35!). New Zealand would have been an option for us, but it doesn't hold quite the same appeal for us as Australia does, though I know it's a lovely place.

I once applied for a job that was based in London but which also had offices in Sydney, so employees had the opportunity to go and work out there for a few months if they wished. I actually feel that a position like that would really be the dream, perhaps even more so than actually living in Australia permanently. So it would be brilliant to land an opportunity like that sometime in the future!

Canada

Image by Nextvoyage from pexels.com

Pros

- High standard of living

- Very friendly and welcoming people

- Lots of amazing areas of natural beauty

Cons

- Very long, cold winters

Why I'd Like to Live There

Though I haven't bothered to get my passport yet, I'm actually a Canadian citizen, because my mum was born there. Funnily enough, she only has an Irish passport now, and we have way more family roots in Ireland than in Canada, yet I don't automatically have Irish citizenship. I used to think it was much more unique and interesting to be Canadian than to be Irish, but since Brexit, I've definitely changed my mind about that!

Having said that though, I know I'm very lucky to have the option to go and live in Canada if I wish, and it is something I've considered. In summer 2010, we went on a family holiday to Toronto, Montréal and the Niagara Falls, and I absolutely loved it. The people there are the friendliest out of every country I've ever been to, and it's such a beautiful place. The only thing that puts me off are the winters!

I do think that if life doesn't work out as planned for me and Claudio in the UK, Canada will most likely be our next destination.

The Most Liveable Cities in 2024

1) Vienna, Austria

2) Copenhagen, Denmark

3) Zürich, Switzerland

4) Melbourne, Australia

5) Calgary, Canada/Geneva, Switzerland

7) Sydney, Australia/Vancouver, Canada

9) Osaka, Japan/Auckland, New Zealand

The 10 cities listed above have been chosen as the most liveable in the world in 2024. It's interesting to see which places are objectively judged to be the best to live in. A lot of them are ones that I've already mentioned in this post, which I suppose makes sense.

But at the end of the day, it's hard to tell how good a place is to live in unless you've actually tried living there yourself. That's why I'm looking forward to moving to the London area and seeing what life is really like there. I'm hoping it will be just as good if not even better than I imagine!

Check out the rest of my travel tips here!

Travel Tips: The Best Destinations to Live in - Part One

So far on this blog, and particularly with my Travel Tips series, I've written a lot about the best destinations to visit from a tourism perspective. But in this post and my next one, I want to write about something a bit different - the best destinations to actually live in!

The best destinations to visit on holiday are not always the best places to live, and vice versa. And while it's easy enough to find somewhere great for a trip away, there are a lot more factors that go into choosing somewhere to live, particularly if you're planning to settle there permanently.

This is a topic I've been thinking about a lot lately, as my partner Claudio and I have been deciding where we'd like to settle down, and have finally come to something of a decision over the last few months.

So far in my life, I've been lucky enough to have lived in several different places and even in a few different countries, each with their own pros and cons! And in this post, I'll be writing about my experiences in each of these places.

Later on, I'll also be writing about my dream places to live, and looking at the cities that have been selected as the most liveable in the world. 

Let's dive in!

Places I've Lived

A small village in Wiltshire, UK

(By the way, the picture is Easton Grey - not the village where I actually live, but close by and also in Wiltshire!)

Pros

- Scenic, located in the middle of the countryside
- Quiet and peaceful
- Close to picturesque areas like the Cotswolds and Avebury
- Conveniently located right between London and Cardiff

Cons

- A lack of facilities/things to do
- Little to no public transport - you really have to be able to drive and have your own car if you want an independent life
- You have to travel at least 10 or 15 minutes by car to buy anything (to be fair, there's now a little community shop in my village, but it's not open every day, and when I was growing up, there were no shops at all.)

My Experiences Living Here

I've lived in the same village the vast majority of my life, but not really by choice! My parents moved here in the 80s, and so I grew up here and didn't leave until I went to university. After university, I moved back in order to get the next stage of my life sorted out, but just when I was preparing to move out again, the pandemic hit, and I ended up stuck here for another two years. I then lived in other places for the best part of two years, but moved back here after Christmas, in order to again, try to get the next stage of my life sorted out. Hopefully, I'll be moving out for good in the very near future!

To be honest, while I do like being here in the short term, I don't especially like living here in the long term. During the times when I was living in not-so-nice accommodation in Nottingham and Bristol, coming here for weekends and holidays felt like coming to a fairytale village, but I always found that after a month here, I'd get fed up with the lack of freedom and feel ready to go again.

Generally, I haven't had access to a car while living here, which has made things much more difficult. But overall, I definitely feel that I'm a city person at heart, despite growing up in the country, and I don't ever see myself living somewhere so remote by choice.

Would I Recommend It?

If you like quiet places and don't mind having to drive everywhere, then living somewhere like this is a good choice. Otherwise, it isn't.

Nottingham/Beeston, UK

Pros

- Cheaper than cities in the south of the UK

- Convenient central location within England

- Some very nice green spaces, including the university campus (pictured above) and Wollaton Park

- Pretty good public transport

- Student lifestyle

Cons

- Student lifestyle (could be negative or positive!)

- Not the most beautiful city

- Permanently crowded city centre, even on weekdays

My Experiences Living Here

I lived here for three years while I was at university, though if you take away the long university holidays (which I mostly spent at home) it was probably slightly less then two years in total.

During my first year, I lived in catered halls on the university campus.

When I'd visited the university on an open day, I'd been shown student halls that looked like something out of Harry Potter, but the one I ended up getting placed in was an ugly 1960s or 1970s building that was certainly no Hogwarts! My room was on the lower ground floor and felt a bit like a basement, and the food could be a bit grim. On the whole, I didn't especially enjoy the experience.

In my second year, I moved into a shared house in the Dunkirk neighbourhood of the city. This was my first experience of sharing accommodation, and while I was fortunate enough that the house itself was alright, I really did not have a good time there. I've realised that I'm the sort of person who can't properly relax and feel at home in a place if I'm living with people who aren't either my partner or my family. I did try to make the best of things, but I quickly got frustrated, as I found that 9 times out of 10, I was the one who was taking the bins out, or I'd buy communal things like kitchen roll, and find that everyone else was happy to use it but would never bother replacing it. And while I wouldn't call myself a neat freak, I do like to keep things clean and tidy, which can cause issues in shared accommodation.

So it was a total relief to move into my own studio flat in my fourth and final year at university.

It was a more expensive option, but so worth it. Just to be able to come home after a long day of classes and to have a space all to myself, and to not have to share a kitchen or a bathroom, made such a difference. It was small - the bathroom was basically an airplane bathroom - but I'd choose the tiniest studio flat over sharing a big house with acquaintances/strangers any day.

The studio flat was located in a private student residence in the small town of Beeston, which is very close to the university. Beeston is not the most beautiful town and has this sort of vibe of being stuck in the 1970s, but for some reason, I actually liked it quite a lot. 

I also liked the student residence much more than I'd liked the university hall I'd lived in during first year. There was quite a lot to get involved with - during my first semester there, I attended a free weekly singing group, and during my second semester, I went to a free salsa dancing course every Thursday. Often free food would be given out, and I remember that for Chinese New Year, they put on a special event with a Chinese buffet and traditional dances performed by students of Chinese heritage, which was a really nice experience.

Overall, despite the fact that my workload in final year was absolutely insane, it was definitely the year that I was the happiest, and I think having that little flat had a lot to do with that.

Would I Recommend It?

A lot of people, including a lot of my peers from Nottingham, absolutely fall in love with their university city and say that their student years were the best years of their life. That wasn't really the case for me. While I was delighted to get into the University of Nottingham, I was a very socially anxious person at the time, and I felt quite overwhelmed by the sheer amount of new people I was meeting and the fact that I was living away from home for the first time. Although I did make an effort to get out of my comfort zone, socialise and get involved with different societies, nothing really worked out that well.

On top of that, my course (Spanish, French and German ab initio) had far more contact hours and a much heavier workload than the average degree, and I struggled to maintain a work-life balance. While I really enjoyed most of my classes, and actually loved studying, I hated essays and exams. (I actually find being in full-time work much less stressful than being a student.)

Having said that, I now feel some nostalgia for certain aspects of my life there, and would really like to go back for a visit sometime soon. I think I was unlucky to not have such an amazing time there, and I'd say that overall, it's probably a pretty good place to be a student.

Feldkirchen in Kärnten, Austria

Pros

- A beautiful part of the world filled with lakes, mountains and castles
- High standard of living

- Good public transport
- Easy to travel to several other countries by train

- Austria is said to have a nice combination of the efficiency and punctuality of Germany with the more relaxed attitude of Italy

Cons

- High cost of living (but higher salaries too)
- Feldkirchen is a fairly sleepy, quiet sort of place, and the region of Kärnten is quite rural with no big cities
- Very cold in winter (but snowy, which is nice!)

- Landlocked, so no beaches (though places like Italy, Slovenia and Croatia are only a train ride away)

My Experience Living Here

They say that your life begins at university, but for me, it began with my Year Abroad! I spent four months of the year teaching English at two secondary schools in Feldkirchen, and had a great time. I travelled so much, both around Austria and to nearby countries, and I still miss being able to travel abroad with such ease.

I lived in a little apartment on the top floor of a house owned by a friend of one of the teachers at the school and her husband. There were also two lovely cats living there, who liked to pop upstairs to visit me (though sadly one of them died on the road). I was paying a great price for renting the apartment (even paying twice as much would still have been a pretty good deal) and my earnings were actually not much lower than what I'm earning now after tax - despite the fact that I was only working in the schools four mornings a week and doing some lesson prep outside of those hours. Honestly, I've never been better off financially, and possibly never will be again.

Would I Recommend It?

Absolutely! While I don't see myself ever living somewhere like Feldkirchen in the long-term - I'd prefer a big, international city like Vienna - I think Austria is undoubtedly one of the best countries in the world to live in.

Santiago, Chile

Pros

- Big city with some beautiful parks and amazing mountain views
- The Pacific Ocean and the Andes mountains are both short distances away, meaning there are loads of great day trips you can take - in the winter, you can even go skiing!
- Chile is a beautiful country with almost every landscape you can imagine, and it's all either a short flight or a long road trip away
- Long, hot summers and mild winters (though lack of central heating can make winter difficult)
- Low cost of living compared to the UK (though it has greatly increased in recent years)

- Relatively good public transport

Cons

- Low salaries
- Limited job opportunities compared to Europe

- Visas for British citizens are hugely expensive
- High crime rate
- Very unequal society - the difference between the west and the east of the city is extreme
- Much more expensive than other Latin American countries, especially since 2020
- Very bureaucratic - you have to spend entire mornings waiting in line to complete processes that we can easily do online in the UK
- Very difficult to rent a decent apartment if you aren't an employee - I was classed as self-employed during my second time living in Chile, and we had to actually rent our apartment in Claudio's mum's name

My Experiences Living Here

My first time living in Santiago was when I did a semester there as part of my Year Abroad.

I lived in a shared apartment in a student residence located in the city centre - this is one of the few nice places to rent that doesn't require loads of documents, and so there were several other international students from my university living there. I had my own en suite room with a desk and shared with one other girl. Again, sharing was a bit of a challenge at times, as I am not the sort of person who appreciates being woken up at 5am on a weeknight to the sounds of a house party going on outside my door, and then emerging the next morning to find the place trashed!

But it was definitely the biggest and one of the nicest apartments I've ever lived in - I can't imagine ever living somewhere as spacious and modern in the UK. Having said that, I'm not quite sure about the standards to which the building was constructed. At one point, a pipe from my flatmate's bathroom started leaking into my wardrobe, causing a mould problem, which meant that I actually moved to a different apartment in the same building for my last month there.

In terms of the neighbourhood, Santiago Centro is considered to be one of the areas of the city with the highest crime rates, and certain parts of it are very run down, which is a shame, as it's the area with the most historic buildings and monuments. Despite its problems, I actually really liked living there and walking past the old churches, colonial houses and grand palaces on my way to the metro station or the supermarket. But having said that, Santiago Centro is definitely less safe now than it was in 2018, so I wouldn't live there now.

Then in 2022, I moved back to Santiago, this time to work as an English teacher. After about six weeks living in a youth hostel and then with Claudio's family, we moved into our first apartment together in the Ñuñoa area, which is one of the safer parts of the city.

Our apartment was smaller than the ones I'd lived in in Santiago Centro, but just as new and modern - in fact, I think we were the first people to live in it. The building had lots of facilities (the swimming pool was my favourite!) and our apartment had a balcony and walk-in wardrobe, which was really cool! Although it was a little small for us, given that I was always working from home and Claudio was working from home 3 or 4 days a week, I do really miss it. We had to furnish it ourselves, which I loved doing, and we felt very proud of it.

One downside is that it was on a very noisy main road, where construction work was always being done, but the streets further back from that road were quite attractive and peaceful. There were also various nice cafés, restaurants and parks in the vicinity.

But the main downside is the cost of living compared to salaries. Chile has always been one of the more expensive countries in South America, but back in 2018, it was noticeably cheaper than the UK. But since the political crisis in 2019 and then the pandemic, costs have massively risen, and while rent is still much cheaper than in Britain, groceries are now pretty much the same price there as they are here. And it's important to note that salaries are much lower over there: minimum wage is about £400 a month, the average wage is £600, and £1000 is considered a very good amount to earn. 

Personally, I worked for two language schools during my time there, and really did not have a good experience with the first one. They expected me to do a lot of unpaid work outside of classes, so despite working long hours, I was only earning on average around £600 a month. I was topping up my income working on Verbling and Cambly, but eventually got burned out and quit the job. The second language school was a much nicer company to work for - they held lots of fun meet-ups and offered a lot of professional development courses. But unfortunately, they just didn't have much work for me, so I had to rely mostly on Verbling and Cambly, which wasn't bringing in much money.

Fortunately, Claudio found a good job shortly after we arrived in our apartment, so we managed alright after that, though I did dip into my savings at times, just to be able to travel and do nice things together. I definitely spent more money than I earned in the process of getting the visa, travelling out there, setting ourselves up in the apartment and then living there for over a year. But I did see my time there as a Gap Year of sorts and an opportunity to explore more of South America, so I certainly didn't expect to get rich from it, and overall, I felt happy with how things turned out.

Would I Recommend It?

Chile is a beautiful country to visit, and there's a lot to love about the lifestyle in Santiago: sunny weather most of the year, lots of beautiful parks to hang out in, nearby mountains for hiking and skiing, and stunning beaches within a couple of hours. And there's also the food and drink: completos italianos, sopaipillas con pebre, alfajores, mote con huesillos and pisco sour, to name a few!

I think it's a great place to spend a few months or a semester abroad.

But if you fancy going out there for longer, to teach English for example, I wouldn't recommend it, just because of the sheer costs involved. If you're interested in TEFL, East and Southeast Asia generally offer far better job opportunities - some even pay for your visa and your flights, and set you up in your own apartment. And if you really want to go out to South America, countries like Peru, Ecuador and Colombia offer interesting volunteer opportunities in TEFL and other areas, and have a far lower cost of living then Chile does.

Having said that though, I really did love our life in Chile, and haven't been happier anywhere else!

Malta

Pros

- Sunny and warm most of the year
- Lots of beaches
- Amazing historical cities, buildings and monuments
- Good job opportunities
- Cheaper cost of living than in the UK
- Pay around 17€ to get (mostly) free public transport for life, if you have an address in Malta

Cons

- Heatwaves in summer
- Over populated and over touristed
- Insufficient infrastructure, e.g., near-constant power outages during heatwaves and rubbish not being regularly collected
- Overly built up
- Terrible traffic as the narrow twisty roads are not designed for the volume of vehicles using them
- Buses are generally unreliable and overcrowded, and there is no other public transport

My Experience Living Here

Last summer, I spent three months in Malta completing an internship in digital marketing. The internship was organised by the UK government, which meant that flights, accommodation, travel insurance and a monthly stipend were all provided. I went out there with 11 other interns and we were put up in a rather run-down hostel on the border of the towns of Gżira and Msida.

The swimming pool was definitely the best thing about it! To be honest, I was quite lucky with my room, as I was one of the few of us who didn't have problems with cockroaches. The worst I had to deal with was a persistent mould problem in my bathroom. 

The accommodation wasn't the best, but on the plus side, my internship was the best job I've ever had. I worked for one of the top marketing agencies in the country, and took on a lot of the copywriting tasks, which I really enjoyed. I hope to have a job like that again at some point in the future!

There were definitely things about Malta that made life a pain at times, such as the unreliable and crowded buses, and the heatwaves - there was a week in July where the temperature was passing 40 degrees every day, and the hostel was without power (and therefore air conditioning) for pretty much all of that time, which was not easy to deal with! But there was also a lot that I liked about life there. I got on really well with the other interns, and we spent a lot of evenings hanging out by the pool or in local bars. I also really enjoyed popping into Valletta after work on a regular basis, and spending evenings and weekends visiting beaches and historic sites.

Would I Recommend It?

A big reason that I applied for the internship in Malta is because my mum and uncle lived there as children in the 1960s and absolutely loved it. The idea of living on a Mediterranean island is very enticing, and I wanted to experience it for myself!

However, Malta has changed a lot in the last few decades, and not necessarily for the better. There are plenty of other islands, such as Gozo, which are a lot more unspoilt and peaceful. 

But overall, I had a really memorable and fun time out there, and while I wouldn't choose to live there again, I'd definitely go back there on holiday.

Bristol, UK

Pros

- Some very scenic areas, such as the Clifton Suspension Bridge (pictured above) and the Harbourside
- Near to attractive parts of the UK, like Bath, the Cotswolds and Wales
- Alternative/rave culture, if you're into that kind of thing (I'm really not, haha!)

Cons

- Cost of living is pretty much as expensive as London, but unlike London, Bristol has no real commuter belt, so you can't save money by living further out
- Very poor quality housing
- Very poor public transport for a city of its size
- Lots of drugs and social issues
- Some very grim areas

My Experience Living Here

I only spent three months living in Bristol, but that was more than enough for me. My time there was one of the most depressing periods of my life, and it's definitely my least favourite place that I've lived in.

After my internship in Malta, I'd hoped to be offered a similar role somewhere like Vienna or Barcelona, but I wasn't lucky with my job search. After a few months of job hunting, I was eventually offered my current role and was given the choice of working in London or Bristol. Although I much preferred the idea of living and working in London, the infamous cost of living there scared me a lot, and so I opted for Bristol, naïvely believing that I'd have a much better quality of life there.

I just wish I'd researched the situation better beforehand, because the truth is, it's significantly cheaper to live just on the outskirts or just outside of Greater London then it is to live in Bristol. And of course, London is London, so it's worth paying a bit more to live there! Whereas Bristol has no business being as expensive as it is.

Shortly after I accepted my job, my parents heard about a room becoming available to rent in a flat in the Redlands area, and although I'd vowed never again to live in shared housing, I decided to take it, as Claudio was working in Chile at the time, and I thought it would be a good place for me to get started in the city before finding somewhere we could live together on our own.

But I was miserable there. The flat had a problem with damp and mould (which I now know is very common in Bristol housing), and the kitchen and bathroom were in such a grim state I could hardly bring myself to use them.

Also, in terms of my personal situation, having spent the previous 18 months living abroad, it felt like a bit of a failure to end up in a provincial city so close to where I grew up. 

I'd known when accepting the job in Bristol that it wasn't my dream city, but I expected to like living there a lot more than I did.

Would I Recommend It?

Absolutely not. I know some people love Bristol, but no matter how much you like it, it's just not worth the cost, unless you're earning a very good salary.

Out of all the cities I've lived in, Nottingham is the most obvious comparison, and even though I never exactly loved it, it beats Bristol hands down in pretty much every category: cost of living, quality of housing and public transport.

To sum up, there are plenty of cheaper and nicer places to live in the UK.

Bonuses

I've written about my experiences living in Austria and Chile during my Year Abroad, but as I also spent part of the year in France, I want to write about my experiences there too. The French part of my Year Abroad was a bit chaotic to say the least, and I actually spent my 11 weeks there in 5 different places all over the country. But the vast majority of those weeks were spent in two cities: one in the south and one in the north. I didn't spend long enough in either place to say that I've "lived" there, but as I was either working or studying and staying with host families rather than in hotels, I can't really say I was on holiday either. So I think they deserve their bonus spot on this list!

Montpellier, France

Pros

- Beautiful architecture
- Mediterranean climate
- Very close to the beach
- Good public transport
- Off the mass tourism trail, so not crowded, and has a relaxed vibe
- All of the weather, food and culture of the south of France, without the tackiness and extravagant shows of wealth of the Côte d'Azur
- Unique Occitan culture with a strong Spanish influence

Cons

- Honestly, I'm sure there must be some, but I can't think of any!

My Experience There

I spent a few weeks in Montpellier in summer 2017, doing a French course at a language school in the historic centre, and I stayed with a lovely lady and her adorable cat in a beautiful apartment within walking distance of the school.

Lessons were only in the morning, so I had afternoons to go sightseeing, do activities organised by the school, go jogging in the park, or relax. At the weekends and some afternoons, I also went on several trips to beautiful places around the south of France.

It was definitely one of the best parts of my Year Abroad, and I'd love to go back or even live there someday in the future!

Rouen, France

Pros

- Close to Paris

- Picturesque city with beautiful landmarks like Le Gros-Horloge and the cathedral

- Some interesting places to visit nearby, like Étretat and Dieppe

- Good public transport

Cons

- Same weather as England (I was there in summer, and it was either humid and full of wasps or rainy and cold - just like it is here!)

- Same sorts of landscapes and even similar architecture to England - apart from the language and food, it didn't really feel like being abroad

My Experience There

I hadn't wanted to spend any of my Year Abroad in this area of northern France - Paris and the south were my first choices, but being somewhere like the Alps or Alsace or Flanders or the Loire Valley would have also felt more exotic. I feel like Normandy and Brittany are quite similar to South West England, in that they have lots of farms, rain and cider - so not really a change of scenery for me. 

But things didn't work out with my French Year Abroad placements, and so my parents quickly booked me in for two short work experience placements and a language course in Rouen, so I could tick off my required weeks in France.

To be honest, I wasn't that enthusiastic about spending most of my summer there - I wished I could have stayed on longer in South America, and although I couldn't avoid having to complete the French part of my Year Abroad, I would have much preferred to spend those weeks in Paris or the south.

I was in Rouen for about a month in total, and although I tried to make the best of it, I was relieved when it was over. I was placed with two host families during my time there, and didn't feel as relaxed with either as I had done with the nice lady and her cat in Montpellier. But my work placements and language courses were quite enjoyable on the whole, and I visited lots of nice places around the region, so I definitely got something out of the experience. Plus, my French improved a lot!

It's a nice city in many ways, and I'd say probably a good place to live, but I don't have any real desire to return there.

Looking back at all the places I've lived, none of them have been perfect (nowhere is), but I've liked things about each of them. I'd say the "best" place objectively was Feldkirchen, but the place where I was happiest was Santiago.

Coming next, I'll be writing about my dream destinations to live in!

Check out the rest of my travel tips here!