My Year of Adventurous Travel

As this blog is called Charlotte's Travel Adventures, it seems only right to write a post about adventurous travel!

Of course, I like going on holiday to relax, and visiting places to see interesting sights...but travel is also about having new and different experiences.

The 15 months that I spent living in Chile were a time when I made an effort to go on some exciting and sometimes a little extreme adventures. Though of course, there were plenty of challenges during that time (which I wrote about in this recent post), I feel like I really made the most of it and had a lot of fun travelling and trying new things across South America.

Here are 5 of my biggest adventures from the year!

Indoor Surfing in Santiago

Though I'd tried windsurfing in 2016, I'd always wanted to have a go at classic surfing. Surprisingly enough, even though Santiago isn't by the sea, you can surf there - Mall Sport offers indoor surfing lessons, and Claudio and I took one in May 2022. 

This experience was actually the most extreme of them all, I'd say! You basically get have to try to stay afloat against powerful jets of water, and if you don't manage it, you get thrown across that big curved area you can see in my pictures. Though we had plenty of bruises and even a couple of scrapes afterwards, we had a lot of fun. 

A Speedboat Ride in the Pacific Ocean

Our weekend in Papudo was one of our most low-key trips away during my time living in Chile, but it was actually one of my favourites. We saw so many beautiful animals there, from adorable pet cats to incredible marine life. Plus, the town and its beaches are absolutely beautiful.

Our time there was mostly very relaxing, with the exception of a boat trip we took to Isla Los Lobos. To my surprise, the boat was actually a dinghy with an engine, and it went incredibly fast - it was fun, though I was slightly scared that either I or my stuff would fall in the sea!

But the sights we saw on that trip were incredible: Humboldt penguins, sea lions and even a beautiful dolphin. We finished off the ride with a jump into the water at a beautiful, secluded beach. It was such a memorable experience!

Ziplining in the Andes

Another extremely memorable experience was going ziplining in the Andes mountains. This was something I'd always wanted to try, and I was really excited about it...until we actually got there and saw it!

The experience took place at Cascada de las Ánimas activity centre in Cajón del Maipo, which is such an enchanting and beautiful place. But the zip-line is suspended 25 metres above the River Maipo and looks pretty daunting! We were both pretty nervous when preparing to set off, but it was such a fun and exhilarating experience!

In fact, we liked it so much that we did it again a few months later at Parque Aventura in Santiago. 

White-Water Rafting in Argentina

White-water rafting was another sport I'd wanted to try for years, and I took the opportunity to try it while renewing my visa in Argentina. Although my day at the activity centre was rather long without a lot to do, the activity itself was so much fun, and the landscapes of the Andes and the Mendoza River were beautiful. I definitely plan to go rafting again at some point!

Backpacking Solo to Machu Picchu

We had several adventurous trips during the 15 months, but the most adventurous was when I went to Peru for a week on my own with just a backpack. 

During my time there I took in the sites in and around Cusco, and travelled around the Sacred Valley of the Incas, before taking the train to Aguas Calientes and hiking up hundreds of stone steps to the famous citadel, Machu Picchu.

It was a trip I'd dreamed of for several years and took quite a lot of organising, but it all turned out really well. I had an amazing time!

In my opinion, trying new experiences and adventures like these are a great way to get out of your comfort zone and create memories that will last forever.

There are still several other adventurous experiences I want to try, such as surfing at a beach, paragliding, and maybe even scuba diving.

Perhaps there will be more extreme adventures to come on this blog!

Newport and Caerphilly

Last Saturday, I had a nice little trip out of the country and visited Wales! This was a trip taken partly for practical reasons and partly for touristic reasons; my morning was spent in Newport, seeing what the city would be like as a potential place to move to, and my afternoon was spent visiting Caerphilly Castle!

My job is based in Bristol, and I go into the office twice a week, so I need to live somewhere within reasonable commuting distance, but not necessarily in Bristol itself. At the moment, I'm living in a flat share in Bristol, and to be honest, I've found I've gone off this city to some extent since moving here, even though I always enjoyed visiting before. There are lots of issues with things like drugs and homelessness, and it also has one of the highest costs of living in the entire country. When Claudio comes over here, I'd like us to live in our own place together (which would be super expensive in Bristol), and I'd also like to us live somewhere that feels less seedy and depressing. Newport doesn't have the greatest reputation, but it's cheaper than Bristol, so I decided to go and see what it was like.

Overall, it was better than I expected. There's a nice old-fashioned arcade with shops and cafés, as well as a big market/food court, which reminded me of one I used to go to in Valletta.

The city centre also has a shopping area with a cinema and all the shops and restaurants you'd expect to find in a British city. Generally, I felt like the city centre was safer and cleaner than Bristol's.

The part of the city I liked the most was the riverside, which is where you can find Newport Castle! A castle is definitely a plus point for any city, as far as I'm concerned, and I found the riverside quite picturesque in general.

During my morning in Newport, I walked up a massive hill to get to St Woolos Cathedral. It's more of a church than a cathedral really, but it was interesting to see it, and to get more of a feel for the city.

I wanted to make a bit of a day out of my trip to Wales, so in the early afternoon, I took a very crowded train to Cardiff, followed by a very clean, comfortable and quiet train to Caerphilly (which reminded me of trains I've been on in continental Europe).

I was very excited to go to Caerphilly, as its castle is the largest in Wales, and that's saying something, considering how many castles there are in Wales!

The town of Caerphilly itself seems quite unremarkable when you come out of the train station, but once you get to the castle, you can't help but be impressed. It's so huge, and the fact that it's surrounded by a moat makes it even more spectacular.

At the moment, the castle's great hall is being reconstructed to make it look as it did at its peak in the 1320s! They're also making the site more accessible and building a café and toilets there, so in around a year's time, it's going to be an even better place for a day out than it is already. As it is now, you can go up inside some of the towers, and onto the rooftop of the main part of the castle, which is still a pretty decent amount to see, and took me a good hour or two to go round.

It was really fun to step into history and explore the interior of the castle - it was built in the 1200s and a lot of it seems to have not changed since then, particularly the steps to go up and down the towers! The place had a lot of atmosphere, and the typical Welsh weather and Halloween decorations further added to that.

Of course, one of my favourite parts of my trip to the castle was seeing some dragons - always a must when visiting Wales! You can even press a button to listen to a story about the dragon family either in Welsh or English. 

To conclude, my day trip to Wales was a nice little escape to a different country, and felt like a bit of a holiday, even if part of the trip was for practical reasons.

Actually, since I took this trip a week ago, there have been some potential new developments that have come up in terms of what Claudio and I will do and where we'll live in the near future, so I'm holding off scouting out new places to live close to Bristol until we're more certain about that. I definitely don't see myself living in this part of the world long term, but I could be here for several more months, so I'm keeping Newport as an option for now.

Well, that's all for today, but I'll be writing again sometime soon, probably with some travel adventures from around the Bristol area. And next month, Claudio and I should be spending some time abroad, which will be exciting! See you back here soon!