Travels of Shepp

Budapest is lovely.. unless you break your bones Although I will still say that I had an amazing time on this trip, at the end it did go spectacularly wrong. This story of course involves a lot of alcohol, mixed with a bit of carelessness and a lot of bad luck, which is basically a recipe for disaster. It was the final night of the HistSoc Tour of 2018 in Budapest, which had thus far been a drunken whirlwind of a winter city getaway, where we dragged ourselves out of bed hungover to cram in seeing the historical sites of the city. Budapest really is beautiful by the way; that day we had just been to the stunning Sz é chenyi thermal baths. The plan was that after the tour of around 30 of us went home, a smaller group of 6 of us were due to catch another flight on to Prague to continue our rowdy tour of Europe. The fun before the storm Cut to 2am in some club, and we found a stripper pole. It was on a platform, and as I went to stand on it I fell off, my ankle cur...

I’ve been lucky enough to travel to many different countries across the world. To commemorate these trips, I recently made a display on my bedroom wall of most of the countries I’ve been to. I thought this would be a good chance to look back at each of these places.   California I went to California with my family when I was 10 as part of a big USA trip. This was one of my favourite places in America, especially San Diego which had a nice laidback vibe. This photo is of course from San Diego Zoo. Arizona In the same trip we were lucky enough to get to Arizona/Nevada to see Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon. It was incredible to see one of the natural wonders of the world. Texas We went to Texas also as a family in a separate trip in 2014. While not my favourite place in the US, we did some pretty fun things, like this picture which is from zip-lining. Florida Being my dad’s favourite place in the world, my parents took me and my brother to F...

I’m currently saving up and planning for a big solo trip to Australia in January 2020 for a few months. There’s lots I want to do in Australia, and while I don’t want to over-plan, here is a vague idea of what I plan to do: I’d like to start with a layover in Singapore, since I’ve heard such good things about it, plus it would break up the long flight to Australia. I’m thinking this would just be for a night or two. Next I’d like to fly into Melbourne, right at the South in Victoria. I think here would be a great city type environment that I am used to, in order to get my bearings and get settled. Then hopefully I would travel up the East coast. There are lots of different travel options, so maybe I would travel on buses, trains, or even fly between different places. The most appealing of the options to me would be to get a camper van of some sort, and drive up the East Coast either by myself or with people I met along the way. There are a number of bucket-list spot...

When people think of hobbies, most think of things like knitting, playing video games, or a sport. But I like to think my main hobby is travelling. You may not see travel as a hobby because most people do it. Most of us go on a summer holiday once a year, or a few shorts breaks across the year. However, I realised travel was my hobby when I saw that it was my priority to save money and make time for it. Plus, it isn’t just the actual trips which are part of the fun; the researching and planning can be just as exciting. Now I’ve realised travelling is a completely valid hobby to have, here are some of the reasons it’s unlike any other pastime: You can’t do it all the time Most people do their hobbies every week or even every day. For example, you might go to football training once a week, or read a chapter of a book every day. Whereas with travel, I’d be lucky to actively take part in mine once a year. But that doesn’t stop me researching new places to visit more oft...

To start the blog off I wanted to take a look back on the trip that really made me fall in love with solo backpacker travel- a long weekend in Rome last June. This trip was a somewhat spontaneous decision. The stress of just finishing my second year of uni meant I was desperate to get away, and the appeal of cheap Easyjet flights at that time of year were too much to resist. I booked flights and a hostel a month before the trip for a couple of hundred quid.   I had originally planned to do a big European interrail trip at the end of uni, so Rome was to give myself a little taste of solo backpacking around a European city. But what I learned about myself in Rome gave me much bigger ideas. Getting on that plane all by myself was the most exciting thing in the world. I was relying on no one else but myself, meaning the trip was completely mine. When I got there, I could go at my own pace, and do exactly what I wanted in exactly the order I wanted to do it in. That freedo...

Hi! My name’s Charlie Sheppard (Shepp for short) and I LOVE travel. Solo backpacker travel in particular. I love the excitement of planning for a trip, going to places I’ve never been before, meeting new people, and making some memories! I wanted to start this blog as a way of documenting my journeys and hopefully it will be of interest along the way. With the modest experience I have, I do also have some good tips to share with the world! I’ll be writing about past trips abroad, any day trips around the UK I might be going on in the next few months, and most importantly I have ideas for a big solo trip to Australia in January 2020! I’d like to give a shout out and huge thanks to my great friend Daisy for allowing me the space to write a guest piece for her blog, which inspired me to create my own blog. Check out Daisy’s blog called The Time Traveler’s Daughter  here   Don't forget to check out my travel instagram  @travelsofshepp I am...