by Anna Downing | Jan 26, 2024 | Features
We went Interrailing from England through France to Switzerland and back in 7 days. Here’s our cost breakdown, experience and tips for the trains, and hopefully some inspiration for you to go! Our route We started near home at Buxted then on to...
by Anna Downing | Feb 18, 2023 | Features
“Beautiful and chaos,” replied Thomas, when I asked him to give me two words he’d use to describe Vietnam. We were in Hanoi, having just narrowly escaped yet another almost certain death crossing the street. “Or perhaps ‘beautiful...
by Anna Downing | Dec 20, 2017 | Features, Travel
India is an assault on the senses. It’s colourful, loud (honking the horn is not just encouraged but actually required) and smells like spices, chai tea and urine. I went for 10 days with seven other photographers to shoot street photography. Anja is a fave girlfriend...
by Anna Downing | Mar 13, 2016 | Features, Travel
Some things are meant to be – and when my Kiwi hairdresser in Brighton told me she was getting married on a beach back home in New Zealand and she needed a good wedding photographer I lept out of my chair, grabbed her and declared “I simply must be your...
by Anna Downing | Nov 16, 2015 | Features, Travel
A couple of weeks ago I went on a little holiday to Scotland with Thomas – we went walking in Skye (and I was left gripping on to the side of a mountain in fear for a good 10 minutes…), spent Halloween in Edinburgh and discovered a spiritual community in...
by Anna Downing | Jan 26, 2014 | Features, Travel
I have a lot of hobbies. I like to skate, I love baking cupcakes, I enjoy dance classes and I’m even writing a book. But I’m pretty bad at keeping them up. I haven’t skated for a year, I haven’t baked since last November and the last dance...
by Anna Downing | May 23, 2013 | Features, Travel
The best way to see Vietnam is on a motorbike. For a start, nothing beats being out in the open, having the freedom to take any path you want, and being able to shout hello to all the excited children you pass. Another good reason is because the buses and trains are...
by Anna Downing | Jan 8, 2013 | Features, Travel
I hate New Year’s Eve. Normal pubs charge you money to get in, people seem to think they can act like complete idiots and the night is almost always a total letdown. For years I’ve stayed home with a movie, a bottle of champers and my cats. This year, I...
by Anna Downing | Oct 22, 2012 | Features, Travel
Next on the Trek America journey was Wells Gray – a national park centred around adventure and outdoor activities. We met up with our tour guide, Heather, a South African girl who told us a delightful story about how she once used a pit toilet in Belize and fell...
by Anna Downing | Sep 30, 2012 | Features, Travel
Day two with Trek America began the same way all our mornings did: with Thomas and Tristan knocking on our tents to wake us up, and shouting “breakfast!” As became the usual routine, Julia and I stayed in bed just long enough that the boys would have the...
by Anna Downing | Sep 30, 2012 | Features, Travel
I just came back from a two-week tour around the Western Canadian Rockies. It is 5am and I am still awake. So what do I do? I write. I write every detail of the trip (well, not every detail….). Some of it you might find interesting. Some of it you might find...
by Anna Downing | Sep 26, 2012 | Features
About a month ago, my dream scenario became a reality: I had no job, no rent to pay and some money in the bank. I realised this would never happen to me again, so I booked a month-long trip to Canada. Of course. I decided, having done the solo backpacking thing last...
by Anna Downing | Mar 25, 2012 | Features, Travel
Last week I was summoned to jury service. Over the two weeks I had a gun case and a drugs case. Pretty standard stuff. Nothing to blog home about. But the last case finished on the Thursday and we were told to go home and not worry about coming back, as they...
by Anna Downing | Sep 14, 2011 | Features, Travel
Just as I’m fastening my goggles to my face, the crowd pushes inwards and my ribs are almost crushed. I can’t breathe, and thanks to the fogged-up goggles I can’t see either. My feet are being trampled and elbows are jabbing me from every direction. The first tomato...
by Anna Downing | Jun 24, 2011 | Features, Travel
I thought the border crossing from Colombia to Peru was a joke (it happened in a bar), but the one from Argentina to Brazil was ridiculous – it didn’t even require standing up. We simply got in a cab, gave our passports to the cab driver, who showed them...
by Anna Downing | Jun 23, 2011 | Features, Travel
Saying goodbye to Buenos Aires, even after spending only six days there, was a sad day. Not least because as a parting gift it had given me a solid day of rain. But it didn’t matter, because I was about to experience my first ever flat-bed bus ride. The journey...
by Anna Downing | May 21, 2011 | Features, Travel
I have had twelve hours’ sleep in the past six days. In BA, people don’t eat till 10pm, and if you get to a nightclub before 4am you’re like, so uncool. I’m far from cool. Apparently I’m supposed to nap between 4pm and 7pm and spend the...
by Anna Downing | May 17, 2011 | Features, Travel
I love Argentina – and I haven’t even eaten the steak yet. There’s too much else to eat. Churros, ice cream, empanadas, fried hotdogs – and the hostel I’m in offers breakfast AND dinner, which is a first in my whole four and a bit...
by Anna Downing | May 11, 2011 | Features, Travel
Coming straight into desert of San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, from the Uyuni salt flats tour, we were treated to more of the same stunning landscape as south east Bolivia. Said to be the driest place on Earth (although it rained just before we got there, sparking...
by Anna Downing | May 11, 2011 | Features, Travel
My flight out of La Paz, Bolivia, finally arrived not a moment too soon, and within an hour I was in the beautiful capital city of Sucre. With no plan other than to enjoy a Bolivian city that wasn’t La Paz, I soon bumped into a tour group made up of English, Canadian,...
by Anna Downing | May 1, 2011 | Features, Travel
The days following Death Road I spent wandering around La Paz. I’m not taken by the city. It’s busy, fumey from the buses, smells of wee and the altitude is so high I can’t breathe. Plus it’s all uphill, which doesn’t help with the inability to breathe. I have a...
by Anna Downing | May 1, 2011 | Features, Travel
Having ummed and ahhed for months about cycling Bolivia’s Death Road I was so excited to be actually doing it that all my reservations had completely disappeared. I was just looking forward to getting back on the bike and getting some good adrenaline going. The...
by Anna Downing | Apr 30, 2011 | Features, Travel
My journey to Bolivia started in Cusco, where I got on a bus at 10pm only to find my Polish friends from Machu Picchu also on the bus! The first thing we discussed was the ways in which people steal your things on buses. We got no sleep. We arrived in Puno, on Lake...
by Anna Downing | Apr 30, 2011 | Features, Travel
Leaving Huaraz, I was sent off at the bus station by Hannes, Katherine, Jim, his wife and Lucas, then settled in or a six-hour bus ride (with the amazing Cruz Del Sur) to Lima then got straight into a cab for the airport. In the cab I thought I was going to be robbed...
by Anna Downing | Apr 27, 2011 | Features, Travel
Three hours on a bus, three hours climbing a mountain at 4,800m altitude and this is my favourite picture of the beautiful Laguna 69 near Huaraz, Peru. It was so hard to breathe on the way up and my legs turned to jelly, but we eventually made it, and the journey was...
by Anna Downing | Apr 20, 2011 | Features, Travel
I feel like I should talk a bit about the volunteer work I was given the opportunity to do, as it really made my trip and was brilliant to actually see what these NGOs do rather than just giving someone a fiver towards some charity for running 26.2 miles every April...
by Anna Downing | Apr 17, 2011 | Features, Travel
I arrived in Huaraz at 5.30am, in the pitch dark, only to be accosted by two other travellers (Dutch Sabina and Israeli Elad) asking where I was staying, so I very kindly offered them to join me at my remote mountain lodge. We arrived at the mountain lodge to hidden...
by Anna Downing | Apr 17, 2011 | Features, Travel
We got off the boat in Iquitos, Peru, at a ridiculous hour (5:30am), but somehow managed to find an almost empty hostel (and cheap – $4) right next door to what became my very regular hang out, the Karma Café. The hostel also had two kittens, so I was very happy...
by Anna Downing | Apr 12, 2011 | Features, Travel
After years of dreaming of visiting the Amazon, I’m finally here! Sadly, the Amazon attracts the twattiest of travellers – a breed of people that is pretty annoying already. They’re all here solely to try Ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic drug that you do with a...
by Anna Downing | Mar 28, 2011 | Features, Travel
The morning after my fun jaunt through the death zone of Medellin was finally time to move on – to Manizales, coffee capital of Colombia. But not before finally meeting the Aussie guy also on a homestay across the street – the one the girls were doing...