"I needed the time away from everything and everyone I knew to find myself, but it wasn't as cheesy as that."
She kept a travel blog, mainly to keep family and friends updated during her trip, which grew and grew in readers.
"People who weren't related to me started reading my blog and sending me emails, telling me how brave I was to quit it all and go," she said.
"I received messages from other newly-single men and women who said they read my blog as an inspiration - that just because you've been dumped, it doesn't mean you have to listen to bad power anthems and devour ice-cream! You can use this as a catalyst for something much bigger and better."
As she travelled around Southeast Asia and India, Colins said, the passion to start putting her experiences into words was hard to resist.
She said: "I started writing a few chapters, not fully aware that they would be the start of a novel, but mostly as a way to clear my head.
"Although I was experiencing things that I would never have imagined seeing, such as the Taj Mahal and trekking through the Himalayas, I was still working through the feelings that I wouldn't be making wedding scrapbooks or be living the married life - well not just yet at least.
"I began to think 'what if you were given a second chance to find yourself?'"
Soutter, a legal worker in London, said he wished his former fiancee well with her writing career.
He told the Sun: "I am very much looking forward to marrying Alyson.... it's a pity that a failed relationship from four years ago has been made so public now."
Soutter said that he and Colins split because they were both unhappy in the relationship, but it has been reported that the real reason they separated was that he had an affair, the Daily Mail reported.
Colins has since backpacked around South America for six months and lived in France, teaching English, for the past two years.
She was living in a small fishing town in northern France when she received news about the book deal. "Ironically, an editor called me on what would have been our third wedding anniversary. It is poignant to think how far I'd come through hard work, being brave and wanting to live the biggest life I could."
Her journey inspired her to write the first novel in The Lonely Hearts Travel Club series, Destination Thailand, a light-hearted romantic comedy, which has been described as "Bridget Jones goes backpacking".
With her unworn wedding dress still in her wardrobe, Colins now thinks back to her ex calling everything off as the best thing that ever happened to her.
She said: "His decision, although devastating at the time, was the wake-up call I needed. I had a good job, a lovely house and lived a comfortable lifestyle but it lacked adventure.
"That is something I hoped travelling half-way around the world on my own would give me, and luckily it paid off.
"I have climbed an active volcano in Chile, slept in a Thai jungle, got covered in Holi powder in India, skydived in France, and even taken a flight past Mt Everest."
- Daily Telegraph UK
- additional reporting NZ Herald Online
