What are your strongest memories from your first overseas trip?
I can still remember the smells, the people and the African beat on my first solo trip as a teenager to Ghana, West Africa. Volunteering as a journalist, I stayed with a lovely host family, while covering insane protests to property scams by AK-47-wielding thugs, all while hoping the Ebola outbreak wouldn’t cross our borders.
What was a standard family holiday like when growing up?
Family camping trips all around NZ. Big setups with our family and friends, biking around the campsite, bonfires on the beach - you can’t beat it!
I’ve always been up for an adventure and Mum and Dad were my biggest supporters to invest in it.
What is the greatest trip you’ve ever been on?
It’s hard to pick between two insane camping road trips sleeping under the stars in and among raw nature. The first, an overland camping safari from Cape Town, through Namibia, Botswana and into Zambia, and the second, just recently, tripping down the beautiful coast of Western Australia.
Very sick, after a Greek Contiki, on the floor of Roma train station in Italy, trying not to get robbed en-route to Sorrento. After hours of train strikes, I managed to get on a local train for four hours to Naples while a family played Baby Shark out loud, on repeat, to try to soothe their screaming baby.
What’s your approach to packing for a big trip?
I start an Excel spreadsheet a month out and make a list as I remember things. Then I will probably pack a week out.
What destination most surprised you – good or bad?
On my Europe travels people warned me Venice may not live up to my expectations but it absolutely did! I’d always pictured being there ever since I was a little girl and it was everything I imagined, and more.
Where was your most memorable sunrise/sunset?
Everyone talks about the Santorini sunset and boy, they’re not wrong. But sunsets on the coast of Western Australia actually take the cake for me.
What’s the first thing you do when you get home from a long trip?
I’d love to say I unpack but in reality I always sleep.
Discovering new cultures and forever being on an adventure. There’s something uplifting about the challenge of travel and knowing that’s the only place you have to be at that time.
