About Me

Hi, I’m Sam!

And this is my story…

Ever since I was five years old (and the sudden death of my grandfather) I’ve been acutely aware that tomorrow isn’t promised and so we need to live, not just exist.

My grandfather had waited, and saved, all his life for his retirement: that was the time he and my nan were going to have to enjoy together, and do all the things they’d always wanted to do.

He didn’t live long enough to do any of them.

I haven’t always followed my own rules, though, and it wasn’t until my late 30s, and the breakdown of my relationship with my ex-fiancé, that I actually truly began to LIVE and do what *I* wanted to do.

Since then I’ve escaped a room that locked from the outside in an area of Nairobi locals won’t even go in daytime; taught the Maasai in Zanzibar the Macarena; road tripped around Mauritius; watched the sun set over Santorini from a jacuzzi in the grounds of a traditional cave house and the dawn rise on a new year from a water bungalow in the Maldives. All solo!

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves…

How it began…

I’ve always loved to travel. I’m from a very working class family in the Welsh valleys and when we had holidays when I was growing up it was mainly to Cornwall, or somewhere in the UK.

Even then, I enjoyed seeing new places and learning new things…such as the right way to assemble a scone with jam and cream! 

[protip: the cream ALWAYS goes on top /protip] 

When I was 10 my family went on the holiday of a lifetime to Egypt, as my mother especially loves history and had always wanted to see Egyptian tombs.

I can still distinctly remember feeling the heat hit my face when we disembarked the plane, the smell of Egypt – as it had a distinct scent – and the sweet taste of green oranges.

Even at that age, I made it my mission to learn as much Arabic as I could and that impressed everyone I interacted with; Egyptians were more than happy to teach me some of their language and culture and I discovered making the effort to learn opened new doors in terms of the travel experience.

This was the start of the way I’d travel for the rest of my life.

The summer before university, when all my peers were going to Ibiza and Mallorca on their first holidays without their parents, I went to Romania.

It was 1997 and, at that time, post-Ceaușescu Romania was NOT a tourist destination but I’d learnt all about the Lands Beyond the Forest and Vlad the Impaler due to a childhood obsession with vampires and, for me, Romania was a bucket list destination.

To this day, I have no idea how I planned that trip given the internet wasn’t then what it is now and the only flight I could find was with Tarom from London Heathrow.

But, plan it I did!

A random friend from my Psychology college class came with me, as I knew my parents wouldn’t have been okay with me going alone, but aside from the flight we hardly spent any time together.

I came home with countless random experiences that made me truly feel alive: 

• Getting taken to a casino in daytime, wearing a tye-dye maxi dress and lace up boots, by a random Lebanese guy I met and sipping Coke watching glamourous people place their bets and drink champagne.
• Having an entire conversation in a park with a Romani guy, both of us speaking our own languages yet somehow understanding each other, in which I learnt his story and the hardships his people had faced.
• An impromptu tour of the city from the son of an Ambassador and his friends, who had rescued me from some unwanted advances.
• Taking the train to Brasov, using my broken Romanian, and feeling like I was in a movie (the train was very a là Harry Potter and Castle Bran like something from a fairy tale).

At university, I studied French and English and took a French philosophy course that taught me about Existentialism: something really resonated with me and the way I viewed life:

I’ve never been religious and related to the concept of having the responsibility to create my own meaning and purpose. 

It was up to me to create the life I wanted to live.

At university, I got into a relationship that would last 10 years and whilst my ex loved to go on hikes, he wasn’t so much into travel (ironic as he now lives in Singapore with his wife after he quit his job to backpack the world a couple of years after we split up).

I had a mini-adventure once single, again accompanied by a friend I barely saw, involving hot air ballooning over the fairy chimneys, and exploring the underground cities, of Cappadocia – and it was MAGICAL!

I’d taught myself as much Turkish as I could and whilst the activities I list are tourist activities I also aimed, as far as possible, to experience local life and truly understand the place and its people.

I was invited into homes, ate local foods and got to step off the tourist trail. I even had a lil’ holiday romance!

The next relationship I got into (with the man I almost married) was similar to the first, and as a lifelong people-pleaser I settled for collecting the odd experience here and there and, at best, annual holidays.

But, even then, I wasn’t going on holiday in the conventional sense.

I’d usually be the one planning any trips and I’d quietly tick off experiences I wanted to collect this way, such as dancing beneath the Northern Lights in Tromsø or watching Turtles hatch on the beach in Turkey.

How I began to travel solo

After I split with my ex fiancé, at the age of 37, I discovered a dance called kizomba and that took me all over the world for kizomba festivals. 

I made a diverse group of friends at kizomba, scattered around the globe, and many of whom invited me to visit them. So, in addition to travelling for dance, I found myself getting a local experience of places like Grenada, Dubai, Barcelona, Paris and The Netherlands. 

Whilst I was often travelling to these destinations on my own, and spending chunks of time alone, neither the dance trips nor visiting friends were truly solo travel.

Then, one July at the age of 39, I got the urge to book a last-minute trip to Prague (a place where I knew no one but had always wanted to see) and just took the leap!

I’d been freelancing for years by this point, so I had the time flexibility, and whilst I was a little nervous I’d always organised any travel I’d done and so it didn’t really feel that different.

However, on the way to the airport my knee twisted (I have osteoarthritis in both knees, triggered by surgery) and I found myself barely able to walk.

I’d planned a range of things I wanted to do by researching local guides to the city but instead had to prioritise finding a way to get around.

Fortunately, Prague has a high number of shops that sell all sorts of walking aids and so I was able to secure myself a foldable walking stick that remains my emergency travel companion to this day!

My time in Prague was clouded with pain but the experience taught me I could truly rely on myself and, more importantly, that the main benefit of solo travel is FREEDOM!

With no one else’s needs to consider, I could get up when I wanted, do what I wanted and the issues with my knee weren’t impacting anyone else so I could change my plans on a whim and that was okay.

This was the moment I fell in love with solo travel.

Since then, I have travelled almost exclusively solo – and I love it so much it would now be hard for me to travel with anyone (they’d have to be a very special human!).

My travel style