Congratulations to Harry Lichtman for winning the Your Local Wilderness Assignment with the image, “Tide Pool.”

View the winning image and a selection of submissions in the gallery below. And be sure to check out our current photography assignment here and enter your best shots!

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The post Your Local Wilderness Assignment Winner Harry Lichtman appeared first on Outdoor Photographer.

If you asked me to define my current approach to travel, I’d immediately jump to two key words: psychotic and planning.

It’s a trait that I only developed in 2016, once I’d ended my nomadic travels to move to Portugal. Back then, for the first time in my travel career, I had a home base that I was paying rent on. And that meant that for the first time in half a decade, I was buying return tickets from airlines. It was a strange feeling to know that I had a relatively mere 10 days to see as much of Namibia as possible, or that two weeks was all I could justify for my first visit to Japan.

In the Before Times, I would have simply bought a one-way ticket to New Delhi and travelled across India until I got sick of it or somewhere else sounded more appealing — maybe I’d stay for a week; maybe I’d still be exploring six months later. Now that I had a home, I could only justify three weeks to see as much of this gigantic country as possible.

I had to ensure I made the most of that time.

And so, instead of lazing in laidback Pushkar for a couple of weeks before I worked up the energy to move on — as I so would have done in the early years of my travels — I booked everything in advance. I arrived in India knowing that I’d spend the entirety of my three weeks in Rajasthan. I had every single hotel booked, had reserved every train between destinations, and was ready to hit the ground running.

For the most part, this approach has significantly improved my travels.

Having a plan and a focus has resulted in me seeing a hell of a lot more of the countries I travelled through — and my trips post-moving-to-Lisbon are easily the best I’ve ever taken.

Researching and booking accommodation in advance means that I’m able to stay in some of the best guesthouses out there, because I’ve read the reviews and I’ve reserved a room before they’ve all sold out. Extensively reading about upcoming travel destinations in advance has enabled me to build itineraries that take me to all of the best spots — I never leave a country feeling as though I didn’t make the most of my time there.

The one downside to my new obsession with travel planning?

A clear lack of spontaneity.

If I arrived on an incredible Thai island and immediately declared it my favourite in the world? Well, I couldn’t stay longer because I already had a ferry booked for the next island. And if that island was boring and I hated my guesthouse? I just had to suck it up. I couldn’t change things up on a whim because there was an itinerary and a return flight and I just had to hope I’d planned everything perfectly.

So why am I rambling on about all of this?

Well, it’s because, after holing up behind the closed borders of Australia and New Zealand for over 15 months, it’s finally time for me to leave.

To travel again.

And this time, for the first time in a long time, I’m fully nomadic.

That absolute mess of an image above is my travel plans for the next nine months. I’ve blurred out the destinations I’ll be heading to because I don’t want to hand out any travel spoilers yet.

I might be back to being nomadic these days, but it turns out I’m also now a planner. And the psychotic part? Well, I mean just look at that spreadsheet. Every country is colour-coded; each day is accounted for. Every time I show it to Dave, he starts to look moderately horrified.

But, of course, this is a detailed plan of which I have booked absolutely nothing. We still want to retain the spontaneity of our travels from a decade ago, so we’ll be making a ton of things up on the fly. I’ve booked my first few nights of the trip, and that’s it.

It feels like the best of both worlds. We have a clear focus on where we want to go and how best to explore each country, but we also have the freedom and flexibility to change things up when we’re tired or want to meet friends somewhere.

And so.

Below, I’m sharing an in-depth look at my potential travel plans from now until November.

Enjoy!

February: A Return to Cambodia!

Yes, Cambodia.

Cambodge.

In several days, I’ll be boarding a plane in Melbourne and setting out for Siem Reap.

Entry requirements for vaccinated travellers are relatively laidback in Cambodia: a single rapid test on arrival, and then you’re free to go.

There are barely any tourists in the country right now. Arrival numbers have transformed from around 700,000 a month pre-pandemic to 10,000 a month throughout 2021. And so, the thought of hitting up Angkor Wat right now? Talk about a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!

We’ll probably spend a full week in Siem Reap, exploring tons of temples and ruins, both within Angkor and outside of it — I really want to head to Beng Mealea, Koh Ker, and Preah Vihear — before heading to two new destinations for me: Battambang and Kratie. I’m excited to explore both of them for the first time. Dave’s been to Kratie before and it’s one of his favourite spots in the country, so I’m particularly looking forward to getting there.

I may, also, finally go out of my way to visit the infamous town of Skuon, otherwise known as Spiderville. After 10 years of travel, there’s pretty much nothing that I won’t eat these days. APART FROM FRIED TARANTULAS. I want to go and write a hysterical blog post about the experience. But also, I don’t want to have tarantulas crawling over me while I try to work up the courage to eat one. I feel like crying from just writing this paragraph.

We’ll spend a week in Phnom Penh next, which I’m super-excited for! I previously only spent two days in Cambodia’s capital, so I’m looking forward to getting to know it a little better.

We’ll round out our time in the country by heading to the coast: a return to the laidback town of Kampot, a day spent eating crab in Kep, and maybe even a visit to Rabbit Island for the first time, although I don’t think it’s all that nice, so maybe not. A quick return to Otres Beach is on the cards, as my glowing trip report from 2012 is so inaccurate and out-of-date. And then, Koh Rong: I loved this island paradise when I last visited and I consider it one of the best islands in the world! I can’t wait to go back and get devoured by sandflies.

Side note: can you believe it’s been seven years since I was last in Cambodia?!

March: Surprise! Back to Thailand!

You guys know I couldn’t possibly take a trip to Southeast Asia without hitting up Thailand on the way.

Thailand loves to open and close its borders to tourists on a monthly basis at the moment, so neither Dave nor I are convinced we’ll be able to get there, but if we can: yet again, another incredible opportunity to explore a country without the crowds. Visitor numbers are still low right now.

We’ll spend our month in Thailand on the islands, and we’re currently deciding between two appealing options:

The first option would be flying into Phuket to spend some time in lovely Phuket Town before heading to Koh Phi Phi. This overcrowded island has turned into a bit of a hellhole in recent years, but now? Without the tourists? I’ve heard it’s amazing. Maya Bay, too, where The Beach was filmed, has recently reopened and you can basically have it all to yourself right now. A far cry from what it used to be several years ago.

From there, I’m keen to head to Koh Yao Yai for the first time — the sister island to my beloved Koh Yao Noi. Koh Lanta is definitely on the list, as I feel like I didn’t give it a fair chance when I declared it boring back in 2012, and I know Koh Mook — my favourite Thai island — will also be calling my name.

The second option for our time in Thailand would be heading to the Gulf Islands for the first time! I consider my greatest Thai oversight to be this part of the country. For all my love of the Thai islands, I’ve never stepped foot on the popular Koh Samui, Koh Tao, and Koh Phangan. Most likely, we’d choose to spend a week on each of the three islands then another week in either Bangkok or Phuket.

Any thoughts on which route we should choose?

April: Islands Galore, But This Time in the Mediterranean

Before I decided that I was going to travel to Cambodia, I was 90% convinced I was going to head to Cyprus. This beautiful island in the Mediterranean is home to great food, warm weather, and ancient ruins, and it’s somewhere I haven’t visited since I was 14!

And so, given that we almost travelled to Cyprus from Australia, I’m still keen to visit. Dave has never been before, so it would be fun for him to get to explore a new country. We’d most likely spend 7-10 days road-tripping around the island.

From there, we’re thinking about heading to Malta next, which would be a brand new country for both of us. Again, we’ll probably road trip around the island for a week or so, and I know I definitely want to hop across to the island of Gozo, too.

With 10-14 days left in the month, we’ll aim to stick with our island theme and pick another one or two islands in the Mediterranean to explore. I’m keen to head to Mallorca (I’ve been half a dozen times before and I’d love to show Dave my favourite spots) and maybe combine it with a visit to Menorca or Ibiza (which I haven’t been to). There’s also Corsica and Sardinia, which have long been dream destinations for me. Sicily, too! So many options!

Which islands would you like to see me visit most?

May: Iberia Mania

May will most likely be spent in Spain and Portugal.

Dave and I desperately want to return to Lisbon, as it’s been far too long since we were last in our beloved ex-home. We’ll likely spend a week there and a few days in the Algarve. There’s a multi-day hike called the Rota Vicentina — the Fisherman’s Trail — down there that Dave’s brother is keen to join us for. That’ll take four days to complete.

Then, we’re considering heading to Madeira for the first time! We loved the Azores, so why not take the time to visit a new Portuguese island? If we don’t opt for Madeira, we’d most likely return to one of our favourite Portuguese regions — Alentejo — which is home to gorgeous food and wine, before heading north into Spain.

Now, Dave and I considered walking another Camino across Spain, but ultimately decided the world was likely to still be a little too COVIDy for our liking. The thought of sleeping in large dorm rooms for six weeks straight? It feels like just asking to contract it! However, there are a couple of shorter Caminos that we’re looking at tackling instead.

The first is the Camino Ingles. As the name suggests, it’s the Camino route that’s most often travelled by English pilgrims, who walk from their front door down to the coast and take a ferry to Ferrol, Spain, which is where the Camino Ingles begins. It’s a short route — around 120 km, or 75 miles — so would take five or six days to complete. But it’s rarely walked, so it does feel like a great pandemic option.

The other option would be walking the Camino Finisterre, which leads from the end point of Santiago de Compostela to Finisterre. This is a popular route to tackle after you complete a Camino route, as it takes you from beyond the finish line to the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, giving the sense that you’ve walked to the end of the world. This would take around four days to complete.

June: Back to the Homeland!

June marks the mid-way point of our travels, so we’ll most likely be feeling fatigued by this point. That’s why we’ll be spending the entire month of June in London! We’re currently narrowing down which area we most want to stay in: Brixton? Hackney? Peckham?

This will be a month for resting, catching up on work, meeting with friends, cafe-hopping, market-wandering, and eating all the delicious food. I’m particularly excited to make my way around the gardens in the city. I last went to Kew Gardens on a school trip and thought it was boring, so that’s definitely on the cards for a return visit, now that I love all things plant.

I never get sick of spending time in London, so I’m thrilled to be spending a full month exploring one of my favourite cities in the world.

But the main reason why we’ll be back in London is to see my family! By this stage, I won’t have spent any time with my loved ones since November 2019. We’ve already planned for a family getaway to Nottingham, and I’m sure we’ll have tons of stuff planned for the summer.

July: Bristol and… Baku?!

I couldn’t head back to the UK and not visit my former home.

I’m expecting our two weeks back in Bristol to bring a ton of conflicting emotions to the surface. 2020 was supposed to be the year where Dave and I threw ourselves into Bristol life: a last-ditch attempt at making friends and exploring if this lovely city was right for us. It had felt so promising back in 2019: we’d just met a community of wonderful people and it finally felt as though we could make this city work for us.

You guys know what happened next.

As Dave and I retreated into self-isolation for the entirety of the year, those fragile hints of friendship soon disintegrated, and it pushed us to leave the UK for New Zealand. There’ll always be a part of me that’ll wonder what might have been. If the pandemic hadn’t happened, would we have discovered that Bristol was the perfect place for us? Sometimes I wonder if we left too soon and if we should return for that final attempt.

On top of that, we never got to say goodbye to our house, our neighbourhood, and our city. When we left Bristol, we had no idea what our future plans were. Publicly, I made it seem as though we’d packed up our life and moved out (for security reasons: it would be foolish to announce to the internet that we were keeping our place and leaving it empty for months on end), but we didn’t. We kept our home for five months, in fact, paying rent on it from New Zealand. Honestly, we loved our house in Bristol and didn’t want to give it up. But in the end, spending thousands of dollars a month in rent on a place we weren’t living in while travelling through expensive New Zealand? It didn’t make sense.

So there were no sad goodbyes. Dave’s brother packed up all of our belongings while we were 12,000 miles away, and put them in storage for us. It feels weird to have never had that sense of closure.

Man, I do love to go off on a tangent, don’t I?

Basically, I’m expecting our return to Bristol to feel really strange.

Our two weeks in the city will be spent in our old neighbourhood, revisiting our favourite restaurants, walking through the hills, catching up with anybody who’s still there, and sorting through our life. We’ll be opening up that storage unit, going through all of our belongings, and deciding how much of it to ship to our new home.

Then, a new country.

So what’s all this about Baku?

Well. Dave and I have been dreaming about hiking in Georgia for a while now, and we’ve decided that 2022 is the perfect time to wander around this beautiful country. And while I’m there, it also makes sense — in my mind, at least — to explore all three of the Caucasus countries: Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia.

Most likely, we’ll kick things off by flying into Baku, Azerbaijan. After having spent the past six weeks chilling in the UK, I imagine we’ll be down for an epic week-long road trip around the country. Azerbaijan is so underrated and the scenery looks spectacular. If we’re not up for any fast-paced travel, though, I’ll be just as content to spend a week in Baku while taking a couple of day trips around the country.

Rather than flying, we’ll most likely take the overnight train from Baku into Tbilisi, Georgia! And then, we’ll have three glorious weeks to explore this wonderful country. We’ll kick things off with a week or so in Tbilisi, eating good food, exploring the nation’s capital, and getting a little work done before heading offline and into the mountains.

August: Hiking in Georgia and Turkey and Greece

The first two weeks of August will be spent exploring Georgia in more depth. I need to do some more research here, so I can’t tell you exactly which hikes or regions we’ll be heading to yet, but we’ll have a full fortnight to wander through the mountains.

Then, most likely, we’ll then spend 7-10 days in Armenia to finish up our time in Caucasia.

And as with Azerbaijan, I started off by believing I’d spend a few days in the capital — Yerevan — before moving on. The more I researched Armenia, however, the more I realised just how much this country has to discover. I suspect we’ll spend a few days in Yerevan, then, before heading to the mountains of Dilijan, which is known as the Switzerland of Armenia. If we’re not already sick of hiking, this will present the perfect opportunity to get some more walking in. I’ll probably throw in a few days trips once we’re back in Yerevan, too, because there’s so much I want to see and do!

If we can tear ourselves away from this part of the world, we’re planning on spending the last week of August in Istanbul. I absolutely adored this city when I first visited in 2012; so much so that I left with a promise to visit every single year for the rest of my life. And then I just… never returned. There were always new countries calling my name and Turkey kept being looked over.

With a full week in the city, we’ll spend it catching up on work, eating all the food (Turkish breakfasts are the best!), and revisiting some of my favourite monuments. If I’m feeling ambitious, energised, and motivated, I’d consider taking a trip to Cappadocia, which is my biggest Turkey oversight, but we’ll have to see how I’m feeling by this stage.

September: Eating Everything in Greece

Greece is one of my favourite European countries, and I regularly spend my Septembers chartering a yacht with a group of friends and sailing around the Ionian islands. If all goes to plan, we’re hoping to take another sailing trip in 2022, where we’ll be spending eight days mooring at some of my favourite spots in the world. I really hope we can make it happen!

Every time I visit Greece, I commit to exploring a brand new part of the country. In 2016, it was Corfu. In 2018, it was Athens. And in 2022, I’m setting my sights on Crete.

The largest island in Greece, Crete is known for its wonderful food, hundreds of ruins, beautiful landscapes, and wealth of hiking trails. In particular, we’re hoping to tackle part of the E4 trail, which runs for 11,000 kilometres, or 7,000 miles, between Gibraltar and Cyprus. We’d do a week or so of it.

We have a couple of options for the second half of the month, too. The most likely one is that we’ll pick two additional Greek islands to spend our two weeks on. I’m keen to spend a week on each of Santorini and Mykonos because for as much time as I’ve spent in Greece, I still haven’t seen the country’s most famous islands! Dave, you can probably imagine, is less than enthused about hitting up expensive, crowded islands after spending the previous few weeks in tiny villages.

If we decide we don’t want to go down the touristy route, we’re considering travelling overland across Albania instead. I’ve never been before, so I’m equally as keen to head there. Tirana seems like a cool capital city, and I know there’s plenty of beaches and ruins to keep me entertained as we travel up to it.

October: A Goodbye and All Things Sri Lanka

In October, winter will be setting in across the Northern Hemisphere, which is my cue to head south. I’ll be venturing back to the U.K., then, at the start of the month for a week or two spent saying goodbye to my family, before Dave and I jet off to warmer shores.

Next up: Sri Lanka!

I first visited this wonderful country in 2014, but back then, I only had a spare week to explore. Dave stayed for longer — three weeks, in fact — and fell deeply in love with the landscapes, food, and people. He’s been desperate to show me more of the country ever since, so 2022 feels like the perfect opportunity to do just that. I can’t believe it’s been eight years since I vowed to return one day soon.

There are plenty of exciting options for our time in the country.

Most notably: Sri Lanka is one of the few countries in the world where tourists can rent a tuk-tuk and drive themselves around the island! How hilarious would that be? Dave’s brother did exactly that when he travelled to Sri Lanka a few years ago, and he has so many fun stories to tell about his adventure! The main downside: you’ll be continually pulled over by the police, simply because they can’t believe they’re seeing a white person driving a tuk-tuk!

Aside from that, I’d love to revisit beautiful Galle, explore more of the coastline, head inland to roam through the tea plantations in Ella, and climb Sigiriya. Neither Dave nor I have seen any of the north of Sri Lanka, so that could be an option, too. Far fewer tourists travel to that part of the country, and you guys know I love heading to those lesser-visited spots. Wherever we end up going, I know we’re going to be eating so well.

November: A Brand New Home Base

Now. Presuming that Dave and I don’t spontaneously decide to spend three months in Southeast Asia on our way Down Under — stranger things have happened — our current stint of full-time travel will be over. We’ll have spent the majority of 2022 revisiting some of our favourite places, checking out a handful of brand new countries, and most likely be suffering from burnout and exhaustion.

By the time November rolls around, it’ll definitely be time to find a new home base.

We’ve done this a few times now, moving to Lisbon in 2016, then Bristol in 2018, so I’m intrigued to see if our third choice will end up being the one that sticks. But it’s no big deal if it doesn’t. This is truly one of my favourite aspects of my unconventional life: having the ability to try on vibrant, wonderful cities for size, whether they end up becoming a forever home or not.

I’m keeping the exact city under wraps for now, but never fear: I plan on revealing all once we touch back down on Oceanic soil at the end of the year.

I imagine, then, that the rest of 2022 will be spent in a haze of bureaucracy. House-hunting, registering companies, figuring out taxes, signing up for healthcare, buying a car, unpacking our shipping container from Bristol, and settling into a new city to call home.

Hopefully, by the end of the year, we’ll be toasting to one of the greatest years of our life.

(Let’s see if I just jinxed it.)

And that’s it for my 2022 travel plans! What do you think of them? Where are you most excited for me to visit? Which is the biggest surprise? And, as always, share away in the comments below if you have any recommendations for where I’m going! 🙂

The post Announcing My Travel Plans For the Next… Nine Months? appeared first on Never Ending Footsteps.

Take time to romance your lover at one of these romantic hotels

The post Romantic hotel stays for Valentine’s day appeared first on The Travel Magazine.