2015 was truly an epic year - we travelled to so many fantastic places all over the world. Happily,
two of our trips, and a total of five months of the year were spent on our adopted island
home of Utila in the Caribbean Sea. Also in 2015, we visited the USA, Central
America, the Seychelles, South Korea, the Bahamas, Thailand, Malaysia,
Singapore and the Philippines – many of these places extensively and more than
once!
Early
in the year, in February, Trav and I become grandparents
for the first time when our son James and his lovely Korean wife Sujeong had a
beautiful baby boy. During our family trip to South Korea in the summer of
2015, not only did we get to meet our grandson but we saw our own three sons
reunited again, two and a half years after James had left Scotland to teach
English abroad. It was a very special and an emotional time. Trav and I are
planning another trip to Korea in February 2016.
In
April 2015, I also saw my career as a writer hit new heights when
my 2015 release ‘Castaway in the Caribbean’ became a number one bestseller on Amazon.
Then, just when I thought things couldn’t get any better for me professionally
this year, the novel was announced on a shortlist for the prestigious Love
Stories Awards in London in November. Unfortunately I was in Bangkok at the time
- and I didn’t win - but it was such a thrill to have been in the final
shortlist.
It
has been a heady twelve months and so I thought I’d best
review it now before I get too involved in 2016. I must warn you that this is
an epic post because it reflects an epic journey – and so I’ll take it one
month at a time – starting at the beginning.
January
2015:
Last year, my husband Trav
and I had spent Christmas and New Year in a rented house in South West Scotland,
but as soon as January 2015 arrived we were on a mission to pack our suitcases.
Having travelled extensively in 2014, we had decided to ‘go for it’ and to
commit to travelling the world long-term, leaving at the end of February.
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| Scotland: views from our house down by the river |
We had already downscaled
considerably after selling our own house in January 2014, but in the rented house
we still had all our furniture, appliances, kitchen pots and pans, and all
those things you have to have on shelves and keep in cupboards and draws. I
started going through all our things, preparing to sell them on Ebay and local
websites.
Trav wound down his
business, sold his van, his tools, and everything he had stored in his garage
and workshop. I went through my wardrobe and donated bags of clothes and shoes
and handbags to charity shops. One of the hardest things was to sort through my
book collection. I had a beautiful library - shelves and shelves of fiction in
paperback and hardback, dozens of gardening books and a comprehensive cookery
book collection - amassed over many years. I donated books to the local library
and also to second-hand bookshops. The only books I kept, which I packed very
carefully into storage boxes, were my precious first editions and personally
signed books by my very favourite authors. We planned to rent a small storage
facility for our precious things - like my books and for family photo albums
etc.
The general rule was that if
an item wasn’t deeply sentimental or it going to give us the “I’m so happy I
still have you” feeling when we saw it again in perhaps in ten years’ time -
then it wasn’t taking up expensive space in storage.
One thing I did worry over
was our huge collection of digital photographs and the many years of family
video that we had stored on CD discs. I wondered if CD would even exist in the future
and if the format wasn’t accessible then and what would become of our precious
digital memories? I decided that I would rent storage space for these too - and
so for most of January and February 2015, while selling stuff and packing up, I
spent many hours uploading these precious memories to digital cloud storage
space that I could access from anywhere in the world via a computer and which I
could also share online with family members who might like to see them.
Another thing that was hard
to deal with was the thought of leaving our lovely West Highland Terrier,
Polly. We weren’t actually abandoning her because our son, who dotes on her and
takes her everywhere with him, was going to look after her. But I knew that I
was going to miss her terribly. The thought of leaving her gave me a lot of heart-ache
and I still have to fight the tears back when I think of her. She is getting
old and I know I might never see her again.
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| Polly |
Setting off to explore the world
has been both a dream and an ambition for my husband and I for a long time –
one that we have nurtured and worked for all our lives. We knew that once our
sons had left home the empty nest syndrome wasn’t going to be an issue for us –
as we planned to fly the nest too.
Now that my husband Trav has
retired from his own business – he has become a scuba diving instructor – his
dream job. While I continue to write magazine features – I’m now writing travel
features – as well as my romantic adventure novels. Travel is a great
inspiration for my imagination!
The downside of our plan is
that miss my family, my friends and my dog but I can soften the pain of
physical separation by keeping in touch with those we love on messaging
services, Skype, and using social media like Facebook for daily contact.
Surprisingly I don’t miss any material things. I don’t miss having a car or
owning a house – now I just think of all the costs associated with such things
– not the purchase so much but the upkeep.
The upside of our plan is
the total freedom I now feel. Life is exciting every day – sometimes to the
point of exhaustion – but then a good night’s sleep is sure to follow. We spend
a lot of time in airports, but I’ve never minded, as I love to read. Or, now
that most airports have free Wi-Fi, to catch up on social media. We also make
lots of lovely new friends everywhere we go, and thanks to Facebook we can
easily keep in touch when we or they move on.
February
During both January and
February, I was working on the final edits of my latest romantic adventure
novel ‘Castaway in the Caribbean’, which I had started writing during our time
on Utila in the summer of 2014. I had a strict deadline to meet, as my editor
was expecting to do the final copy edit at the end of February. I was also
under pressure to finish on time because I had two PR companies organising
promotional online tours for the new novel, which was to be first released on
pre-order on Amazon worldwide in March as a Kindle ebook, before being released
later in the summer as a paperback.
I was also still working as
a senior editor with award winning emagazine LLm (www.loveahappyending.com)
producing a monthly book review feature as well as regular travel features. As
I planned to continue to work with the magazine during all my travels, I felt
it was important not to miss any deadlines for this job either. The pressure
was on!
One week before we left
Scotland, on the 23rd February 2015, our best friends gave us a
wonderful farewell party. It was a fun filled and emotional night, even though
we all knew we would all see each other again at St Andrews in July. But we all
knew it might be times far and few between that we would get see each other again
like this over the next few years. They toasted to our travels and we extended
our invitation to visit wherever we may be in the world. There were hearty promises
made to come over to stay with us at our rented house in the Caribbean – and we
do expect those promises to be kept!
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| Our farewell party was a fun filled and emotional night |
Then on the 25th
February, on his due date, Aaron Thomas Horton came into the world in South
Korea and we became grandparents. What a wonderful feeling! Photos and videos
of our beautiful grandson were gratefully received and we looked forward to
when we could cuddle Aaron in our arms later in the year.
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| Aaron Thomas Horton: on The 25th February 2015 we became grandparents |
March
On the 1st March
we left Scotland from Glasgow Airport to fly back to the Caribbean via New York
with an overnight in Houston Texas. We also had a stopover on the larger of the
Bay Islands, Roatan, where it felt amazing to be basking in tropical heat after
the bitter winter chill of Scotland!
It’s my birthday during the
first week of March and this year I would be celebrating it on Utila with our
island friends. I had a party at the dive centre and Trav arranged for me to
have a ‘princess piñata’ – a traditionally Spanish/Honduran party piece - which
I beat with a stick until she gave up her burden of sweeties!
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| My birthday princess piñata – a traditionally Spanish/Honduran party piece! |
A few days after my birthday,
my new novel Castaway in the Caribbean
went up on Amazon for pre-order ahead of its publication date of the 26th
March. It was excited to see it racing up the Amazon UK and US bestseller
charts. On publication date it was sitting at #3 in the Amazon Kindle Adventure
Travel Fiction Bestseller Chart in the UK!
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| Castaway in the Caribbean went up on Amazon for pre-order ahead of its publication date |
During this time, we started
making plans for April, when our eldest son Ben and his girlfriend would
be coming over to Utila to stay with us for two weeks. One of the things we
planned to do was rent a private island called Little Cay for a weekend while
they are with us – yes, an actual tropical tiny island with palm trees and a
house on it – because that’s the kind of thing you can do at very low cost out
in the eastern side of the Caribbean!
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| Little Cay - a private Caribbean island for rent |
April
My dream of achieving a
number one bestseller with one of my books came true on the 4th
April 2015 when Castaway in the Caribbean
hit the #1 spot in the UK Amazon Kindle Chart for Adventure Travel Fiction. To
say I was thrilled was an understatement. I believe I screamed and had to be
calmed with a gin and tonic!
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| Castaway in the Caribbean hit the #1 spot in the UK Amazon Kindle Chart for Adventure Travel Fiction |
I’m practicing yoga again on
Utila, attending several classes a week. I’ve also discovered Ashtanga yoga and
I’m practicing at introductory level and really loving it. We are very
fortunate to have wonderful Emma and Autumn to teach yoga here and classes are
always well attended. I’ve made many lovely new friends through Yoga Utila.
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| I'm on the mat at Yoga Utila |
While I’m busy Trav is
enjoying his diving with Ecomarine Dive shop, which is the oldest established
dive shop on Utila. It has a lovely family atmosphere and it’s where real divers
come to play. Their mantra is 'freedom rules!'
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| Ecomarine - Utila's longest established dive shop. Photo: Steve Dankewich |
When Trav and I get a day
off together we call it a Date Day and we take a boat over to Coral Beach and
Neptunes’s Bar and Grill. Sometimes we’ll go over to Water Cay for a beach BBQ
picnic and drinks. I tell you… life really doesn’t get much better than this.
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| Coral Beach Utila |
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| Ecomarines having fun at Water Cay |
When our son Ben and his
girlfriend arrived from Scotland, we chartered a small plane to meet them in
Roatan. I don’t believe they’d ever been in a Cessna before and I think they
might have been both thrilled and nervous when we told them it was their ride
home!
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| Both thrilled and nervous with their ride home! |
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| Father and son prepare to go diving |
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| Ben and Trav diving in the Caribbean Sea |
May
May is a fun time on the
island – there are beach parties to attend. Temperatures on the island in May are
incredibly hot and the only way of staying cool is to jump into the sea – and we did this
as often as possible: picnics and BBQ’s on the beach followed by sitting in the
shallows with a beer or a rum in hand.
I continued to enjoy yoga and practiced several times a week. I felt I was really improving until I did something stupid - a lesson learned in over-stretching - and tore a tendon in my knee. I was told this was a common sports injury but I could expect to take at least nine months to recover. Nine months on and it is still painful. Gentle stretching, walking and swimming helps but I do wonder if it will ever fully recover. So if you see me wearing a knee brace in some of the photos that follow – that’s why!
I continued to enjoy yoga and practiced several times a week. I felt I was really improving until I did something stupid - a lesson learned in over-stretching - and tore a tendon in my knee. I was told this was a common sports injury but I could expect to take at least nine months to recover. Nine months on and it is still painful. Gentle stretching, walking and swimming helps but I do wonder if it will ever fully recover. So if you see me wearing a knee brace in some of the photos that follow – that’s why!
At the end of May it’s our
wedding anniversary - this year is number 32. And as we had to do a ‘visa run’ anyway (our
entry permit allows for 90 days) we decided to leave Utila for Miami for a few
days and then, for extra fun, to head down to the Florida Keys. Getting to
Miami involved taking a small plane to the neighbouring island of Roatan and then
a flight to the Cayman Islands and onto Miami. We arrived in Miami on Memorial
weekend – a major holiday in the USA – so the place was buzzing and blisteringly
hot. We explored South Beach and the Art Deco area and walked the entire length
of Ocean Drive.
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| South Beach Miami Florida |
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| Art Deco Area Miami Beach |
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| Trav on South Beach |
After the weekend, we took a
Greyhound Bus to Key Largo for a couple of days and then onto Key West (we
had a great view from the bus’s front seats) as we travelled over the famous
seven-mile bridge.
At Key West we celebrated our wedding anniversary in style
on Duval Street and had Margarita’s at the original Jimmy Buffet Margaritaville. We visited the shipwreck museum and then the Hemingway House. To celebrate my
new found love of yoga, I had two tattoos done at the Southernmost Tattoo shop.
I continue to be delighted with them – one on each wrist – an Om in a heart and a lotus flower.
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| Go Greyhound! |
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| The Florida Keys - Seven Mile Bridge |
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| My new tattoos! |
Having enjoyed Key West we
decided to stay in the US a bit longer and so we flew to New Orleans – a place that
has long been on my ‘bucket list’. We stayed in the French Quarter on Chartres
Street – one street away from the famous Bourbon Street and a five minute walk
from Jackson Square. What an amazing time we had – shopping in ‘Hex’ for spells
and tarot cards – eating oysters for lunch – and going to jazz bars in the
evenings.
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| Oysters for lunch in New Orleans |
We stayed in New Orleans for
four days and then, as we knew we had a return flight booked back to the UK at the
end of the month, we were
tempted to continue our travels over the next four weeks and meet with our flight in Houston rather than
head back to Roatan.
But were next? We
thought about taking the Greyhound Bus up to Nashville and then onto Memphis –
perhaps to do the ‘Bourbon Trail’ across Tennessee. But eventually, needing rest, we settled
on somewhere to kick back and relax – somewhere with beaches and guaranteed
sunshine. We settled on the Bahamas.
We found accommodation in the Bahamas using Airbnb.com –
which we hadn’t used before but which came highly recommended to us. We found a private traditional
colonial style home very close to the famous Cable Beach on Nassau that had a
small separate one bedroomed apartment, a bathroom, kitchen and screened
porch sitting area. It was being rented out by a retired university professor
named Stuart who was originally from the UK and it just happened to be vacant for the month. We contacted Stuart and asked him if we could
come the following day. He said he would pick us up at the airport. Bahamas
here we come. During our stay, one of the highlight was spending a weekend at Atlantis and seeing Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett in concert!
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| At Atlantis |
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| Cable Beach Nassau Bahamas |
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| Our last day in the Bahamas |
July
The first week in July we
headed back to the UK. We planned to see our family and friends in
Scotland and then hire a car and drive down to England for a few days to catch up with family there. Afterwards, we had a couple of weeks to spare before we attended a
wedding in St Andrews Scotland.
So what to do with those two weeks? Our family and friends were caught up with so we decided to take a look at grabbing a bargain last minute flight to somewhere new to us that also happened to be high on our bucket list.
Luckily for us a flight to the Seychelles was up for immediate grabs with Emirate airlines – leaving the very next day. We decided to organise our first night’s accommodation in the Seychelles online and then go island-hopping Indian Ocean style. Our bags, of course, were already packed!
So what to do with those two weeks? Our family and friends were caught up with so we decided to take a look at grabbing a bargain last minute flight to somewhere new to us that also happened to be high on our bucket list.
Luckily for us a flight to the Seychelles was up for immediate grabs with Emirate airlines – leaving the very next day. We decided to organise our first night’s accommodation in the Seychelles online and then go island-hopping Indian Ocean style. Our bags, of course, were already packed!
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| Praislin Seychelles |
Once back in Scotland, we had two
days to prepare to be guests at a fabulous wedding in St Andrews. With only
worn out beach clothes and flip-flops to our names – Trav and I went shopping
on Princes Street Edinburgh – my favourite shopping street in the world! I
immediately bagged a summer frock in Monsoon’s summer sale and a pair of lace
ballet shoes from Accessorize together with a jaunty wee ‘fascinator’ on a
headband. Trav went to a men’s wear department store and managed to hire a
suit, shirt, waistcoat and shoes. We were all set to head north for a fabulous
weekend in St Andrews.
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| July - we were guests at a wonderful wedding in St Andrews Scotland |
August
On the Monday morning after
the St Andrews wedding weekend we met with our two sons, Ben who lives in
Edinburgh and Iain who lives in Glasgow and together we flew to Seoul, South
Korea.
This was without doubt the
most exciting trip of the year. Not only would our three sons be together again
two and a half years after our son James had left Scotland to teach English
abroad but we would be meeting our baby grandson for the first time. It was so
fantastic a trip that we forgot about being tired or jet lagged from from all our
travelling – it was such an exciting and emotional journey.
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| Meeting our first grandson Aaron in South Korea |
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| Aaron in his Scotland kit! |
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| Horton's on tour! |
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| The Horton Kang family |
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| Back to our island home of Utila... |
September
and October
We were back on Utila for the next two months but Trav and I were already making plans for when we would leave at the end of October, when it would be rainy season. Rainy season in Utila runs from
October until the end of February.
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| Leaving Utila again - but we'll be back... |
We had decided to go on our
most adventurous trip to date – to spend four months exploring South East Asia staying at island dive resorts.
Our plan was to first fly back to Scotland
to see our family and friends. We then booked to fly to Bangkok from
Edinburgh with a return four months later directly to Houston USA, so we knew it might be another
year before we could feasibly return to the UK again.
While in the UK we also
had to arrange for a multi-entry visa into Thailand and to top up on expired travel
vaccines.
So as planned, at the very end of October,
we arrived back in Scotland for a period of just 48 hours. Our youngest son met us at
the airport and drove us straight to the Thai Consul in Glasgow for our multiple
entry visas. On the same day, we had
our travel vaccines administered and we swapped our suitcases for backpacks at an
outdoor store in Edinburgh.
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| For our Grand Asian Trip we swapped our suitcases for backpacks |
November
Our Grand Asian Trip began
when we arrived in Bangkok, where we spent the night, before flying onto Krabi.
From Krabi we took a traditional long-tail boat to Railey Beach: inaccessible
any other way, it is said to be one of the most picturesque places in Thailand.
We stayed here two nights before moving further south, again by long-tail boat and later by speed-boat, to spend a whole month island-hopping down Thailand’s Andaman
Sea, stopping off at tropical paradises along the way.
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| Beautiful Krabi |
We stopped off at Koh
Lantra, Koh Kradan, Ko Ngai, Koh Bulon, Koh Lipe and also took many trips out
on dive boats to other smaller islands, like Koh Phi Phi – famous for being the
setting of the Leonardo DeCaprio movie ‘The Beach’ - until we reached the
island of Langkawi in Malaysia.
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| Travelling between islands in the Andaman Sea Thailand |
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| On Koh Kradan |
We stayed on Langkawi, Malaysia, for a
few days and really explored the island. We found everything so affordable here as it
is a duty free island - so we enjoyed lots of fabulous Malaysian food and
premium drinks and wines!
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| Langkawi Malaysia |
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| View from the top - Langkawi Cable Car |
On route to our next
destination of the Philippines, we flew to Kuala Lumpur and spent the night in
the city. While in KL, as Kuala
Lumpur is known, we were keen to see the famous landmarks - the Petronis
twin-towers. We knew we didn’t have enough time in the city to get a ticket to
go up inside and walk along the sky bridge that has featured in so many action
movies - so we wanted to make sure we
saw the towers from the outside. At night they were all lit up and looked
spectacular so we took a taxi to Traders Hotel, where on the top floor they
have the ‘Sky Bar’ famous for its cocktails and the best view of the Petronis
Towers in KL!
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| The Petronis Twin Towers as seen from Traders Hotel |
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| Having a cocktail at Traders Sky Bar |
Trav and I agreed that so
far we had made just one mistake in planning our trip – and that was not
allowing ourselves more time in KL – so we vowed to return to explore the city
properly sometime in the future.
Traveller tip: The Petronis Towers only allow
a certain number of visitors per day to walk across the sky bridge so you have
to get there as early as 7.30am to queue for a ticket for later that same day.
Worth it though!
December
From KL Malaysia we flew
onto the Philippines. We were excited to be spending a whole month
exploring these tropical islands that had so far been only a dream. Our first
destination was Malapascua – which up until that point we had only seen on a
map. It was our furthest journey point in the northern Vasayas as we planned to
head back south afterwards heading for Bohol, then onto the somewhat remote island of Siquijor, known as ‘fire
island’ as from a distance at night it looks to be on fire, due to its
millions of dancing fire-flies. Then we planned to end up in Dauin, in the area
of Negros, where we would spend Christmas.
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| Malapascua Philippines |
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| Bohol Philippines |
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| Siquijor Philippines |
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| Trav diving off Gato Island Philippines |
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| On the dive boat - Philippines |
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| Goodbye Malapascua party - from Kokays Dive Shop |
Two things that we hadn’t accounted for made our stay in the Philippines a little more difficult than we expected.
Firstly, we had thought that getting around the islands would be as easy as it was in
Thailand – we were wrong. A transport network between the islands doesn’t really exist, certainly not by
boat or ferry anyway. So we travelled by boat and then long distances by road and then more boats. It took us over 15 hours to travel between each island. It was also much more expensive than we had envisaged. Although it was all worth it in
the end of course.
The other thing was the weather – which had been perfect for most of our
trip and for that I am so grateful – but once we arrived at our Christmas
destination, the weather took a turn for the worst and a typhoon hit the
northern islands where we had been at the start of our Philippine
adventure.
Because of the typhoon, diving was cancelled, as were all boats and ferries and when we heard that the typhoon had circled and was coming back in again – this time to hit the area where we were - we decided to cut our
trip short and leave.
We took a flight out and headed back to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. We were excited to be going back sooner than
we thought! We checked into a lovely treat of a hotel right next to the Petronis Towers for the night and then we managed to booked in for Christmas too. With Trav's hotel loyalty card we secured an upgraded room and so we were looking forward to spending Christmas in style!
In the meantime, with three days to go before Christmas Eve, we decided to flit off to Singapore. It was only an hour flight away and
we had never been there before. We planned to do some Christmas shopping there – as we only had beach clothes in our backpacks and we needed party clothes for Christmas
Eve and Christmas Day. While in Singapore we did some fabulous sightseeing too
and had a Singapore Sling or two at the famous Raffles Hotel!
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| Singapore Slings at Raffles Hotel Singapore |
Christmas
in Kuala Lumpur was fantastic. We explored the city, went
up in the Petronis Towers and walked along the famous Sky Bridge. We also had
afternoon tea in the KL Tower – the one with a restaurant at the top that turns slowly to
give you a 360 degree view of the city. I had my hair done at a classy city
hairdressers and then had a manicure and a pedicure too. Bliss.
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| On the Sky Bridge - Petronis Towers Kuala Lumpur |
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| Looking down from the top of the towers |
Then we
celebrated a very grown up Christmas; our first ever without being with any of
our kids or without me doing any of the cooking. We ate Christmas dinner in a
restaurant – Asian Style – with champagne of course! It was all very magical. I
felt like Cinderella afterwards, taking off my sparkly dress and shoes - which I
gave away to hotel staff afterwards - as I couldn’t fit anything else in my backpack. It’s
a real pain having to carry anything more than 15kg on your back and besides
the airlines don’t let you check in more than 20kg.
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| Christmas in KL |
New
Year
On December the 26th,
we said goodbye to Kuala Lumpur and flew to Bangkok and from Bangkok we flew to the island of Koh
Samui on Thailand’s gulf side. We stayed there for just one night before taking the three
hour ferry over to the island of Koh Tao, where we planned to celebrate the New Year
and to settle down for a six whole weeks. Hence our need for a multi-entry visa plus a 90 day stay. Travel tip: do carefully research the up to date visa/entry requirements of the countries you plan to visit. Thailand made changes to theirs just weeks before we travelled!
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| Happy New Year from Koh Tao Thailand! |
During our six weeks on Koh
Tao, Trav will be diving while I am writing – I'm working on my next adventure
romance novel due out in the summer of 2016. I will of course enjoy occasional days out of the dive boat so that I can snorkel on coral reefs and swim in the sea. Also during this time, my lovely
friend Dina is coming out from the UK to spend almost three weeks holiday here
on Koh Tao. She has booked a room right next door to ours and I can’t wait to
see her again. I’m sure that after she gets here I’ll have another adventure to
tell you about!
Rounding
off our Grand Asian Adventure:
We plan to round off our Grand
Asian Adventure by visiting South Korea in mid-February – arriving just in time
for our grandson’s first birthday party. I can’t tell you how excited we are
about it. Aaron is almost walking now and he has grown so much. He is a happy
wee boy and thanks to our son and daughter-in-law we see photos and clips of
video of him every single day through Facebook messenger and Skype. These are just a few cuties ones!
Our return flight at the end of February will take us from Bangkok straight back to the USA and onto Roatan and then Utila.
Thanks for reading my blog
and following what has been an epic year of travel and adventure and
achievement. 2015 will be forever in my memory as the year we truly made our
dreams come true.
While travelling, as I have
said at the start of this post, we have really missed being with family and
friends. I know social media is not quite the same as kissing and hugging and
being there but I honestly don’t think I could have handled being separated
from you all in the ‘old days’ before Facebook and the internet.
I’m now looking forward to
seeing what the New Year will bring us all and so I will take this opportunity
to once again wish you a very happy and healthy and prosperous 2016!
Love,
Janice xx
My Travel Map 2015-2016
To date we have visited 37 countries in the world - but this map shows how much of the world we have yet to explore!
