Stepping off the eurostar alongside passengers who are much better dressed than I am, and stepping out of the station to see two police officers with their truncheons and both smoking cigarettes, I didn’t need the ‘Gare du Nord’ sign to tell me where I was, this was definitely Paris.

I broke the main port on my snazzy travel plug adapter. I really do need to learn to look after my belongings better. I woke up at 4:20 am and thought about Louis’ stupid joke of “there’s more than one 4 o’clock in the day?”. I had about 2 hours sleep, I was actually nervous that night and struggled to sleep. My trusted citymapper let me down, I arrived at Finsbury Park tube station to see the gates firmly shut, luckily there was a bus instead. Eurostar was very easy. And so here we are, country number 1: France. It was 10am with my hostel check-in at 3pm, but I decided against finding somewhere to leave my bag. First stop was a cafe (KP Roasters), I was starving and very much in need of a coffee. As I slowly ate a cheese and onion scone with chive cream cheese (it was interesting, I’ll leave it at that) and drank my flat white, the man next to me asked me where I was from. Clearly the french boy haircut (as dubbed by Tarsha) wasn’t fooling anyone. We had a lovely chat, he had done a similar trip when he was 24 and whilst on it set up a not-for profit organisation that now employs 200 people (makesense)! He gave me some tips for Paris and travelling in general. It energised me more than the coffee and scone did to be honest. Also whilst sitting at this cafe I noticed a cool looking building in the near distance, and this is where I aimed for next. It was the Sacre Coer of Montremarte, and it was up a lot of stairs. But my packing was proven light enough and I had a lovely time exploring the area, lots of people painting portraits and pretty small streets.

After I had my fill I made my way to the hostel. I didn’t fancy the trek to Gentilly so I used the metro. This is where I had my first two less glamorous travelling moments. Firstly, the doors on the metro don’t automatically open when you arrive at a station, and the button, in my opinion, is not well labelled. I’m sure you can work out the issue I had there. The second issue arose when I tried to exit the metro station, but couldn’t find a slot for my paper ticket. After waiting awkwardly for a while I caved and stopped a man to ask for help. He gestured to a different gate which did have a ticket slot but was out of order. Turns out the gates on that one were open the whole time. The following evening I was returning back quite late from a bar and this time the out of order sign had been removed. This had clearly been done in haste however, as the gate still didn’t actually work. Two other girls with paper tickets joined me in slight panic - stuck in a metro station at 1am is not where any of us wanted to be. A french man saw the situation and managed to gesture to us all to squeeze in the space between the barrier and the place you scan your ticket. He scanned his card and we all rushed through, with the man being only minorly crushed. I haven’t been impressed with the metro.

I thought it might be fun to try a french yoga class, and after walking with my rucksack all day my body would definitely benefit from one. I found a studio and booked in for an Iyengar yoga class. I’ve never tried (or even heard of) this form of yoga before, but thought it made sense to try something new. This was most definitely a mistake. I know very little french and without any familiarity of the poses or sequences it was a struggle. It was a very prop heavy class, that involved a lot of deep floor stretches. This would usually be a calming style of yoga, but this class was not calming. The instructor was very intense and almost aggressive, we were certainly not meeting her expectations. But as I didn’t actually know what she was saying I couldn’t do much to help. It was quite funny, and at least I wasn’t the british girl next to me who was picked on repeatedly by the instructor.

My time in Paris continued in a similarly slow and pleasant fashion (ignoring the metro issues). I met up with a friend who gave me an off the beaten path tour (thanks Laura), enjoyed the sun walking along the Seine and went to the catacombs. I had never liked Paris when I visited it previously, but I like it this time. I think it’s the sunny weather. Even Parisians can’t be grumpy when it’s sunny.

Some extras

Food/cafe highlights

• Cafe Med - 3 delicious courses for 14.50 euros
• The trusted baguette, jar of mustard mayonaise and emmental
• Lots of crepes
• The Musee de la vie Romantique cafe - sheltered under blossom trees and rose bushes, really beautiful
• Le Pavillon des Canaux - the most amazing cafe decorated like someone’s house, with tables in a kitchen and bathroom (and the actual bathtub)

Catacombs
Cost - 15 euros if bought on the day. Took about an hour. I wouldn’t recommend to be honest, the ones in Rome are more impressive. The bones are just sort of stacked here.

The catacombs were originally mining tunnels. They became catacombs when the department put in charge of dealing with the overfilled and unsanitary cemeteries decided the solution was to move the bones to the tunnels to create a tourist site. The whole thing was a bit tainted after learning that. Also by the australian guy behind me the whole way round who kept pointing out good eye holes he’d like to put his penis in. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find it slightly funny though.

The inevitable

At the Louvre I had my first unwanted encounter with a man. How does a man think they’re making someone feel by coming up to them and saying “I like you” immediately followed by “are you alone?”, if not hugely uncomfortable? I’m almost certain this man had only good intentions, he was smiling pleasantly and wasn’t at all threatening, yet I still felt threatened. Luckily my large group of friends was just behind me…

But, for balance, the male receptionist at the hostel didn’t charge me the 4 euros to leave my bag in storage on my last day. I’m not sure he would’ve done that if I was a man, but who knows!

A true french meal: a baguette, a jar of mustard mayonaise, a pack of emmental cheese.
Cost: around 5 euro, with the mayo and cheese doing the next day’s lunch too

Laura and I went to find some lunch to enjoy in the sun on the side of the canal. We stopped at a boulangerie first, and I picked up a black baguette. After doing some research, it’s black because of the addition of charcoal. It just tasted like a normal baguette. We nipped into a Carrefour where I got the mustard mayonaise and the emmental, and also an Orangina and a packet of Prince sandwich biscuits. We found our way back to the canal and sat to enjoy our feast. The baguette was wonderfully soft inside, the mustard mayo had so much flavour of both good eggy mayo and dijon mustard, the emmental was plasticy and plain. A true french meal. And, honestly, my favourite meal in Paris.

It was so good, I had the same thing the next day sat in the sun in the Jardin du Luxembourg.

How do you prepare for a trip like this?

I knew I wanted a gap year very early on, in sixth form, but decided to do a post-uni one instead of the usual pre-uni. Any travel I did during uni cemented the idea that I absolutely wanted to have a year to travel before starting life. I got my training contract and asked for it to be delayed a year, they agreed and here we are! This trip was originally planned for straight after uni, so 2020. For obvious reasons it’s now happening this year, in 2022! I’m very lucky to have been able to postpone it 2 years without any major issues, being able to do my law conversion studying in the meantime. But now it’s finally time to go!

The idea for this trip came from watching the BBC show Race Across the World (I’d highly recommend). The first season saw the teams racing from London to Bangkok without flying. The actual travelling looked amazing and I thought the idea was a cool one - on both an environmental and slow travel level. So the location of my gap year was decided pretty easily.

Actual preparations have been sparse. I worked out a very rough route with some even rougher timings to check seasons were okay (no monsoons thank you) and that it was actually possible to cross certain borders. I looked into the countries and found some things I’d definitely like to see/do, but I’ve left most of that sort of thing to later. I’ll have plenty of time to look into stuff whilst travelling, and can get recommendations from people I meet on the way. I sorted my vaccinations and travel insurance. I brought a new bag (see below for more packing insights). I contacted my first workaway host for when I’m in Switzerland. About a month before I left I booked transport to Paris and a hostel for two nights. And that’s it!

I love packing

Said no one literally ever. And definitely not me. But I have actually loved packing for this trip. Something about carefully choosing the only items you’re going to have with you for the next year is oddly satisfying. I thought it might be interesting to share my packing list. A little amuse bouche before the travel posts begin.

What’s in my bag?

The final bag…

My bag is the Osprey Fairview 55 litres. It includes a day pack that attaches to the main bag.
I’m also taking a small cross-body bag.

So there we are, packed and ready to go!
I’ll have to buy some warmer clothes when I move into colder climates, and perhaps some hiking boots, but hopefully this will have me sorted for the first 6 months.

My name is Meg. I’m travelling for the next 12 months, from England to Thailand across land. I wanted a place to properly record this trip - no highlight reel and no restraints. Complete freedom on what I write about, and a chance to actually write. Who knows what this blog will include, but definitely don’t expect consistency or beautiful prose.

You’re very welcome to join me on the evolution of this page and, more importantly, my trip.

Route plan:

Disclaimer: You might note that my route goes through a few war zones, but don’t worry I’m not completely insane! If they are still not great places to travel through (I’m not holding my breath), I will fly over them. Currently it’s looking like I’ll be flying from Uzbekistan to Nepal, and from Nepal to Thailand.

Leaning into the travelling hippy vibe

When I notice a full moon I make a mental note of where I am, I think back to where I was on the last one, and I think forward to where I might be on the next one. It takes all of 1 minute to do but it’s a nice moment of reflection. The world moves in cycles, and so do we. Noticing the little cycles specific to you are a personal, private affair, but observing the huge cycle of the moon seems like one that should be shared. So I plan on doing my personal piece of reflection on noticing a full moon in this space!

Expect a short:

1. this is where I am now;
2. this is where I was on the last one;
3. and this is where I think I might be on the next one.

It might lead to some interesting reflections, or just show how little forward planning I’m doing on this trip when my future prediction is completely wrong!

Is this a food blog too?

This is a travel blog sure, but what’s travelling without eating a lot of amazing food? So this is the space for all things food related. I’m imaginging descriptions of certain meals so vivid you can taste them; recipes for said meals; and descriptions of my own creations and other strange foods I’ve turned to for sustenance as I remember I’m travelling on a budget.

If you have any food recommendations, of delicacies I absolutely have to try in certain countries, please DM me: meg.co7 (instagram)!

Won’t you get lonely travelling alone?

The great misunderstanding of what travelling alone means! As I’ve happily explained to several people recently, travelling alone doesn’t mean I’m going to be alone. In fact, I’ll probably be with people most of the time. The people I meet will form as important part of my memories of this trip as the sights I see. I truly love meeting new people, hearing about their lives and getting to know them. I’d like to record these experiences, sharing people’s lives along with my other travel experiences (with permission of course!).

Expect some Humans of New York style pieces here.

Did you know I studied biology?

Although I graduated from my biology degree in 2020 and have been studying law since, I still have an interest in biology. So I’m of course going to include some biology posts in this blog. Expect a deep dive into common plants I’ve noticed in certain areas, or beautiful birds I’ve seen, or just some general observational ramblings.