/ Georgina Does

a Relaxed New Zealand North Island Road trip

Wednesday, 23 October 2019

Like most people, Jonny hadn't really seen much of his own country and having spent 5 months there myself, I was a terrible traveller and had seen even less. With plans set to leave for Oz, we thought we should probably have a look around New Zealand before we left and decided to turn the standard one hour flight from Auckland to Wellington into a little bit of an adventure instead.

New Zealand is world renowned for its incredible landscapes and adventurous hikes; and being the home of a very famous series of films. A Lord of the Rings road trip is a very popular choice since there's so many sites to see but I've never seen any of the films myself so that wasn't on my agenda.

I am not one for exerting too much energy, especially whilst I am on holiday. So, with just under a week to spare before we set off for Sydney, we took a leisurely drive down the North island.

Auckland

We actually left on a Friday night after work but having seen an incredible waterfall the week before, I thought it was definitely worth mentioning. Half an hours drive from where we lived or 50 minutes from the city, KareKare falls was a perfect little light afternoon adventure. Park up the car and take a 3 minute, signposted walk through the forest. We arrived in the late afternoon to a totally empty waterfall. It was incredible.

Hamilton

We arrived in Hamilton in the late evening and left first thing in the morning but it wasn't a problem because there isn't all that much to do there. We would have skipped the destination altogether but Jonnys cousins live there so we went to visit them. We hit up the casino in town and then grabbed some food before heading to bed; so that was all we saw of the area. If we had a bit more time in the morning, I would have liked to eat a Nourish POD and visit the botanical garden.

Waitomo

Having booked a tour that we were both very excited about, we left Hamilton at 9.45am and arrived just over an hour later. Waitomo is famous for its glow worm caves and whilst there is the option of rafting or caving through them, we booked a much more relaxed walking, guided tour that ended with a boat ride through the caves. Our guide was a local man who told us all sorts of magical stories about the caves past and how the glow worms came to be there. The boat ride was short but incredible - it felt like a real life Disney ride.

Rotorua

After the caves we headed straight to Rotorua. We spent a fun filled afternoon at Skyline; grabbing gondolas and chair lifts to the top of mountains and ziplining and luge-ing down them. It was super busy but very well run so the few hours we spent there was full of activity and there was hardly any waiting around.

Afterwards, we headed into town for japanese food and spent the rest of the night back at Aria's Farm - our accomodation for the night. With a clear sky and the moon so big from the recent eclipse, they suggested we do some star gazing from their hot tub, so that's exactly what we did! A truly magical day in New Zealand.

Before we left Rotorua in the morning, we took a dip at the famous hot pools at the Polynesian spa.

Taupo

An hours drive later, we arrived in Taupo; another place full of natural phenomenons. We stayed here for two nights, although it was doable in less. Having tried a farmstay in Rotorua, here we experienced Boulevard Waters, a boutique motel right on the lake and The Lake Motel, a retro themed studio flat.

Over the two days, we hit up Huka Falls, the Craters of the moon and the Watakeri terraces as well as I'm sure you've guessed, lots of eating. With your own transport, it's very easy to park up at each one and take a leisurely walk around. It's also worth mentioning that all three of these attractions happened to be on the same road.

Wellington

Wellington is the capital and one of my favourite parts of the country because it's full of life and also full of quirky cafes. Jonny is originally from Wellington so apart from spending lots of time with his family before we left, we spent most of our time wandering around town trying to pick where we wanted to eat.

There are lots of other things to do there though including driving up to the top of Mount Victoria for panoramic views, visiting the Te Papa museum to see the giant squid, walking along the bays and if you're a LOTR fan (which I am not) the Weta studios are supposed to be very good.

From Wellington, you can hop on a ferry and sail across the Cook Strait to Picton on the south island.

This little trip really made me appreciate the beauty of the country which I definitely didn't see enough of by staying in Auckland! Had we had more time before we left the country, I would have loved to see some of the south island as well.

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Tuesday, 15 October 2019

Having just got back from sailing the med on a Royal Caribbean cruise, I thought sharing my average day on board could be an interesting topic. It seems fairly obvious that most people think you have to be over the age of 60 to book all inclusive cruises but from my experience, that usually isn't the case.

I won't lie, this last cruise, it absolutely was the case and it wasn't ideal. But, that doesn't mean there's nothing for young people to do on cruise ships. The Independence of the Seas has all sorts of fun stuff for younger people from an ice rink to an arcade and even a newly added escape room.

It's very easy to laze around on a sunbed all day if that's what you enjoy; the buffet is just next door to the swimming pool and the soft serve ice cream machine but that isn't our style and our days were packed full from beginning to end.

Breakfast

From a huge buffet on the top deck to a served breakfast in the main dining room, like all of our meals on board, there were lots of options. I did get up for food for the first few days, but soon discovered it was the easiest time for me to skip a meal (you'll understand why by the end of this post) so my day usually started by meeting my parents after they had had breakfast at around 9.30am.

Explore on Land

Arguably, the best part of a cruise holiday is that you wake up in a new place almost every day. We did a 12 night Spanish Mediterranean tour which consisted of 8 stops and 4 days at sea so when we were docked, we got up early and went to explore. Sea days were the perfect excuse for a lay in.

There were some awesome stops, surprisingly, a few that we hadn't been to before but my two highlights were Lisbon; we hired a lady in a tuk tuk to show us around before stopping off for a whole load of pastel de natas, and Ibiza where we climbed to the top of the island to look over the ocean before climbing back down to the habour for a well deserved paella.

The good thing about it being accessible for the older generation is that everything is super easy. The ship docks, you walk off the gangway and then you're ready to go! You can join a coach tour and get picked up from there or go off and do whatever you fancy.

Lunch

Only a small part of our day was spent on shore, we usually got bored after a couple of hours and couldn't wait to get back on the ship to eat some more.

Activity

After lunch was my favourite part of the day and usually when we'd find ways to entertain ourselves on board. Sometimes I'd head to the gym but I'd usually save that for windy days at sea; so on sunny days at port my brothers and I would head to the top deck to go on the Flowrider.

On this particular day, I went straight from the gym and with lack of preparation, jumped on in my sports bra and shorts. Definitely recommend a sturdy top and I have had some flyaway bikini tops in the past!

After that, it was time to grab my headphones; and sometimes a frozen cocktail, and find somewhere cosy to curl up for the rest of the afternoon.

Get Glam

Time to head back to the room to get ready for the evening! To my mum's despair, most nights I went for dinner super casual in a sweater and shorts. There were 3 formal nights on our voyage and although we didn't get to fancy for those, I did step it up from the loungewear. Some people get really dressed up in floor length ball gowns and suits!

Dinner

The buffet was open but we would always go to the main restaurant which was spread across three floors and this was where our eating got totally out of hand.

On one of the first nights, my brother couldn't decide which starter to order so our waitress said she'd just bring him both. From then on, we got into the habit of ordering any dish that sounded good which meant while everyone around us was having a normal three course dinner, we would have anywhere between 4 and 7 courses turn up for each of us. Think NY steaks, lobster tails, lamb shanks and duck breast mains, it was all very rich and decadent!

Drinks & Show

By this point, the ship had set sail again and the internet connection was gone for the night. We did struggle but it was a good thing because it meant we didn't spend all our time glued to phones. Buying onboard wifi was extortionate so we only did that on days at sea.

My dad liked to go and watch the show after dinner and if it sounded good, we'd go with him. Otherwise it was a matter of grabbing a cocktail and chilling at one of the many bars around the ship for an hour or so.

Games

Back together after that, we usually spent the rest of the evenings playing cards and drinking cocktail after cocktail in the sports bar.

Failing that, I took the odd night to go back to the room early and watch Netflix in bed!

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Thursday, 22 August 2019

I've been home a couple of times over the past few years of non-stop travel but this, is the first time in a while I've come home with no immediate plans to leave again. When I initially booked my flight, I was worried that I was going to miss the daily adventures, exploring, discovering and learning something new every single day and come back to the boring world I left in 2017 but that doesn't seem to have been the case.

Turns out, coming home wasn't the end of my adventure, it was the start of a whole new, different one! This week marks my first month back and I have jammed a whole lot into it! Here's what Ive been up to:

Brighton

My mum and I both missed our annual trips to Brighton whilst I was away so it was the first thing we wanted to do when I got back. As usual, we got up early and drove down there for breakfast, spent the day shopping and wandering around the lanes before pitching up at a seaside cafe, sharing a seafood platter and drinking frozen cocktails on the beach. We spent hours sitting in the sunshine discussing life and looking at Walt Disney world tickets hopefully that'll be one of my next destinations!

Cambridge

I'd never been to Cambridge before so when we had another couple of free days and some awesome weather, mum and I decided to venture down there. I've always wanted to go punting in Cambridge so we did that and it was great! Very pleased that I'm still ticking things off the bucket list, even at home!

Birmingham

I've had two weddings this month and they couldn't have been more different from one another. The first was a sunny afternoon at a cute country manor with all of my high school friends..

and the second involved Georgia buying me a ticket to Birmingham and not giving me much more information on the matter! Turned out, we were going an Indian wedding and it was one of the craziest events I've ever been to.

#JetMe2TheGreek With Jet2

Jet2 invited me to join them for a Greek cooking class to celebrate the launch of their new summer 2020 destinations; Lefkas and Parga.

It was awesome to have a blogging event in London to go to after being away for so long because it meant I got to catch up with all my London travel blogger friends and have some fun together!

Colchester

Another little day trip with mum, although we weren't very impressed with this one since there didn't seem to be much going on in the town center.

We did find the cutest little tearoom for lunch and I picked up a few bits in Primark so it wasn't a wasted trip, we still had a good time! Plus I got to wear my brand new Converse. My collection of coloured high tops seems to be growing pretty quick and I loved these! I picked them up via, lovethesales.com trainer section with a £10 discount.

London

I seem to have seen quite a lot of new parts of London since I got home too! We drove to Peckham one afternoon to find a specialist shop, got the train to Greenwich to see what all the fuss was about (didn't like it), had my first Groupon afternoon tea at a Hilton and a birthday meal on the river by Canary wharf!

On top of that, I've joined up to my local gym, been to the zoo and even started thinking about giving my room a little spruce up with some cute decor ideas from furniture.com. I realise that my blogging has taken a little bit of a hit as of lately and I've worked out that it's because I actually dont have a proper desk to work at! But fear not, the desk hunt has begun, I've found a couple that I really like on Lionshome so watch this space. Hopefully I'll be back to my weekly posting in no time.

Cute new mesh top from Femme Luxe

It's been a busy old month but I'm definitely not complaining, if every month at home looked like this, I won't be in a rush to go anywhere else, any time soon!

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Thursday, 25 July 2019

With my stint in New Zealand done and now my Australian working holiday visa over too, I'm back home in the UK, plotting my next move! I'm not sure what I want to do next, whether that's go back to Asia, (I never managed to get to Cambodia) settle down back in London or another working holiday - this time in Canada.

It seems like it was the next step for alot of people I met along the way and I wont lie, I have caught myself looking at flights to Montreal and flights to all the major cities in Canada a couple of times since I got home, I am intrigued to say the least.

Like before I got to New Zealand, I don't actually know all that much about Canada or life there, but I have only heard good things from everyone who has been so I've decided to do some research and put together a list or potential reasons that it could be a good idea!

Ease of Visa

Applying for the Canadian working holiday visa (also referred to as the IEC – International Experience Canada visa) seems pretty simple! They take UK applications and I'm in the right age bracket so I don't think it'd be too hard to arrange, now that I am the working holiday visa expert.

Friends

I say friends, but I mean one person in particular; Selena. She is the one who enabled my travels and gave me the confidence to go in the first place - and she lives in Canada so I'd love to go and visit her. Shes had a baby girl since I last saw her too!

Poutine

Self explanatory. From what I've heard, the food in Canada is awesome!

Family

I do actually have family in Canada as well.

Tourist Opportunities

I'd love to visit the big cities, see a grizzly bear, Niagara Falls and experience the Northern lights. There's a whole list of things I'd love to see and do in Canada.

So definitely some food for thought there!

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Saturday, 1 June 2019

Back in 2017 I embarked on my first solo trip; one which I had meticulously spend the past 3 months planning day by day. My adventure around Southeast Asia would start Kuala Lumpur (for 3 days) and then I would leave Malaysia until the end of my trip when I would have to go back to catch my return flight home. I planned to visit Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Bali, Java, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

That all changed from the day I touch down KL and met some people who later became some of my best friends.

Turns out I ended up spending 6 weeks of that trip in Malaysia and a whopping 26 days (almost a 3rd of the whole trip) just in Kuala Lumpur. I had no idea how awesome it was going to be; but as everyone says that's the great thing about travelling solo. I made my plans to suit myself and ended up leaving and flying back to Kuala Lumpur 4 times throughout.

I had such a good time that I never ended up getting around to writing about it and now, a year and a half later, I'm seeing people popping up on Twitter all the time saying that they going to Malaysia and asking questions. That is when I realised that I actually have quite a lot of knowledge on the subject.

This post is going to be a little bit different from the usual Kuala Lumpur City guide type blog posts. I had just come out of an eight year relationship, I made an awesome group of friends and all I was interested in doing was hanging out with them and meeting as many new people as possible. So whilst most of the Kuala Lumpur guides you might see online, cover the usual tourist hotspots; this one is going to be more about the social side of things.

Where to stay

I stayed between two different hostels and they were both awesome for different reasons - I would happily go back to both because I had absolutely wild time at each of them.

Sunshine Bedz

So this was the one that I booked when I did my crazy plan and considering it was the only part of that plan that I stuck do, I did a pretty good job. It lived up to its brilliant reviews and was very central with good transport links.

Although I can't really comment about how close it was to the tourist attractions because I didn't really see any of them, I can tell you it was very close the bars and restaurants, the shopping malls and had great transport links with a tube station just outside and a bus stop a bit further down.

The beds were super comfortable and every room was very clean from what I could see. I stayed in female dorms, mixed dorms, private rooms and I also stayed up chatting on the sofa till 5 a.m. most nights so I feel pretty qualified to comment. And as the 5 a.m. chats suggest the atmosphere for making friends at this place was perfect.

Step Inn Too

I ended up here as one of my friends from Sunshine bedz took on a job there. I would definitely recommend this place for the party hungry backpacker; although if that's not you, the beds are in a different part of the building so it's actually very quiet and comfortable for sleeping as well.

For me, the location for this one wasn't as good plus when you walk in, it doesn't really look much but the community and atmosphere at this hostel was so awesome that's it didn't even matter that the nightclubs were a bit of a trek (25 minute walk maybe).

What I loved about staying here was that we didn't even go to the Bar Street most nights instead we bought alcohol from 7-Eleven and got drunk and reception; and when it got late we relocated to the backstreet road just outside the front door. 19.50MR for that bottle of vodka? £3.70.

As mentioned, the beds are completely out of the way so everything was quiet. Also I stayed in the 4 bed dorms and the 20 bed dorm which was more like lots of twin rooms all joint together. I found that 20 bed dorms are the best place to meet and bond with people so don't be scared to book one.

Jalan Alor

Jalan Alor or food Street as everyone calls it is just down the road from Sunshine bedz and one of my favourite places to eat from the entirety of my trip. The food scene in Malaysia is actually pretty cool with a mix of all sorts of other Asian foods but quite a strong influence from India.

Heading to Jalan Alor was the first thing I did when I arrived in Kuala Lumpur and it was the best way to thrust myself straight into crazy Southeast Asian City life.

An incredible street buzzing with people and lights and restaurants and street food vendors. I'd go on my own or I'd go with my friends and we would all just pick up things from different places as we went. Thai, Indian, dumplings, hot pots, coconut ice cream & fresh fruit.

I'm not going to lie, as a bunch of Brits Abroad we did spend quite a lot of time at Nandos - but if it is a short, flying visit, I recommend just taking advantage of all the amazing local food.

The Malls

Malaysia has some impressive malls and I love that you can pretty much find anything you need - One of my friends was looking for a resistance band so he could do some exercise (travelling made me fat) and of course we found one - I'm not even sure I'd be able to find one of those in London.

I spent most of my time in Berjaya Times Square with my English friends, usually looking for our KFC fix, playing snooker in a sketchy underground club just outside or bowling; which is not something I imagined I'd be doing all that often but whatever. This place was literally like 10 stories tall and had a full sized roller coaster inside.

Pavilion was also in the centre of town but was a lot more classy and full of designer shops and nice restaurants so I didn't spend as much time there.

Nightlife

Or Bar Street as everyone knows it. I had to actually look up the official name of this place and according to Google it's called Changkat, Bukit Bintang. I have absolutely no idea how to get there since I only ever saw it when I was drunk and had followed the rest of the group there but I can tell you that is a very short walk from Sunshine bedz and there is a very tasty shwarma stall on the way back!

One thing that I found incredible about nightlife in Kuala Lumpur was that women drink for free on Wednesdays (ladies night) and most other nights as well actually if I'm being honest. I could not believe it when I first got there but you just go to the bar ask for the drink and then take it. I'm sure there are people who will say there's no alcohol in them but they got me drunk every single night so believe what you want.

Now I know this is not something you can just magic up but the best thing that I did in Kuala Lumpur was make friends with two locals. The boys were already friendly with my English friends when I arrived and thanks to them I got to see a lot more of KL life then I would have done otherwise. They snuck us into hotels with amazing rooftop pools, they got us half price meals at restaurants and they booked an apartment so we could celebrate a birthday away from the other guests and hostel rules with an incredible view over the city from the 22nd floor.

So that's how I spent the majority of my time in Kuala Lumpur. I did check out a few of the tourist spots like China town and the Petronas Towers (and I was actually lucky enough to see Malaysia's last Formula 1 race) but I'm sure you can find all the information you need about that on Google. If you do have any more questions about social life and meeting people in Kuala Lumpur then please don't hesitate to email me or drop me a tweet

SLIDER

a Relaxed New Zealand North Island Road trip

Wednesday, 23 October 2019

Are cruise ships for old people?

Tuesday, 15 October 2019

MY first month back home

Thursday, 22 August 2019

Considering canada

Thursday, 25 July 2019

The social backpackers guide to a good time in Kuala Lumpur

Saturday, 1 June 2019