I wont lie. My one main hobby is reading, and I do spend an awful lot of time of it. But the one other thing that I LOVE doing is travelling. I’ve been lucky enough to visit over 20 different countries spanning 4 continents and if Covid hadn’t have happened, I would have added a few more to the list this year. So for this post I’m going to focus on my top ten countries/cities that I’ve visited. I travelled to most of these places in 2015 when I took 7 months off work and set off on a round the world journey travelling to Europe, North America, New Zealand and Thailand. It was such a brilliant opportunity and one that I will always remember, and I’ve not been able to stop jetting off to new places since.

Top Ten Tuesday is run by Jana over at That Artsy Reader Girl and you should definitely go give her blog some love.

Porto – Portugal

I was treated to a sneaky weekend away to Porto earlier this year for my 30th Birthday! I wont lie when I say the main reason we decided to go here was to visit the Livraria Lello – the famous library. Porto is such a beautiful, if not slightly hilly city, and there are plenty of other gorgeous sights to make it well worth a visit.

North America

I spent 2.5 months travelling from one side of North America to the other visiting cities and national parks along the way. Some favourites of mine have to be New York, Yosemite National Park and The Grand Canyon, but we visited SO many other places that I loved.

New Zealand

If I was going to move to any other country in the world it would be New Zealand. It is one of THE most beautiful places and to top it all off Lord of the Rings was filmed there! We went one way too many LOTR tours, but New Zealand was also the place my inner adrenaline junkie came out after doing a 16,500 ft Sky Dive and went on the highest cliff swing in the world. Add in breath-taking scenery and some amazing animal sightings and we were hard pressed to leave.

Lauterbrunnen – Switzerland

Well… I can now say I’ve been sledging in the middle of July. I lucked out and camped in a valley surrounded by the Alps, went up the highest rail station in Europe and just revelled in the breath-taking scenery I was treated too.

Rome – Italy

I freaking love Rome so much! I spent nearly a week here the first time and ended up going back to watch England v Italy in the 6 nations. It is a city I could easily get lost in just wandering the streets, and as a lover of pasta and pizza, I never got sick of the food.

Chang Mai – Thailand

This was the final stop on my 2015 travels. Elephant Nature Park just outside of Chang Mai in Thailand. It was a working holiday, you were expected to help out around the camp, gathering food for the elephants, cleaning out the stalls and general ground keeping, but all that was made super special by the fact there were Elephants walking around, giving you a sniff with their trunks whilst you were doing it.

Iceland

This was a later trip I actually went on with my Dad. I never believed I could be that cold, but after horse-riding in a blizzard I’ll never complain about a northern winter again. We got super lucky and saw the northern lights, straddled the North American and European continents and saw some spectacular sights on a Golden Circle tour.

Berlin – Germany

Berlin is probably my favourite European city. I am a huge modern history buff and this is one city that is filled to the brim with history. The 5 days there were spent travelling from museum to museum, checkpoint charlie and seeing the remnants of the wall. Some of it was harrowing, but all of it was really educational and I just couldn’t get enough.

Paris – France

‘Paris is the Key to my heart!’ (any other Anastasia fans out there?) I’ve been to Paris twice now and I will never get bored of wanderin the streets, strolling down the seine, visiting the Notre dame and the Eiffel Tower.

Glencoe – Scotland

This is my calm place. I’ve been here so many times, on family holidays and recently dragged a friend up so he could see the wonder of this for himself. Scotland in general is a favourite country of mine and I never get sick of visiting both old friends and new places every time I visit.

There are my 10 favourites but there are so many more places I’ve visited and loved! Do you like to travel? Have you been to any of these places, or want to? Let me know in the comments.