Music For Travelling

Bus journeys are boring, save for those rare trips where something interesting happens (like driving onto Ninety Mile Beach). Car journeys are also boring unless you can stop regularly to take photos of all the pretty things. Even flights can get boring, despite in-flight entertainment.

But with the addition of a little music... well, suddenly everything's a little less boring and a bit more awesome. What better way to spend an otherwise dull drive between stops then singing along to a favourite song? How about driving up a mountain in the dark and the rain, flashes of lightning illuminating the sky, hairpin bends at every corner and a favourite musical soundtrack blaring from the speakers?

Certainly kept us sane while driving up Mount Hercules on New Zealand's west coast. Should have been terrifying but I mostly remember it now as hilarious since Claire and I spent it singing along to Avenue Q and occasionally squeaking when a particularly sharp bend appeared in the headlights.

Well, how can you take things seriously when this is playing?

And then there's the obvious choice for New Zealand, but also for adventuring in general. I think it might have begun to grate on Claire and Amy that I kept bursting out with this at random points. It inspires my spirit of adventure, though.

It doesn't help that we'd already come out with "YOU SHALL NOT HAAAAAAST!" when we thought we'd have to bypass the Haast Pass and go the long way round... after that, singing The Ring Goes South whilst driving through the Haast Pass seemed sort of normal...

Moving on from that rambling. This was our Ireland jam. I have no idea why. It just sort of happened and then it got to the point where all three of us would burst into song for no apparent reason and sort of try and fail to harmonise. Fun times.

Whyever wouldn't you sit on Carrickarede singing Waterfalls? Ignore the fact there's no waterfall...

 This is known among the New Zealand Expedition (read: me, my friend Claire and my sister) as the "Killy-killy-death song". Only because it came up on shuffle while my sister was driving and it freaked her out enough for her to want it turning off.

Shame. It's a good song.

What better way of passing the time than popping on a long forgotten album or sticking your music player on shuffle just to see what comes up?

For the really long drives/flights/boats though, I have a bunch of podcasts. These range from the BBC's Infinite Monkey Cage (science and comedy) to the Coffee Break language learning series. If I'm going to be stuck on a bus for 24 hours, I might as well learn something new while I'm at it!

What music do you enjoy while travelling? Got any good podcast recommendations? Why not share in the comments below.

The Joy of Travel Books

I love a good book. Proper books. I've never got on with e-books - there's just nothing like the feel of a new book, that amazing smell of paper.

OK, so weird book obsession aside, travel books are brilliant. What better way to start your trip planning than picking up a guidebook and picking a random page? All those little hints and tips, places you maybe hadn't thought of visiting. All in one easily consumed book.

It's how my planning for most bits of my fast-approaching round-the-world trip has started. Quick trip to the bookshop and then home with a shiny new book to rifle through. I'm building up quite the collection.

Just a shame I won't be able to take them with me - much too heavy.

Travel guides are just the start though. Inspiration comes in many forms. Take, for example, all those books which list X number of places/experiences/something else you should do before you die. Things like my Lonely Planet 1000 Ultimate Adventures and You Only Live Once, both full of amazing ideas for travel. In the end, they're just lists of interesting things, but they can be a great way to spark the imagination.

Travel books aren't just about inspiration for your own travels, though. A good travel book can transport you around the world without you even leaving your chair. It doesn't even have to involve the real world. I'm a huge fan of Tolkien because his world is so detailed you can imagine being there. And of course, there's the added bonus that New Zealand really does fit a lot of Middle-earth quite well.

What are your favourite travel books? Got any recommendations? Why not share in the comments below...

The Joy of Maps

I love maps. They're so inspiring. Looking at a world map just reminds me how much of the world is still out there to explore. It's not just world maps though. There's so many maps out there, the inspiration is endless. Here's a few of the ones I have in my house.

Ordnance Survey Maps

My dad's big on walking, so we've got a good stack of these. I like them as much for the history behind place names and such as for their actual help for finding walking routes. Sometimes I'll spot something on one of these maps and just have to look it up because, really why are there so many places marked "cold harbour" down the Lincolnshire coast?

Atlases

Both the traditional atlas - i.e. here are maps of the entire face of the globe - and a more fun version with lots of extra little details about the population and culture of each country. Hours can easily be wasted tracing paths across these, imagining journeys you could make.

And atlases for fictional realms

I'm a bit of a Tolkien fan. Just a bit... Combining Tolkien with a love of maps resulted in the purchase of this little gem. It's been well-loved. Mostly in my attempts to work out just how far the Fellowship travelled across Middle-earth. Not sad. Not at all...

Books about maps

Because the history of cartography is every bit as interesting as the actual maps themselves. Which is why I have these.

The oldest world map (possibly)

Not one of mine, but I found this in the British Museum. It's mentioned in one of the books above. It's Babylonian and possibly the oldest world map in existence. Isn't it wonderful?

Museum maps

OK, so if the things above weren't a little bit sad and obsessive, these certainly are. But I promise you, if you're in a rush trying to see things in any of London's big museums, these maps are lifesavers. Why wander round hoping you'll be able to find that exhibit you really wanted to see when you can pick it out on a map and go straight there?

... I have no idea why I keep them...

Wall maps

My sister gifted me this for Christmas. I'm in love with it because I'm a small child at heart and it has marker pens and magnets. And why not? Who wouldn't love to mark their adventures on a map?

Digital maps

Of course, I can't take that wall map with me, so I created this one using a basic outline from the interwebz. It's colour-coded according to places I've been, places I'm going or would like to go in future. What better incentive to explore more of the planet than all those grey/purple/yellow patches that need colouring in?

I'll admit my love of maps borders on the obsessive, but what maps do you enjoy? Do they give you inspiration for future travels? Why not share in the comments?

Travel Inspirations: Playing Cards

Yes, I count playing cards as a travel inspiration. If you're anything like me, one of the things you always forget to pack is a deck of cards for those rare moments when you've run out of sights to see and exciting things to do.

In my family, we sort of almost gave up trying to remember after a while and just bought the cards once we reached our destination. You know the type - cheap things you pick up in the tat/souvenir shops with pretty pictures of the country on them.

Got a few packs now. New Zealand, Ireland, South African Wildlife plus some older ones from Andorra and Canada. The Canadian ones don't have pictures. They have interesting facts about each state/province/territory instead. Great for people like me who love random facts.

But how on earth can I count them as travel inspiration? Most people seem to get that from glossy adverts and those cloyingly inspiring photos so popular on Instagram... so why cards?

Because reasons. The first being that to get the cards in the first place you have to travel. Slightly counter-intuitive. Think of it this way though. You go on holiday, buy a pack of country-photo cards. Maybe there's something in that pack you hadn't heard of? Maybe there's some sort of interesting local custom that's worth checking out.

Take my New Zealand deck for example, which rather boldly claims to be the "best souvenir from New Zealand". It's not. My pounamu necklace ranks much higher. But anyway, there's places in those cards I hadn't heard of before I got there. Places like Tekapo on South Island, with its little church by the lake and the gorgeous scenery around Wanaka. Tekapo was a bit out of reach given our itinerary, but we ended up driving through Wanaka. Admittedly, we had to to get from the West Coast to Queenstown, but hey.

I suppose they act a bit like a tick list. Here, says the card deck, you should see these places. And off you pop to go and see as many of them as you can.

Reason the second is that they're incentive to go back, in part because of that tick list feeling. I didn't get to Milford Sound in New Zealand because a snow storm closed the road, but I have a gorgeous picture of the Sound and nearby Mitre Peak to tell me "COME BACK! WE'RE WAITING!"

The third and final reason is that these cards inevitably catch the landscape at its best. My photography skills are improving but basic and travelling when I have, the weather's not always great. Take the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland for example. It pissed down the entire day when we went there and while I quite like the photos I took, the images on the playing cards I picked up are so much better. Sometimes I wonder if I should just stick them all to my doors with my postcards...

Where do you find your travel inspiration? Any unusual sources?