I’ve been travelling my whole life — long before I ever called it that.
As a child, I explored local terrain on my bike, disappearing down old railway tracks, imagining I was one of the Famous Five. I loved the feeling of discovery, the quiet thrill of finding somewhere new, the sense that the world was bigger than the life I was living.
By eighteen, the early trance and Hacienda (1984) years ,I’d moved out with nothing but a bag and £10 in my pocket. I worked seasons in hotels across North Wales, Mid Wales, Cornwall, Hayling Island, Jersey, and London — five months at a time, no fear, just going wherever the next job took me. Life was simple: me, movement, and possibility.
After the big storm of 1987 and Jersey was massively hit, that winter I travelled to London on the way to somewhere else, stopping off to work at Heathrow for a large hotel chain. Within 2 weeks my world shifted and I met my husband . Two years later – Marriage. Children. Responsibility. and a new line of work. Like many women, my world narrowed. I became mother, wife, daughter‑in‑law. Travel became holidays and pockets of time rather than a way of being.
But something in me never forgot.
In 1995, my kids were small and I wanted something different, I did some voluntary work then I began to train as a therapist, my inner world expanded. I healed old wounds. I grew psychologically. And I always knew that when my boys were older, when I didn’t need to be home all the time, I would explore again — not just the world, but myself. By 1999 my world was falling apart again, I was completing my studies and also my marriage.
By 2016, that moment arrived. I was incredibly proud of both my sons, and everything we had got through as both were doing well and one son was now going to university, the other preparing to move out. For the first time in years, life was opening up again. I was back in my car, driving to see him in Bournemouth — and then further, exploring places I’d never seen. He gave me his tablet, and I started taking photos. Photography slowed me down. It made me notice the sea, the sky, the coastline — rugged, pretty, quiet. I realised I had always been drawn to the water, to places like Ibiza that connected me to my soul, to stillness, to the feeling you get when you turn off the noise.
I was beginning to feel free again.
Then the car accident happened. It punctured my life energy and my body. 2019 became a year of physical, mental, and emotional healing — on top of years of strain and burnout.
And then 2020 arrived. The world went quiet. We all reconnected with ourselves in ways we didn’t expect.
By late 2021, I was able to get out again — first on my bike, then in the car, always back to the coast. That’s where I felt alive.
But the real turning point had begun in 2016, when I first asked myself:
What next? What do I really want? Where do I want to live? Who am I becoming?
Travel kept calling me — the sun on my face, the wind in my hair, the people I met, the landscapes that held me. It wasn’t just movement. It was remembering.
2022 love called me to new places and spaces
In 2023, I travelled and healed while grieving. In 2024 and 2025, I experimented — with work, with freedom, with identity, with the road. And then came Scotland.
That trip wasn’t just travel. It was ancestry. It was family. It was reverence. It was deep healing. It was the moment I realised:
I had been rebuilding my life the entire time.
Not through a plan. Not through certainty. But through movement, instinct, and courage.
Travel became how I:
- processed burnout
- healed after a serious accident
- reclaimed autonomy
- reconnected with my soul
- designed a life that finally felt aligned
It’s not about van life. It’s not about escape. It’s not about content.
It’s about remembering I’m allowed to live differently — and showing you that you are too.
If something here resonates, stay with it. Let it be slow. Let it be spacious. Let it remind you that you can create a life you love — one small step, one new landscape, one brave choice at a time.
— Mel