A Welsh Christmas: London, Wales, and Everywhere In Between (2012)

Every so often a trip comes along that manages to be both a proper family holiday and a homecoming at the same time. Our Christmas in the UK over 2012 into 2013 was exactly that — twelve days of London sightseeing, castles, cousins, and Mum and Dad's back garden in Penarth, with Debra, Nathan, Sam and Lilly all in tow. We flew out on the 18th of December and didn't come home until New Year's Day, and looking back through the photos now, it's one of those trips where practically every day earned its place.

London first

We eased in gently with a day in London on the 20th — the Natural History Museum, a look at Big Ben, the usual business of standing in the cold trying to get everyone in the same photo at the same time. Nothing dramatic, just the sort of first day that reminds you why London never gets old, even when you've done the tourist trail a dozen times before.

[PHOTO: family outside the Natural History Museum] [PHOTO: Big Ben, classic tourist shot]

Dover Castle, and the reluctant king's subject

If I had to pick one story from this whole trip to tell at a dinner party, it's this one. Dover Castle was putting on a living history performance — actors in full costume playing the king and queen, working the crowd, pulling people up to take part. And of course, they zeroed in on Nathan.

He was hauled up in front of everyone with all the enthusiasm of someone being called to the headmaster's office, while the rest of us stood there thoroughly enjoying his discomfort. I don't think I've laughed that hard on a family holiday in years. Everyone else thought it was brilliant theatre; Nathan, less so. It's become one of those stories that gets retold every time the family's together, and it never fails to get a laugh — least of all from him, eventually.

[PHOTO: Nathan roped into the Dover Castle performance]

Christmas Day in Penarth

We based ourselves at Mum and Dad's — Derek and Fay — in Penarth for the heart of the trip, and Christmas Day itself was as classic as it gets: presents in the morning, the whole family under one roof, the kind of Christmas I grew up with myself. There's something quite special about bringing your own kids back to open presents in the same house you did as a child.

[PHOTO: Christmas morning, presents at Mum & Dad's]

The days around Christmas

The days either side of Christmas Day were full in their own quieter way. We wandered down to Penarth Pier, only to find it closed for repairs — the famous pier gate shut tight. Still worth the walk down and the photo, closed or not; it's such a recognisable bit of the town.

[PHOTO: Penarth Pier, gate closed for repairs]

We also did a proper photoshoot in Mum and Dad's back garden, and it turned out to be one of the best things we did all trip — lovely portraits of everyone, and some genuinely great headshots of the kids that I still love. And then there's the shot I'd call the keeper of the whole album: Lilly up on cousin Laura's horse, with Laura leading her round. It's the sort of picture that doesn't need any explanation — it just is the trip, somehow.

[PHOTO: family portraits in the back garden] [PHOTO: Lilly on Laura's horse, Laura leading]

One evening we had a meal out with Julie, Alan, Sarah and Laura — good food, good company, the sort of catching-up-with-family evening that's hard to arrange when everyone's scattered across different countries most of the year.

Windsor, and the leaning house

At some point around this stretch of the trip — the 23rd, or possibly the 26th or 27th, my notes are a little hazy on the exact day — we made the trip over to see Helen and Alan, Debra's sister and her husband, over near Banstead. While we were in Windsor we stopped for the obligatory photo outside the Crooked House — this wonderfully lopsided seventeenth-century timber-framed building that looks like it's about to slide sideways into the street. Every trip needs at least one "so you know where we are" photo, and this was ours.

[PHOTO: the Crooked House of Windsor]

Cardiff, and a proper fanboy moment

The 28th was, for me, one of the best days of the whole trip. We took the family to the Doctor Who Exhibition in Cardiff, and I will happily admit I was as excited as the kids. I grew up with Doctor Who, I've never stopped loving it, and there's something that genuinely makes me proud about the fact that it's been filmed in Wales — my Wales — ever since the show came back in 2005. Getting to walk through an exhibition about it in Cardiff, with my own family in tow, was one of those quietly perfect days where a personal passion and a family holiday line up exactly.

[PHOTO: the family at the Doctor Who Exhibition, Cardiff]

Hampton Court, and heading for home

We closed the trip out on the 30th with a visit to Hampton Court Palace — Henry VIII's old place on the Thames. It felt like exactly the right note to end on: grand, historic, a bit theatrical, not unlike the whole trip itself. A few days later, on New Year's Day, we flew home.

[PHOTO: Hampton Court Palace]

Looking back at it now, this was one of those trips that had a bit of everything — history, family, a proper bit of comic relief courtesy of Nathan and a Dover Castle actor, and a fanboy pilgrimage I still think about. Twelve days, two countries' worth of history, and one thoroughly good excuse to be back home in Wales for Christmas.

 

Belize — August 2013

Andrew, Debra, River (then Nathan, 14), Sam (12) & Lilly (5) · August 3–17, 2013

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Two weeks in Belize, all five of us, based in Placencia on the coast — a proper family expedition with an age range from five to fourteen, which meant a trip built around splitting up as often as coming together.

[PHOTO: Placencia beach / our base on the coast]

The standout day was the boat trip out to Silk Caye on the 8th. Silk Caye is barely an island at all — a sandbar with three trees on it, the kind of postcard Caribbean speck you assume is photoshopped until you're standing on it. The reason to go, though, was the water around it: we swam with nurse sharks and rays, right up close. Nurse sharks are docile, bottom-dwelling things you can actually handle, and there's something wonderfully odd about drifting alongside a shark with no adrenaline involved at all.

[PHOTO: swimming with nurse sharks and rays, Silk Caye]
[PHOTO: Silk Caye — the sandbar island with its three trees]

The adventure quotient went up a notch when the boat ran out of petrol somewhere out in the water, and the owner had to phone ashore for someone to bring more fuel out to us. And then, right at the end, came the moment the trip is still remembered for: Sam was last out of the water, and the boat owner suddenly started calling for him to get out — urgently. Nobody understood why until he explained: a large turtle was heading straight for them, and turtles, unlike the sharks we'd just spent the morning happily petting, can actually bite. Having treated the sharks as a non-event all morning, the idea that the turtle was the dangerous one struck everyone as completely hilarious.

[PHOTO: the boat / the fuel-rescue moment]

A few days later we split the family down the middle. Debra took River and Sam inland to the ATM Caves — Actun Tunichil Muknal — one of the most remarkable cave systems in Central America. You wade through an underground river into a Maya ceremonial cave, the water sometimes neck-deep, and inside are ancient Maya skeletons and artefacts left exactly where they were left, including the famous "Crystal Maiden," a skeleton encrusted in calcite. Lilly, at five, was too young for the wading, so I took her instead to an iguana sanctuary and a butterfly house nearby — the right call for that age, and a good day in its own, gentler way.

[PHOTO: ATM Caves — underground river / cave entrance]
[PHOTO: iguana sanctuary or butterfly house with Lilly]

We spent several days working through the Maya sites inland from Placencia — Xunantunich and Cahal Pech near San Ignacio, and Nim Li Punit and Lubaantun further south, with San Ignacio itself serving as our inland base near the Guatemalan border. There was also a stop at the Cotscombe Basin and the Mayflower ruins along the way. Between the coast and the jungle, the two weeks covered a lot of ground.

[PHOTO: Xunantunich or Cahal Pech ruins]
[PHOTO: Nim Li Punit / Lubaantun]

We closed the trip with a couple of days at the Belize Zoo, on the 15th and 16th — a gentler note to end on after two weeks that had run from shark-infested water to underground rivers to Maya temple ruins.

[PHOTO: Belize Zoo]

Belize packed an enormous amount into two weeks — coast, cave, jungle and ruin — and it's one of those trips where the stories (the turtle, above all) have outlived the itinerary in family retelling.

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Tags: travel, Belize, Central America, 2013, family

 

Ecuador & Galápagos 2026: Volcanoes, Rainforest and Giant Tortoises

Andrew, Debra, Sam & Lilly — 24 June to 13 July

Three weeks, four of us, and a country that somehow packs the Andes, the Amazon and the Galápagos into one trip. Here's how it went, region by region.

[PHOTO: family at the airport / departure shot]

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Quito — 25–26 June

We landed late, so our first night at the Quito Condo on Junín 107 was a quick unpack-and-collapse. It turned out to be a fantastic three-bedroom base for the next couple of days — and only once we were up and about did we discover the neighbourhood properly: little bodegas dotted along the street and a string of good restaurants, including a brilliant breakfast spot in a beautiful old building (a fruit-themed name we're still trying to remember).

[PHOTO: the condo / Junín street]

Old Town was the highlight. Our guide Daniel took us on a walking tour starting at the Basilica — pope-mobile parked round the back — where we learned that the Pope is called "Papa," which also happens to mean potato. From there it turned into a proper food crawl: empanadas and local sweets, coffee, a liqueur tasting, and then a stop where we ground our own coffee beans and did a pour-over. The finale was a chocolate tasting, working up from 100% cacao through the percentages while trying to guess the flavours.

[PHOTO: walking tour / chocolate tasting]

Purely by luck, we were out in the city the moment Ecuador won their World Cup match — the whole of Quito erupted in cheering. Wrong place, right time.

[PHOTO: street celebration]

We also did a cooking class, joined by one other guest — Christine, a retired financier now deep into non-profit work — which made for good company as much as good food.

[PHOTO: cooking class]

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Otavalo Day Trip — 26 June

A day trip out from Quito with Santiago as our guide, who turned out to be brilliant throughout — genuinely looking out for us and shaping the day around what we wanted to see.

First stop was the equator monument, with excellent explanations of the science behind it. We took turns hopping back and forth across the line and got the obligatory screenshot of the iPhone compass reading 0.0, 0. On the way there, we also stopped at a lovely local bakery, Biscoth (not to be confused with biscotti, though similar in spirit).

[PHOTO: equator monument / compass screenshot]

Then on to Otavalo market itself — a mix of genuine local craftsmanship and the usual tourist-market filler, but we dug around and found a few good pieces. I came home with a bone ring and a small stone-carved face. A properly fun day out.

[PHOTO: Otavalo market stalls]

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Cotopaxi & Baños — 27–28 June

We based ourselves at La Floresta Hotel in Baños — a great choice, with roomier "border" rooms, the kids on their own floor above us. Breakfast was included, and on our first night Debra stayed back to rest while the rest of us went for Italian at a place called Ricca-something-or-other.

[PHOTO: La Floresta Hotel]

Cotopaxi itself was the story of the day. At around 4,500 metres the altitude had me panting almost immediately, and it was blowing a genuine gale — something like 30km/h winds. It was bad enough that Sam and Debra took one step out of the car, decided against it, and got straight back in. Lilly, Santiago and I made it across the car park and maybe a quarter of a mile further before turning back, watching at least two hats go cartwheeling across the tarmac as we went. We retreated down to a nearby lake instead, where the wind eased off and we all got a much gentler walk in together.

[PHOTO: Cotopaxi / windswept car park] [PHOTO: the lake walk]

Baños delivered on its reputation too — the town, the waterfalls, and a zip-line that was exciting enough that filming it was as much as I could manage.

[PHOTO: Baños waterfall / zip-line]

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The Amazon — 29 June – 1 July

Our base here was the Hamadryade Lodge in Puerto Misahualí — genuinely one of the trip's wow moments. Glass-fronted, luxury cabin-style accommodation with air conditioning and a spectacular glass shower and bathroom, positioned so well that you could barely see the next cabin. It felt properly isolated, in the best way.

[PHOTO: Hamadryade Lodge cabin]

We'd planned to go white-water rafting on the Jatunyacu River but changed course for a more sedate boat trip instead — a good call in hindsight. The indigenous community visit was a real highlight, arranged through raftamazonia.com.

[PHOTO: Jatunyacu river / community visit]

That evening we put on our Ecuador shirts to watch the game against Mexico — with one memorable hiccup: the bathroom was closed off because of a venomous snake, discovered just after Debra had been in there. Timing.

[PHOTO: watching the match]

We'd hoped to finish with Papallacta's hot springs and a nearby cave, but heavy rain closed both. We made do exploring the Daytos caves instead — worth looking up the connection to Neil Armstrong, of all people.

[PHOTO: Papallacta / Daytos caves]

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Galápagos Cruise — 3–8 July

Aboard the Cachalote Explorer with Enchanted Expeditions, guided throughout by Darwin — appropriately named, and excellent at his job.

We joined the boat via Isabela, having spent one night at a hotel on the water where pink flamingos gathered. Up early, we dropped our big suitcases at the hotel we'd return to after the cruise, met the group and Darwin at the dock, and handed off our smaller bags before boarding an open bus for the day. First stop was a giant tortoise breeding centre, then up to a volcano where we hiked down into the caldera — an otherworldly, moon-like landscape, fumaroles smoking away and ringed in bright yellow sulphur crystals close enough to feel the heat off them. After the long walk back out — briefly up in the clouds — and the drive back down, we took a small boat out to the Cachalote Explorer itself for dinner and our first night aboard. The rest of the group had already had two nights on the boat, having explored Santa Cruz island before we joined.

[PHOTO: tortoise breeding centre] [PHOTO: volcano caldera / sulphur fumaroles] [PHOTO: boarding the Cachalote Explorer]

Twelve of us in total made up the group: the four of us, two American women travelling together as friends, a Danish family with three adult children, and a Swede travelling solo. Each morning Darwin sketched out the day's plan — usually at least one snorkel, sometimes two, plus an island hike, always back aboard for lunch after a 7am breakfast, with a snack after each outing and dinner to finish. We were extremely well looked after.

[PHOTO: Darwin's daily itinerary sketch] [PHOTO: group photo aboard]

The wildlife highlight came on 5 July: out photographing the stars and the Milky Way, we heard a blow hole and caught a dark shape and a flipper moving in the water nearby — almost certainly a dolphin. We also kayaked in and around the mangroves, spotting penguins, turtles and rays moving in formation.

[PHOTO: night sky / Milky Way] [PHOTO: kayaking the mangroves] [PHOTO: penguins / turtles / rays]

The snorkelling throughout was hard to single out — there was simply too much of it, all good. But the single moment that will stay with us: a completely clear view of the Milky Way and shooting stars overhead, out on the water, away from any light.

[PHOTO: snorkelling montage]

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Isabela Island — 8–12 July

Back on dry land at La Casa de Marita, right on the beach.

Getting there, on the other hand, was a genuine ordeal — a so-called "ferry" that bounced us clean out of our seats every three minutes for a solid two hours. One night's stay was enough before we boarded for the six-day cruise, and we returned afterwards for four nights of proper relaxation.

[PHOTO: La Casa de Marita / beach view]

Isabela's real charm turned out to be low-key: we became regulars at a local bar with a big screen and cold beer, catching a good number of World Cup matches with the locals.

[PHOTO: World Cup at the local bar]

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Getting Home

The journey back was long — 36 hours door to door — but well planned enough that it never felt chaotic: ferry to Santa Cruz, taxi, a small boat over to the airport island, then a bus up to the airport itself, followed by a two-stage flight to Quito with a stop at a coastal town along the way. We'd cleverly booked a few hours at the airport hotel — just five hours, but worth every minute for a shower, a nap and dinner before walking across the skyway to the terminal. From there it was Miami, then Chicago (with a two-hour delay for mechanical issues), but given we'd been travelling for a day and a half, it all held together remarkably well.

[PHOTO: airport hotel / departure]

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Looking Back

It's hard to point to one single biggest surprise — the whole three weeks was a steady stream of fun and new experiences rather than one standout moment. If there's a thread running through it, it's this: with Lilly heading off to university in the UK soon, this trip together as a family is one we'll all hold onto — especially the two of them, Lilly and Sam.

For the kids, it'll probably be remembered as much for the pace as anything else — how busy it was, and just how much everyone appreciated those four final days of beach and doing nothing much at all on Isabela.

[PHOTO: final family photo]

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More photos and videos to follow — this covers the highlights, but there's a lot we only caught on film.

 

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Three Weeks, Two Countries, One Exhausted Family

Summer 2019 — London, Wales, Norfolk Broads, Cambridge, Rome, Pompeii

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Some holidays are a week on a beach. This was not one of those. In the summer of 2019, all five of us — Debra, Nathan (20), Sam (18), Lilly (11) and me — packed ourselves into a three-week adventure that somehow covered Wales, the Norfolk Broads, Cambridge and Italy in a single trip. I'm exhausted just thinking about it. It was also one of the best things we've ever done.

Underground History: London

We started, as we often do on UK trips, at Helen and Alan's in Banstead, Surrey. A chance to decompress after the flight and regroup before the chaos. The next day we headed into London for what turned out to be one of the best museums I've ever visited: the Churchill War Rooms.

[PHOTO: Churchill War Rooms entrance / the map room]

I've been to a lot of history museums. Most of them tell you about the past. This one puts you in it. The Cabinet War Rooms are the underground nerve centre of the British war effort — exactly as left when the lights went out in 1945. Churchill's desk. The map room with pins still in the board. The Enigma machine. You walk through it and feel the weight of the decisions made in those low-ceilinged corridors beneath Westminster while London burned above. If you haven't been, go.

[PHOTO: Enigma machine / underground corridor]

Coming Home: Penarth

From London we drove west to Penarth — my home town, perched above the Bristol Channel south of Cardiff. Six nights with Mum and Dad. These trips are never just a visit; they're a recharge. Debra's parents grew up in Kent, mine in south Wales, and the pull of both places never really leaves you however long you've lived abroad.

[PHOTO: Penarth seafront / the pier]

We took a day trip deeper into the Welsh valleys — Merthyr Tydfil direction, into the hills. There's something about the landscape there that doesn't translate in photos: the particular shade of green, the way the light sits on the hillsides.

[PHOTO: Welsh valleys / day trip]

On the Water: Norfolk Broads with Hazel and Neil

From Wales we pointed north to Norfolk. For several days we hired a boat on the Broads with two of our oldest friends, Hazel and Neil — a network of rivers, lakes and waterways threading through flat East Anglian countryside, all navigable by boat and all lined with riverside pubs. The combination is as good as it sounds.

[PHOTO: Our boat on the Broads]

It was hot. Oppressively, wonderfully, terribly hot. We struggled to sleep. Chocolates left on the boat melted into flat brown puddles. We didn't care.

Moored one afternoon next to a German family, Sam got chatting to their daughter. It turned out to be one of those chance meetings that outlasts the trip: they became pen pals, and a few years later she came to nanny in the US and came to stay with us. The Broads striking again.

[PHOTO: Broads scenery / moored up]

Nights were pub nights — mooring up at whatever riverside inn appeared around the next bend and settling in for dinner and a few drinks. Coming back late one evening to the most spectacular electrical storm: lightning illuminating the entire flat Norfolk sky, flash after flash over the water. We stood on deck and watched.

Another night someone had the idea of dancing on the roof of the boat. Strangers on the bank were invited. They came. We did begin to wonder, at some point, about the structural integrity of the roof. It held.

[PHOTO: Norfolk Broads sunset / evening on the boat]

Cambridge

A couple of nights in Cambridge after the Broads — punting on the Cam, wandering through the colleges, the Backs, that strange sensation of being in a place that feels simultaneously ancient and completely alive.

[PHOTO: Cambridge / punting on the Cam / college buildings]

Roma

Then, somehow, Italy.

We flew from London to Rome and based ourselves in the heart of the city — genuinely central, which made everything easier. Over four days we worked through the list.

Day one: the Colosseum and the Forum.

[PHOTO: Colosseum exterior]

The Colosseum is one of those places where you think you know what to expect — you've seen it in a hundred films — and then you're standing inside it and it's still bigger than you imagined. What surprised me most was the hypogeum: the underground tunnels beneath the arena floor, now exposed, where gladiators and animals were held in the dark before being winched up through trapdoors into the light. You can picture the mechanics of it. The theatre of it. The horror of it.

[PHOTO: Colosseum interior / hypogeum tunnels]

The Roman Forum nearby — the civic heart of the ancient world — needs a bit of imagination to fully grasp, but with a good guide (or a decent audio tour) it clicks into place. You're standing where the Senate met. Where Caesar walked.

That evening we ate in Rome's Jewish Quarter — one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world, and some of the best food in the city. And we swung by the Trevi Fountain, which was as crowded as expected and as beautiful as expected in equal measure.

[PHOTO: Trevi Fountain / Jewish Quarter evening]

Day two: the Vatican.

[PHOTO: St Peter's Square / Sistine Chapel or Vatican]

Day three: Pompeii.

We took the train from Rome — straightforward enough — and met our guide on arrival. What followed was one of the most extraordinary days I can remember.

[PHOTO: Pompeii streets / volcanic mountain backdrop]

Most people know Pompeii from the photographs: the ruined columns, the paved streets. What the photographs don't prepare you for is how complete it is. This was a functioning Roman city — sophisticated, layered, alive — frozen in 79 AD. There are brothels with carved signage above the doors. There are thermopolia, the Roman equivalent of street food counters, built into the pavements with their storage jars still in place. There is a full amphitheatre. There are bakeries and workshops and houses with their mosaics intact.

[PHOTO: Pompeii ruins / thermopolium / mosaic detail]

And then there are the plaster casts.

When Vesuvius buried the city, the bodies decomposed over centuries, leaving voids in the hardened ash. In the 19th century, archaeologists discovered that by pouring plaster into those voids and carefully excavating the surrounding rock, they could recover the exact shapes of people in their final moments. Huddled. Covering their faces. A dog on a chain. People caught mid-breath nearly 2,000 years ago.

You stand in front of them and the gap between then and now collapses. I found it genuinely moving.

[PHOTO: Plaster casts / Pompeii]

Day four: Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, and an hour alone with a camera.

The Pantheon is one of those buildings where the more you know, the more impressive it gets. The dome — nearly 2,000 years old — was the largest in the world for over 1,300 years. The trick, I learned, is that the concrete gets progressively lighter toward the top, using pumice instead of heavy aggregate near the oculus, the open hole at the peak. A hole nine metres across, open to the sky. Rain falls straight in and drains through the floor. The Romans had essentially no idea how it stayed up, and in some ways neither do we.

[PHOTO: Pantheon interior / the oculus]

Then it rained. Rome, mid-afternoon, a proper summer downpour.

I waited for it to stop, picked up my camera, and went out alone. Photography is my one genuine artistic outlet — I'm honestly not sure I have another — and wet baroque architecture on wet cobblestones is exactly my kind of subject. Reflections in puddles. Light refracting off wet stone. Buildings that have stood for centuries, reflected briefly in a puddle and then gone.

I wandered for an hour. It was one of my favourite hours of the trip.

[PHOTO: Reflections of Rome — puddle reflections, wet streets, baroque facades]

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Three weeks. Two countries. Wales to Norfolk to Cambridge to Rome to Pompeii and back. A lightning storm over flat water, a dancing roof, a pen pal from Germany, plaster casts in an ancient city, and an hour alone in Rome after the rain.

Some holidays are a week on a beach. Not this one.

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Next: [link to next post]

Peru — June–July 2024

 

Peru - Andrew, Debra & Lilly · June 22 – July 14, 2024

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Peru had been on the list for a long time — long enough that when we finally booked it, we booked all of it. Three weeks, covering as much of the country as we could manage: the desert coast, the Nazca lines, the Sacred Valley, Machu Picchu, Lake Titicaca, and the Amazon. Sam decided not to come. He has since mentioned, more than once, that this was a mistake.

We started on the coast, where the landscape couldn't be more different from what most people picture when they think of Peru. The Huacachina oasis sits in the middle of enormous sand dunes — proper desert dunes, hundreds of feet high — and the way you see them is by dune buggy. Our driver clearly regarded the whole thing as a chance to induce maximum panic: careering along ridges, nosediving down sheer sand faces, everyone screaming in unison on every drop. After the buggies, belly boards. You lie flat and go. Debra, characteristically, chose the biggest run at the end. I watched from a safe distance.

[PHOTO: dune buggy on the sand dunes, Huacachina] 

[PHOTO: Debra sandboarding the big dune]

From there, a flight over the Nazca lines. You can climb a tower to see them from the ground, and we did that too — but the tower just about shows you one or two shapes. The flight shows you everything: the spider, the hummingbird, the astronaut, the monkey, the hands. Lines that run for kilometres, perfectly straight, visible only from the air. How and why a pre-Inca civilisation created them, with no means of ever seeing the finished result, is one of those questions that sits with you.

[PHOTO: Nazca lines from the air]

The Sacred Valley was the heart of the trip. We had a guide and driver for the whole time — and they were exceptional, making all the difference between ticking off sites and actually understanding what you were seeing. We based ourselves in Ollantaytambo for several days, a town that's something of a living ruin in itself — Inca stonework still forms the walls of houses that people live in today, and a sun temple rises above the town on the terraced hillside. From there, we visited site after site across the valley: massive ancient cities, now just walls, but still extraordinary in their scale and precision. Wherever the Incas put a stone, it stayed.

[PHOTO: Ollantaytambo sun temple terraces] 

[PHOTO: Sacred Valley ruins from above]

The food deserves its own mention. Little restaurants around the town square in Ollantaytambo with a simple but perfect formula: a big wooden board, a hot plate in the middle with your choice of meat or vegetables sizzling on it, and surrounding it a collection of small containers — roasted vegetables, dips, sauces, things you couldn't quite name but kept reaching for. We ate like that several evenings running and would happily do so again.

The Maras salt mines were one of those places that photographs don't quite prepare you for. High in the mountains above the valley, hot salty water seeps out of the hillside and is channelled into thousands of salt pans — terraces of shallow pools climbing the whole hillside, each one a slightly different shade of white or pink depending on its stage of evaporation. Little stone dams, clay-tamped edges, people moving slowly up the paths carrying heavy bags of salt. It has been worked this way, by the same communities, for centuries. There's something almost meditative about looking at it.

[PHOTO: Maras salt pans, hillside of white terraces]

Machu Picchu was the centrepiece, and we went in properly: the train from Ollantaytambo, then into the town at the base, where we met the owner of the guide company himself. Then the bus up the switchbacks to the gate. The thing about a place that famous is you arrive with such a heavy freight of images and expectations that it could easily disappoint — and it absolutely didn't. What no photograph really captures is the location: the ruins don't just sit on a mountain, they cling to a ridge with sheer drops on three sides, the peaks of the Andes stacked behind them into the cloud. It's dizzying in the best possible way. The llamas wander through the terraces as if entirely unbothered by the whole spectacle, which seems about right.

[PHOTO: Machu Picchu from the classic viewpoint, peaks behind] 

[PHOTO: llama in the ruins]

Lake Titicaca hit differently. The altitude had been building — at one point on a bus journey we passed through a stretch at roughly the same elevation as the summit of Mount Rainier, and my body objected strongly. I spent a couple of days feeling genuinely awful: nauseous, alternately burning and freezing, sleeping badly. On Lake Titicaca we first visited the Uros people, who still live on the floating reed islands they construct and maintain themselves on the lake's surface — a way of life that stretches back centuries and continues today, these improbable little communities moored on the water. We also saw houses built on stilts, the water level of the lake changing so dramatically that you have to build for it.

Then we stayed a night on one of the islands with a local family, who met us off the boat and brought us into their home. That evening was party night: Debra and Lilly were dressed in traditional costume and danced with the family. I sat and watched, still fighting altitude sickness, shivering through what should have been a wonderful evening and was, despite everything, still pretty wonderful. The next morning we walked up and over the island for a music show and a tour — tough going at altitude, every uphill step an effort — but the views across the lake were extraordinary.

[PHOTO: floating reed islands, Lake Titicaca] 

[PHOTO: Debra and Lilly in local costume on the island] 

[PHOTO: view across Lake Titicaca from the island]

The Amazon was the final act, and it was a different world again. We were on a proper river boat — sit-down meals, waiters, a level of comfort you don't quite expect when you say "the Amazon." River dolphins surfaced beside us as we moved through the water, pink shapes rolling in and out of view. The routine was boat as base, small boats as transport: out every day in little craft through the tributaries, narrow channels under heavy canopy, to visit local communities. Each trip felt like pushing a little further into somewhere genuinely remote.

[PHOTO: river dolphins from the boat] 

[PHOTO: small boat on an Amazon tributary]

Three weeks in Peru and we barely scratched it. Lilly came home full of stories. Sam came home full of regret.

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Tags: travel, Peru, South America, 2024, family

 Places I've been

Busy compiling a list of when I was where

This blog has been running for a while, but I've recently been going back through thirty years of trips to get everything written up properly. This post is a running index — a list of everywhere we've been, year by year, with links as posts get written. Some of these already have full write-ups; others are placeholders waiting for the words to catch up with the memories.

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1997 Paris — honeymoon (Eurostar from London)

~1998 Egypt

1997–1999 European travels — based in Thatcham, Berkshire

2006 Olympic Peninsula, Washington — hot springs, canoeing, otters Wales & London — Christmas (Helen & Alan's wedding)

2007 San Diego — April Anderson Island — 10th wedding anniversary, May Sun Mountain Lodge, Winthrop — July Westport camping, Twin Harbors State Park — September Maui — October

2009 Hawaii

2011 Florida Keys — April Hurricane Ridge & Cape Flattery — Mum and Dad's visit

2012 Costa Rica — Cloud Forest Lodge, July Wales & London — Christmas, December–January

2013 Belize — Placencia, August

2014 Nicaragua — Granada & San Juan del Sur, August–September

2015 UK — Oxford, Wales, Stonehenge & Glastonbury, June

2016 Las Vegas — April Jamaica — Frenchman's Cove, Port Antonio, June–July

2017 Iceland, UK & Amsterdam — July–August

2018 Cambodia — Siem Reap (Angkor Wat) & Sihanoukville, June–July

2019 UK, Rome & Naples — July

2020 Whistler, Canada — skiing, February Oregon Coast — Cannon Beach, October

2021 UK — visiting Nathan in Plymouth, July–August

2022 Bainbridge Island — 25th wedding anniversary, April Israel & Petra, Jordan — June Victoria BC — August

2023 UK & Dublin — summer

2024 New York — Andrew & Debra, February Peru — Lima, Paracas, Cusco, Machu Picchu & Iquitos, June–July

2025 Alaska — Anchorage, Matanuska Glacier, Fairbanks & the Arctic Circle, April ✓ UK, Dublin, Cardiff & Kraków — River & Aria's celebration, June–July Wales — solo trip, October

2026 Ecuador & Galápagos — Quito, Cotopaxi, Baños, Amazon & the Galápagos Islands, June–July

Alaska 2025

Andrew & Debra · April 11–19, 2025

Alaska has been on the list for a long time. When we finally went — just the two of us, no kids, the first proper long trip we’d done alone since the children were born — it delivered everything we’d hoped for and then some.

We flew into Anchorage on the 11th and spent a couple of days getting our bearings, visiting the Anchorage Museum and adjusting to the scale of the place. Alaska does something to your sense of distance. Everything is further than it looks, bigger than you expect, and wilder than you’re prepared for. On the Sunday we drove out to Whittier, which requires passing through the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel — the longest combined road and rail tunnel in North America, and one-way only. Traffic lights on the hour let you in heading west, on the half hour heading east. There’s something almost ceremonial about it, queuing in the dark waiting for permission to enter. Whittier itself sits at the end of Prince William Sound, and we’d booked a boat tour with Lazy Otter Charters. We motored past two glaciers, the chunks of calved ice bobbing and grinding against the hull, and then — quite without warning — we watched a section of glacier face collapse into the water in front of us. An ice fall, live, loud, and over in seconds. One of those moments where everyone on the boat goes very quiet and then starts talking all at once.

Monday was the Matanuska Glacier. Our guide snowmobiled us to the base — already an experience in itself — and then we walked. Properly walked, deep into it: through narrow ice canyons with walls of blue-white either side, scrambling over what the guides call pressure waves, huge frozen ridges where the glacier has pushed up against itself over centuries. It’s not like any landscape I’ve stood in before. The ice is alive in the slowest possible way, cracking and shifting and groaning, and you’re aware the whole time that you’re standing on something that’s been moving since long before anyone thought to name it.

From Matanuska we headed north to Denali. The park road in April is still deep in winter — we hiked out through fresh snow, breaking trail where no one had been yet that day, the snow only about a foot deep but enough to make every step deliberate. At the end of it, the views opened up completely. That’s the thing about earning a view through a bit of effort: you notice it more.

The final act was the Arctic Circle. We joined a two-day fly and drive tour with Northern Alaska Tour Company out of Fairbanks, heading north up the Dalton Highway — the only land route to the Arctic — past the Yukon River crossing and on to Coldfoot. From there we drove a little further to Wiseman, a gold mining settlement of twelve souls, founded in 1908 when miners abandoned Coldfoot and moved a few miles up the Middle Fork Koyukuk River. Robert Marshall, who spent fifteen months here around 1930, described it as “the happiest civilisation of which I have knowledge.” Having been there, I think I understand what he meant. We met Jack Reakoff, who has spent his entire life in Wiseman by choice — trapper, naturalist, Arctic expert, local legend. The kind of person you only meet at the edge of the world. We stayed the night hoping for the northern lights. April is late in the season but not impossible. The clouds had other ideas. We stood outside in the dark with a small group of fellow hopeful travellers, warming ourselves around a strange double-chambered oil drum fire that looked like it had no right to work but threw out a fierce heat. The lights never came. We laughed, we chatted, we stared at the sky anyway, and eventually went to bed. Some nights the not-quite-moment is the story. The next morning we flew back to Fairbanks in a small plane from the local airstrip — the landscape from the air, the Brooks Range stretching away in every direction, was the perfect final frame.

Alaska surprised us both. We knew it would be spectacular — we didn’t expect it to feel so human. The people you meet up there have made a deliberate choice to live at the edge of things, and that gives every conversation a particular quality. We’d go back in a heartbeat, and next time we’d stay longer.

Israel June 2022

Very interesting trip, so many highlights and interesting experiences it's hard to capture. We started in Jerusalem, a great walking tour with a guide, just us 3 and 2 others who happened to be from the UK. Efret our guide was from Argentine.

Highlight included the wailing wall

Via Deloroso (the path of pain) 

 

Canon beach 2020

 Canon beach on the Oregon coast

Beautiful day, walking on the beach, later in the day, teh light was amazing, streaming in, backlighting the waves.

 Merry Christmas everyone

Well what a year, I’m looking forward to what the queen comes up with to call it as she already used “annus horribilis”. I’m not sure I have the words. No vacations to share, some short little breaks locally, luckily we live in a very beautiful part of the world. Hope everyone is staying well and we will come out the other side.

Nathan is in his last year and doing absolutely no school this quarter, he should have been flying drones from a boat to count jellyfish but it was all cancelled. He will be back on track in January.

Sam is in his 2nd year, working from his dorm room as all his classes are online, quite hard to do but it is what it is.

Lilly has actually had quite a good year, 2 days of in-person teaching with one friend, then 3 days at home with dad for homework and some online classes. Much better than the alternative of being stuck at home doing online-only classes for 5 days! Some soccer played but just practices in small groups but at least she was getting out and exercising with friends. Also quite a bit of paddleboarding through the summer, the weather was fantastic and 6 feet from everyone is quite easy on a big paddleboard.

Debra continues to work at Redgate preschool, it closed for just a couple of weeks but classes moved outdoors, even up to this week, through rain and bad weather.  

Andrew is lucky enough still to be at Disney and still enjoying his work. The company is suffered through the pandemic but is ready for the bounce back.

Check out more photo links and other info on our website https://andrewjperry.blogspot.com/ and drop us email at andrewjperry@gmail.com

Another day another blog post

Website or blog?

Paradise in Jamaica - Frenchmans cove near Port Antonio

SO, it's almost like a movie set but for real, from lazy river coming in from the left and sweeping across the white sandy beach, to the little nook on the other side, with tree branches and large pitted rocks. 

It was the film set for lord of the flies, it's used in commercials at least once a week and it use to be the top Jamaican hangout for the wealthy. 

We spent a very pleasant day, swimming, playing in the waves, a few drinks (run cocktails for Debra) and a nice lunch $100 and $45 at the gate to get in. All in all not bad for a whole day on the beach especially one as pretty as this one.

Lot's of little crabs on the shore and we spotted a much bigger one in the river. The beach was never that busy, people coming and going but spread out amoungst the shady spots provided by the trees so it never seemed that crowded. 

I think my favorite was floating down the river and sweeping into the waves of the sea at the end, so nice I did it twice.

What else to say, go look at the photos, worth a thousand words, or at least a thousand of my words.

 

 

Steak at Julie and Alan's

Alan was more than happy to cook, he even shopped for the steaks from a local butcher he knows.

With Laura away it was, Sarah and Sha, Julie and Alan, Mum and dad and us 5, so quite a noisey little gathering, sometimes it seems like we have never been away and that we had just popped over for a regular Friday night family dinner, funny that.

Alan is a great cook, steaks carefully prepared to everyones liking, carefully timed to perfection, Sarah had made a coleslaw, and salad plus some potatoes and just to top it off, Julie had copied a picture of a cake I'd sent her from Oxfrord, it had about 6 different chocolates on it, each in it's own section, carefully separated by chocolate fingers, yum. It was a big hit with everyone.

Lilly left just 3 mouthfulls, demolishing a rather large chunk of meat, she had to leave a llittle room for cake.

The walk back was nice, mom and dad had driven and they took the kids so it was just Debra and I for the chilly walk home, through streets I know well from childhood though to 19 years old when I left for Reading University, not a lot seems to have changed. A few more cars perhaps but other than that hauntingly familiar.

Stonehenge has changed over the years

So it's been quite a while  since either Debra or I have been to stonehenge and whilst the stones are unchanged everything around them from where you park to how far you walk to get to them has. Mom and dad remember when you could just wander through the stone circle but I always remember there being a little rope barrier. There is now a large visitors center, that then busses you close so it's just a short walk. The new path is actually quite close, they built it to protect what is still buried. It crosses past one side then let's you onto a grassy area a little further away but still easy photo distance and my there were a lot of photos taken and not just by me. Selfie sticks, people asking others to take photos of them, I think I took enough to piece together a full 360 movie.

Still the same mystery, still the same strangely imposing ring of stones, the exhibition does a good job of describing the other items around the site, it seems to have been an important areas for a long long time.

Our next port of call was Glastonbury, for some lunch and if we remembered rightly some rather hippy type people and shops.

Home in Penarth

So after a hectic few days in Oxford, punting in the rain (had to be done) we made it to Wales, time for some washing and sorting things out at mom and dads. Popped over the road to Cheryl and Si's to say hi and arranged a night out in the pub for next week.

I'll do a whole post on our journey down as we stopped of at Stonehenge and Glastonbury

Debra and I walked up Penarth, got some Euro's and stopped for a coffee, leaving the boys in bed and Lilly watching CBBC (Childrens BBC) knowing that mom was there to look after them if they needed anything, so freeing to finally be able to dump the kids with relatives :-)

Afternoon in Cardiff, seems a waste given that the sun has come out and it's got quite warm but it seems like the urge to shop is just too powerful. We got on a local bus into Cardiff and went into the St Davids center, huge multi part mall, I'm sure there use to be streets and separate buildings but it all seems merged into one. Even spotted a Starbucks, Nathan jumped on their wifi to post on snapchat.

Talking of wifi, Dad's has not seen this much traffic, ever. I'm suprised it's not crashed, Nathan huddles underneath the modem just to get the best signal, the room he is in only get's 1 bar if he is lucky, my pictures are still uploading, Ieft dad with instructions.

Trying to form a plan for tomorrow, there is a new white water raft and canoe center opened up, they pump the water round and round, you can even surf indoors, may be fun to watch the boys doing it.

Evening will be with Julie and Alan, pursuading Alan to cook us steaks, Nathan is already drooling at the thought.

It's lovely to be home, Penarth is actually quite a pretty town, brick and stone victorian buildings, old churches and very walkable, although there are lots of cars parked both sides of the roads making them very narrow.

Full day in Oxford

Wow, what a full day, left the B&B at 9:20 am and did not get back until about 9pm. Started right with a full cooked breakfast and plenty of tea.

Wandered into town, past the punts that we planned to have a go at later in the day, walked through Christ Church meadow, around the back of the college, through to the high street, watched the gardeners mow the already impossibly short grass, seemed to be in the middle of a marked out running track, guessing it was for cricket.

Then headed to M&S where we had planned to meet an old friend, Nathan after putting off his clothes buying from yesterday, found more and decided to buy, he ended up with a shirt, skinny jeans and some shoes so he is very happy. Then we went to a coffee shop that was in a converted church, sat outside until it started to rain.

Next up was a walking tour, Magnus showed us around multiple colleges, giving us history and great stories about each, entertaining young and old a like, he even fitted in a Welsh story associated with Jesus college, with it's little hidden dragon on the gate. I also liked the story about how C. S. Lewis saw the green man on the door panel (Aslan), gargoyles either side of the door (Mr. Tumnus) and the first thing they see through the wardrobe was the lamp post a few yards up the lane.

On the tour the dining halls were closed, inconsiderate students were having lunch so us poor tourists where inconvenienced. So after the tour, we went back and did a tour of Bailiol college dining hall, very Hogwarts.

After this we went to the covered market for lunch, plenty of choice and it was covered (raining lightly outside),  seems like most places now have wifi so the boys got on and messaged various friends. Feeling much refreshed we went back to the recently refurbished library, we had stopped there on our walking tour but were just told about the exhibit they had. We went into one of the galleries and saw the Guttenburg bible, 2 original Magna Carta's and a J.R.R. Tolkien book cover amongst many other famous original note books and other famous literary works but this was just a small sample from the Bodleian Library.

Back to the covered market for shakes and coffee and with plans for the evening we decided that punting would have to wait until tomorrow. Come 6 we headed to Exeter college Chapel for Evensong evening service. Amazing songs from the choir, readings and organ music, the boys managed to stay awake but only just, Lilly was a trooper, and was following along with the words in the leaflet they had given us.

Dinner in a pub then short walk back to the B&B, tidied cases ready to leave Oxford tomorrow for the wedding then onto Wales Sunday.

What a day.

(republished after proof reading by Debra)

UK trip part 1 - Oxford

Pretty smooth flight, little hopper plane to Vancover from Seattle (Thanks Lise for taking us to the airport), I was in row 12 and it was at the back of the airplane, that is how small it was.

Vancover airport was lovely but a hell of a long walk, perfect timing for our next flight, just enough time to shop and have a cup of tea, the plane was very new 777, entertainment system was very new, lots of movies so we were all happy, food was OK but not great and most of us got at least some sleep (Lilly did really well, stretched out, head on my lap, feet on Debra's.

We stopped for some lunch at the airport then got a car for our trip to Oxford, roads were busy, it's the M25 after all but not a complete standstill.

After checking into our B&B quick shower to shake of some of the journey we headed into town, a 10 minute walk along Abindgon road, narrow, lots of bicycles and many large buses, the boys were amazed that they could all exit together without major accidents happening every 2 minues. From the narrow pavement (sidewalk) you almost felt the bus brush past your  shoulder.

Went we got into the town proper, we started to point out all the colledge buildings and the old pubs to the boys and they started carbon dating, by eye, the building and at a rough guess they said they were from about the time of the dinosaurs.

Pubs as frequent as Startbucks are in Seattle and although I know they exist here, I did not spot a single one. Sam gave up on his plan to take photos of every pub after the 5th or 6th one that he came across in about the first 300 yards.

We popped into River Island, and the boys realised that they quite like British fashion, Nathan picked out an entire outfit, shoes, t-shirt, underwear and jeans, the price was not even that bad as some was in the sale but he could not face that this was the first shop and so what else would he find later, such trauma.

We help out until around 6 to have dinner, we went back to a pub we had passed earlier, "Head of the River" right on the banks of the Thames river, sat outside and had a pint and some food, chatting and watching punts and other boats go by as teh sun set for the evening.

Tired but happy we walked back to the B&B and all went to bet pretty early.

New photo created on June 06, 2015 at 11:08PM

New photo created on June 06, 2015 at 11:08PM http://ift.tt/1RUkFQ1

New photo created on June 06, 2015 at 11:07PM

New photo created on June 06, 2015 at 11:07PM http://ift.tt/1AVPMWY

New toy

So with fathers day approaching and I must have a birthday at some point this year Debra used her Barnes and Noble discount to get me a Samsung galaxy 10.1, Nook edition.

I've downloaded all my favourite apps, paired my bluetooth keyboard and I'm good to go, Lilly is excited to get my old nook tablet and I'm excited about the bigger screen and hopefully snappy performance.

Setup was a breeze, signing in with Google account sorts out most things although signing in now I have 2 factor authentication on many apps meant it was a little trickier but I just needed my phone on hand.

Must have apps?
Google blogger to write this
Google now for voice stuff and the cards
Flipboard
evernote
Google plus
the new google Photos
Inbox for gmail
facebook

I've got to download netfiz soon to watch some more White Collar :-)

First impressions are great screen and good snappy performance although the odd touched icon not responding is strange, almost like the first gen iPad I have. Hope that clears up.

I always thought that the smaller 7 inch screen was the best size but it just seems that larger screens are everywhere now and after getting screen envy from Debra's iPhone 6+ this 10.1 feels really nice.

ANyway, more to come as I try it out more.

Andrew