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As COVID restrictions slowly began to ease around the world, I was grateful to be able to travel more often in 2022 than I had in the previous two years, although I'm still not back at beforetimes levels. This year, I visited six countries across four continents, including four new-to-me countries — Kenya , Uganda , Indonesia and Greece — as well as a long-awaited return to my beloved New York City . Closer to home, I enjoyed a great city break in Bristol  and spent far too much time watching Wolves fail to score, consoling myself with speciality coffee stops in Wolverhampton and Brum . Keep on reading to find out the five stories I've picked out to sum up my travel highlights of the year (you can also check out my 2021 and 2020 editions). 1. Visiting coffee farms in Kenya, Uganda and Bali Before this year, the last time I'd visited a coffee farm at origin was some years ago in Costa Rica. This year, I was lucky enough to travel to Kenya and Uganda for a work trip, w...

As 2022 draws to a close, it's time for the 12th edition of my annual speciality coffee and food awards , where I share my favourite coffee shops and eateries from among all of those that I visited for the first time this year. Over the past few years, I've tweaked the geographical boundaries of some awards to reflect my travel schedule, which has changed somewhat as a result of COVID. Throughout the year, I visited some fantastic speciality coffee shops and ate some delicious food, so it was hard to pick my favourites. I was lucky enough to travel to  Kenya ,  Uganda  and  Bali  for work, drinking some excellent coffee at the farms and washing stations I visited. I also enjoyed city breaks in New York City (where the  coffee  and  food  were as good as always) and  Athens . And closer to home, I continued eating my way around London (most of my coverage is  on my Instagram ) and  Bristol . Read on to find out which places made...

This is the last of my posts about my recent trip to Bali, where I summarise my overall experience: my itinerary and how it panned out, what I did, how I travelled around and some practical tips. For more detailed information, you can read my other Bali posts: Munduk ; Ubud ; Ubud speciality coffee ; the Nusa Islands ; Canggu, Seminyak & Jimbaran ; and Canggu and Seminyak speciality coffee . And I've uploaded even more photos onto my Flickr . PLANNING  Being invited to join a work meeting in Bali is the dream, isn't it? And better still, I had taken almost no annual leave this year and I was able to add ten days of holiday onto the four-day work trip. I consider myself very lucky! I had less than two months to research and plan what I would do. I had a few Bali speciality coffee shops saved in my Google Map but otherwise, I was starting from scratch. Luckily, there was a 2021  Lonely Planet guidebook , which helped a lot. As soon as I read about Munduk Moding Plantation (w...

I spent the last week of my stay in Bali in the southern part of the island: three days in Canggu and four in Jimbaran. I was attending a meeting in Jimbaran and hardly got to leave the hotel, although the resort we were staying in was so nice that I didn't really mind too much. Here's what I got up to. CANGGU & SEMINYAK I stayed at Sedasa Lodge , a small boutique hotel set around a swimming pool and located a few minutes' walk from Berawa Beach. The room was quiet and comfortable (although I might opt for an upstairs room rather than a poolside room next time) and the staff were really lovely. The neighbourhood was great too: there were lots of fab coffee shops and eateries within a short walk. Speaking of geography, I had made the mistake of assuming that because Google Maps said that Canggu proper (around Jl. Munduk Catu and Jl. Munduk Catu) was only a ten-minute walk away, I could easily roam back and forth between there and Berawa. And I did manage it once, but it ...