facttime

I was sad to bid farewell to my old passport this week — not just because it was an EU one (*sob*) but also because the stamps inside remind me of the many great travel experiences I've enjoyed over the past decade. To highlight some of these wonderful memories, I decided to pick out one photo from each year, and boy was that hard! (I cheated because the header image features an 11th photo. Sorry!) And at the end of the post, you can find more details about my experience of renewing my UK passport during these incredibly hectic times. 2013 — Ziplining through the clouds in Monteverde, Costa Rica My friend and I spent two weeks exploring Costa Rica  back in 2013. Ziplining through the cloud forest on a 1km-long zipline in Monteverde was definitely one of the best moments of a trip filled with great beaches, beautiful forests and diverse wildlife. Visiting a coffee farm for the first time came a close second. 2014 — (What's the story) vermillion torii? Kyoto, Japan My whistlest...

As 2019 comes to a close, and a new year begins, it’s time for my annual round-up of my favourite five photos of the year that feature me jumping for joy in various locations. Regular readers will know that I use this post as a way of looking back on my travels throughout the year. And this year, I visited nine countries, including three that were new to me — Estonia (new), USA , Germany , Switzerland , Slovenia (new), Malaysia (new), Singapore , Spain and France. I also visited several major cities for the first time, including Chicago , Lausanne and Seville , while also returning to New York, Berlin and Cannes. I’m currently in the process of planning my foreign travel for next year, and torn between flying west and east for my main holiday. Stay tuned! 1. The bean leap — Chicago, USA By happy coincidence, most of my favourite leaps of the year featured lakes, or at least bodies of water. You might have to squint a bit to spot Lake Michigan in my photo in front of Cloud Gate, be...

In this, the first and most delicious of my ninth  annual end-of-year round-up posts, I highlight some of my favourite coffee shops, restaurants and dishes of the year, both in London and on my travels. This year, I visited nine countries (Estonia, the US, Germany, Switzerland, Estonia, Malaysia, Singapore, Spain and France). From £4 chicken rice in Singapore to tempting tasting menus in Tallinn, as well as sublime speciality coffee, it's been quite a year. As usual, I've only included places I visited for the first time in 2019. 1. Best coffee shop London Le Café Alain Ducasse I've worked in King's Cross for almost a decade, and it's been fascinating to watch the neighbourhood change. Where I used to have to walk at least 20 minutes on my lunch break to find good coffee, my most recent King's Cross speciality coffee guide  demonstrates that the area is now a hub for craft coffee. The much-lauded opening of Alain Ducasse's Le Café in the sleek Coal Drops Ya...

I've already blogged about my time in  Malaysia  and  Singapore , and posted many more photos on  Flickr , but this is a more detailed post about my overall experience: how my itinerary worked, where I stayed, what I did, and how I travelled around. As is usually the case when I’m researching my main annual holiday, it wasn't possible to squeeze all of the places I wanted to visit in Malaysia and Singapore into a two-week itinerary. In particular, fitting in Borneo and Singapore in addition to Peninsular Malaysia was quite challenging. But my final itinerary had a good mix of cities and culture, wildlife and beach time. I took several internal flights and I didn’t have a lot of down time, but everything worked well, and with hindsight, I would not have wanted to sacrifice any of the destinations I visited. Skip to: KL | Perhentian Islands | Penang | Borneo | Singapore | Practicalities Days 1–3: Kuala Lumpur After leaving London around 9 pm on Friday night, ...

Speciality coffee wasn't my main reason for  visiting George Town  on the Malaysian island of Penang, but I was delighted to visit six great coffee shops and roasteries during my short visit. I was even there during the three-week-long Penang Coffee Festival , although the early stages of the festival had more of a focus on desserts and was based in a mall a few miles out of the city centre, so I wasn't able to stop by. Read on to find out more about my speciality coffee experiences in George Town; my favourite spots are marked in purple in the map below. 2F+ Coffee Roastery A serendipitous discovery while I was photographing the famous George Town street art work known as 'Brother and Sister on a Swing', coffee roaster 2F+ has a small café located in a small arcade just off Pengkalan Weld. 2F+ hadn't come up during my research but they have a couple more coffee shops on Penang and another in Bangkok, Thailand. Although single-origin pourovers are on the menu, I was...