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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...

For the second year running , rather than picking my top five leaps  of the year, I've picked five stories that sum up my travel highlights of the year. It has, of course, been a year with very little foreign travel. It's also the first year in 15 years where I haven't been to New York a single time. I miss the city so much and can't wait to return. But I'm grateful that I was able to travel to one new country ( Malta ) and one new European city ( Porto ), as well as taking short trips to  Edinburgh and Canterbury . I've also spent time with family in Oxford and Walsall, and spent a little more time in Birmingham , usually on the way to Wolves matches. My motto for the second half of the year was carpe diem — if a trip or event was possible, I would try to do it as soon as I could, before the situation changed again. 1. Leaping into Malta's Blue Lagoon Like many people, I had to cancel a lot of travel plans last year, including seven international trips, a...

Welcome to the 11th edition of my annual speciality coffee and food awards , where I am highlighting some of my favourites from the coffee shops and eateries that I visited for the first time this year. For obvious reasons, I travelled much less than normal this year, although I did manage a holiday in Malta  in September, as well as city breaks in Porto , Edinburgh and Canterbury , and regular visits to Oxford, Wolverhampton and Birmingham. As such, just like last year, I've rejigged the regions covered in each category so that I can showcase as many of the places I've loved closer to home and further afield. As the pandemic continues to disrupt life as we knew it, it's more important than ever to support the hospitality industry — respecting all local guidelines that may be in place, of course. If you're keen to read more of my speciality coffee recommendations, you may find my London coffee guide  to be a useful starting point; there are currently more than 150 coff...

This is the last of my posts about my recent holiday in Malta , rounding up my overall experience: my itinerary and how it worked out, where I stayed, what I did and how I travelled around. You can also read my other Malta posts here: Valletta city guide ; day trips from Valletta ; and four days on Gozo . And there are even  more photos over on my Flickr . Days 1–5: Valletta I based myself in Malta's capital, Valletta, as I knew that it would be easy to travel around the small island by bus to some of the many other places I wanted to visit. I stayed five nights at the Coleridge Hotel , a boutique hotel in the heart of the historic city centre. Day 1 . I landed at Malta International Airport at around 2 pm and despite a lengthy queue at passport control and a quicker one for COVID documentation checks on leaving the baggage hall, I reached Valletta's City Gate by bus just before 3:30. After checking into my hotel, I spent the afternoon exploring Valletta and getting my bearing...