Hi! My name is Annalise. I’m 23 years old and in 2014 I accidentally stumbled upon travel blogging whilst living in Spain.
I come from a small town in Buckinghamshire, England and although I love home, my wanderlust expands further than South East England. In September 2014 I moved to Alicante, Spain for a year as part of the ERASMUS scheme for my degree in Spanish and TESOL and started a blog because it was the “done thing”. It began as a bit of a diary so that my family and friends at home could see what I was up to but then my blog became more popular than I imagined it would be and I was even published on Thirdyearabroad.com! I worked as an English language assistant in a primary school and submerged myself fully into the Spanish way of life whenever I could. I used my blog to share me laughing at myself at every attempt at being as Spanish as possible, when really, my Spanish wasn’t great when I arrived! It was a crazy few months with every emotion possible and some very weird experiences of working with children: sorry Carlos, I know your name is not Culo (*Spanish for bum!)
August 2015 was when my travel blog really started to accelerate. I went interrailing with a few friends around Western and Central Europe and wrote a blog about each city.
I shared our experiences of food, culture, history, nightlife and more food! It was an incredible month and I loved how different every city was. I have since been told by friends that they have read my blog before travelling to one of the cities that I went to! My blog acts as a rough guide to visiting a new city with recommendations on where to stay and what to do with a few fun facts in there too! A year and a half later a German journalist approached me and I was published on what I believe is Germany’s main news platform! Obviously I wrote it in English and it was translated HERE.
The next big trip was a 4.5 month around-the-world trip to South America and South East Asia with one of my best friends from school. We spent 1.5 months in South America with a G Adventures tour and then 3 months travelling Asia just the two of us. I continued to write in the same style as my Interrailing blogs and I talk about the weird and wonderful moments of our trip including our jungle survival, being stranded in the Andes for 24 hours and a lot of strange new foods. It really was the trip of a life time (sorry about the cliche) and I think it has just fuelled my wanderlust even more than ever before!
I now live in Paris and am working as an au pair for two girls aged 5 and 7 while also studying French. Can I become fluent in French in just 4 months? Will I throw a child out the window Miss Trunchball style? Will I be able to pull myself away from this beautiful city in the summer? We’ll find out!
To see more, follow my blog via email or follow me on social media. The links are on the right hand side bar on a computer or at the bottom of your screen on a mobile.
To see where I’ve lived and visited, click HERE to be directed to my map on google maps.