If you love walking, I highly recommend joining a walking group.

I’ve been a member of a local walking group through Meetup for a number of years and it’s given me the opportunity to go on many walks which I might otherwise never have heard of.

If you’re not familiar with Meetup, you can search for and join a group in your area and once you’ve become a member you get notified if a host posts a walk. You can then sign up to join a walk and if it’s full (there’s always a limit so numbers don’t get too big), you are put on a waiting list. My experience is that closer to the walk date people tend to pull out, so you can usually guarantee a space will become available.

One of the benefits of being in a walking group is that it’s far easier to go on a walk if someone else organises it! It’s really easy to say you’re going to go for a walk by yourself or with a friend and then not get around to it! But with a walking group you have no excuses as someone else has organised it and you can’t let them down!

Often there are different grades of walks posted so you can choose between easy, medium or challenging. This means you can ease yourself into walking when you’re first starting out rather than pushing yourself too hard and suffering afterwards!

Being in a walking group has also given me the opportunity to meet people I might otherwise never have crossed paths with, and because you share a common interest there’s always something to talk about. I have found out about all sorts of walks, both locally and internationally, and this has directly led to my walking in Spain and Italy.

So if you love walking but don’t have anyone to walk with, I definitely recommend joining a walking group.

Happy walking!

There’s something to be said for walking solo.

Even though it’s great to walk with friends, it’s only when we’re truly alone that we get the chance to have time to think with no distractions and lots of space. It’s not something we get the opportunity to do very often as usually we’re surrounded by people and noise and computers and phones …

I was really lucky when walking through Spain to have equal measures of walking by myself and with other people and both were valuable for different reasons. Walking with people who I had never have met before gave me the opportunity to have some really great conversations. Walking alone gave me the opportunity to think, to cry, to laugh, to stop when I wanted, to experience some wonderful things.

The Roman roads through Spain are very long and very straight and there aren’t many places to sit down comfortably and rest your swollen feet. When I was really tired I would ask for somewhere to sit and on more than one occasion I would see a shelter in the distance with seating and shade.

On another occasion I was walking on an isolated track and struggling a bit when I heard a vehicle approaching. I instantly got into fight or flight mode, particularly when it slowed down and then stopped beside me. Expecting the worst, I turned to see a lovely old couple in an old white van beaming from ear to ear. The woman then held out a basket of lollies and offered them to me. It was the nicest thing that anyone had done for a long time.

Walking alone also gave me the chance to forgive some people from my past who I needed to let go of. Sometimes you just need the time and space and open road to be able to do this. It was so cathartic.

So my advice is, if you get the chance to walk alone, take it. You never know what might occur.

Happy walking!

Yes, they do exist and yes I’ve managed to get them. Twice in fact, which I believe is twice too many times. You can recognise them as you get 2-3 tiny bites in an area in a triangle pattern and they’re really itchy. They are a real pain to get rid of and require lots of effort.

Basically you need to wash everything in your backpack in really hot water and put everything in the dryer. You also need to thoroughly clean your backpack, paying attention to things like seams where the little critters like to hide.

When I got them the first time, the manager of the hostel I was staying in knew exactly what to do. He made me take all my clothes off (including underwear) and put all my belongings into black rubbish bags which he then took straight to the laundry. He then presented me with some clothes which were clean but shall I say, had been around for a long long time. He also put my backpack in the freezer overnight which apparently kills the eggs.

The second time I got bed bugs I knew what to do so got onto them quicker, but even so I managed to bring them home with me back to New Zealand which was a whole different story. Let me just say, once you’ve got them in your house it’s REALLY DIFFICULT to get rid of them.

Interestingly enough I had soaked/sprayed my sleeping bag, inner sheet and backpack with ant-bedbug liquid before I left home but it obviously wasn’t effective. It’s really the luck of the draw as to whether you get them or not and doesn’t mean that a hostel is dirty as they have most likely been brought in by another traveler who hadn’t got around to dealing with them. (Note to self, don’t pick the bunk nearest to the door which usually gets the highest occupancy!)