Meet Helen from Holidays from Hels

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I created the “Travellers’ Tales” section to give other travellers an opportunity to talk about their travels on my blog. Today I would like to introduce you to Helen , a travel blogger based in the United Kingdom. She blogs at Holidays from Hels.

I would love to hear about your travels too. Go to “Travellers’ Tales” , fill in the quick questionnaire and email it to me with your blog links.

Read about Helen’s travels here,

1. Tell us a bit about yourself.

My younger carefree self spent 2 and a half years pottering around the world. I am now all grown up and work in a school, which does allow me plenty of time, if not money, to keep exploring with my children.

We started small with newspaper discount caravan holidays in Cornwall and Devon, but now that they are older and I have caught up on the missing sleep, we have together navigated the Moscow metro in the snowiest winter in 20 years (that writing is HARD to read) and dealt with head injuries in Moroccan hospitals. Things rarely go according to plan, but you always get a better story at the end.

Which is why I decided to start writing them up in the summer of 2019 – so I can share the stories and a lifetime of travel tips, and so that others can maybe learn from my mistakes without having to make them themselves.

2. What is your earliest travel memory?

This must be camping and canoeing, about age 5, with my family in Wales. My dad had knocked up some home-made canoes and would take me and my sister out in them in our matching white polystyrene life vests. There is a great, very 1970’s, picture of us both in the canoe on top of our VW Beetle.

3. Where was the last place you travelled to?

We have just returned from the cobbled streets of Durham, where we dropped our eldest son off at Hogwarts/ University. It is an amazing rock of a city, with its castle and cathedral perched high above the river which practically encircles it.

4. What was the best thing you did there?

We attended a fascinating Cathedral tour which took us through the ages, from the monks of Lindesfarne carrying the bones of St Cuthbert for 7 years looking for a final resting place, to the herding of 3000 Scottish soldiers in its cloisters. It has also, inevitably, been featured in the Harry Potter films.

5. What was your best holiday ever? Why?

I think it has to be our Moscow trip in February 2018. The boys had never seen anything but a dusting of English snow before this, and having an entire city blanketed in 2 feet of powder was totally magical. There were snow tubing and neon lit skating opportunities in Gorky Park. The river was frozen and the golden onion-dome topped building of Kittay Gorod gleamed in the winter sun. We ate Blinis (chocolate pancakes) in a Christmas themed market in Red Square overlooking the Kremlin. We saw the Russian crown jewels (with a Mongolian twist), the inside of the wildly colourful St Basil’s Cathedral and Lenin’s embalmed body. A trip with literally something for everyone.

6. What is your favourite travel destination?

Italy! It’s the combination of sunshine and the sunny Italian disposition, not forgetting the gorgeous hilltop villages, fabulous Venetian architecture and the brightly coloured houses of Burano. Trains are cheap and the Tuscan scenery is divine. And I haven’t even seen the Amalfi coast yet. Then there is the food – pizza/icecream/coffee – tasty treats for all the family.

7. What must one do there?

Have a drink under the Rialto bridge in Venice; eat pizza under the stars in the ancient cobbled square in the centre of Lucca; and cool off under the sprinklers outside the gleaming white facades surrounding the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

8. Who is your favourite travel companion/s?

My family! Designated driver husband, and my 2 teenage sons who are game for pretty much anything and anywhere I throw at them. They sometimes turn the tables on me, requiring me to attempt muddy assault courses etc (still can’t quite believe how bad I was at that) but they are normally pretty willing participants in my mountain hiking/ boating/ festival volunteering requests. Although they now refuse to be photographed, which is fair enough.

9. Name one item you must have when travelling.

Antihistamine. You never when you might come across something (plant/food/chemical)/heat) that one of your party’s bodies decides it is going to be massively allergic to. I feared the worst in the Australian rainforest but was surprisingly fine.

10. Your best travel advice?

The travel fails make for the best travel tales afterwards so take the risk and embrace the ensuing madness.

11. The one place you want to visit before you die?

Antarctica. I want icebergs floating next to me in an otherworldly monochrome environment, a totally alien landscape. Ideally this is on a cruise ship serving hot drinks and supplying thick fur trimmed outfits.

12. Worst travel experience?

Travelling down the Nile as part of a flotilla of traditional feluccas in high winds, our neighbour flipped over. Our boat became part of a fairly traumatic rescue effort dragging crying people out of parasite-ridden waters. There was a lot of shouting and screaming but in the end the chef who was trapped beneath deck was eventually pulled out safe and well, rather than dead as feared.

Carrying double the recommended passenger load, we continued the afternoon’s sailing on more than a metaphorical edge, at a 45 degree angle in fact, in search of a substantial modern vessel to transport the rescuees to safety. They had no luggage, passports or money – but they were lucky to the extent that they now had safe passage back to port, unlike those of us continuing on with the felucca adventure for the next blowy and nerve-wracking few days.

13. Any embarrassing travel moments?

So many! I have an entire post dedicated to my travel fails.

In Australia, it looked like great fun to hang on to a net slung from the back of a speeding boat. Beware this fish net activity if wearing a bikini! I started holding on with 2 hands but as the speed built, one was needed to save one piece of my outfit from the pull of the sea. I got to choose which!

I then found myself desperately clinging to the net with 4 ever-loosening fingers of 1 hand, whilst keeping the one remaining item of clothing in the general area it is supposed to cover with the other. I subsequently lost any remaining dignity exiting the sea back on to the boat, hugging what remained of my original outfit.