UNIVERSITY Archives - Wandering Everywhere

WHAT ARE TRAVEL BLOGGERS DOING DURING THE QUARANTINE?

Amy Aed — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 19:48:45 +0000

Today, one of my fellow Instagrammers asked, ‘what do travel bloggers do during a quarantine?’ My answer? Not a lot. Staying positive, mainly.

The UK is predicted to be around three weeks behind Italy in terms of severity, and only two weeks behind France – which is probably why the British government has only just announced that we should all be staying indoors.

Due to the fact that I have Crohn’s Disease, an autoimmune disease, I have had to self-isolate for the past four days as the Coronavirus has made its way to the county of Ceredigion. My immune system simply would not be able to fight against a virus like this taking root inside my body, so I have had to cut off pretty much all social interactions for now. Every single one of my social events for the next few months have been cancelled, so it’s a pretty weird time to be a third year university student. At this point, it’s unlikely we will be getting a graduation ceremony.

I am staying at my girlfriend’s house for the time being, as it is has a large sun window overlooking the ocean, less people coming in and out, and is fully stocked with all of my food. I will be laying low for the next few weeks, monitoring the situation across the country and trying to shield myself from the Coronavirus.

This self-isolation has meant that I have had a lot of time to really focus on things I’ve been putting off. I’m reading a bunch of travel books that I hadn’t found the time to read, writing articles for local magazines (since all of my NWR cultural correspondent duties have been cancelled for the meanwhile), cooking an unholy amount of pasta, watching Love is Blind (I’m disgusted, too) on Netflix, and trying to finalise publishing the first issue of a new local magazine. I’ve been doing yoga and painting-by-numbers, and spending time with the love of my life. At this point, there really is nothing left to do but breathe and stay calm.

Personally, I’m trying to focus on the positive news in the world – such as wildlife returning to cities that have been ruined by humans, little acts of kindness that people are doing for one another, and the fact that air pollution in China has dropped by 30%. The world seems to be healing, even if humans are not.

I had only decided to write this post about 40 minutes ago, as many of you were asking about how it was affecting myself and my country. There has only been a handful of cases in Wales at this moment, but that number is expected to grow for the next month or so. So far, there has only been one local fatality.

Ultimately, the answer to the earlier question is that travel bloggers are staying home with their families during the quarantine, eating food, watching movies, scribbling notes, listening and learning. I feel as though this is a truly strange time in history, and we should really be spending our time trying to do whatever good we can, in whichever ways we can.

I hope that you are all keeping safe, and are feeling well during this pandemic. I love you all endlessly.

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WALKING WALES WITH MY WEIRD-LOOKING DOG

Amy Aed — Fri, 28 Feb 2020 09:04:01 +0000

As some of you may know, on the 1st May 2023, I plan on setting off on a two-month walk around Wales. I will be doing this with two of my favourite people – Inés González Miguéns and Trianna Carroll – along with a goat called Cragen, our very small and unreliable travel mascot. Together, we form the most unlikely of expedition teams.

Chris Bonington:

“Sounds a fantastic wonderful project and I am very happy to put out my support. The very best of good fortune and have a wonderful time.”

Starting from the 1st May, we will trek over mountains, clamber through caves, and wild swim in freezing waters, staying in any accommodation we can find. We plan on covering an average of 90 miles a week, resting at lighthouses, underground bunkers, caving huts, monk-run communes (yes they have them in Wales!), pig barns, gypsy caravans, stranger’s houses, and good ol’ fashioned cabins in the woods. We will record our journey across Wales with the production of a documentary – with Inés as our camera woman with chronic back pain (inconvenient when you hold a camera for 5+ hours a day), Trianna being our travel-sick crew member, and myself being the host. Along with Cragen, of course.

We have already planned the first three months of the journey, and let me tell you, I absolutely did not think that there would be this much work involved. When Levison Wood went on his expedition to walk the Nile, I assumed that he spent about a week looking at maps and then set off in the general direction of the river. Oh, how I was wrong. This expedition has taken us nearly three years of talking about it, finalising details, and planning every single day – and we still have a lot more to go. It’s exhausting, but it will be worth it.

Reza Pakravan:

“This is an epic adventure around one of the most incredible parts of the world. The girls are super brave and ambitious and I am giving them my full support.”

I will be interviewing locals, getting hands-on with activities such as beekeeping, bushcraft, and metalwork, and experiencing the best and worst things that Wales has to offer. I will enter the bog snorkelling championship, attend my first ever L Fest, and try my hand at taxidermy. It’s going to be one heck of a journey, but it’s absolutely going to be worth it.

We will walk north to meet self-proclaimed wizards, druids, former satanist priests, blacksmiths, mushroom farmers, rugby players, and millionaires – just to name a few. The more research we have conducted, the more we have become convinced that Wales is absolutely one of the wackiest places around. It’s very exciting. We might try fishing such as the adventures offered by Fishing Trips PNG and will truly throw ourselves in the deep end with different challenges and activities.

Some of you may now be asking, why us? After all, we are untrained, a little naive, and can’t even navigate with Google Maps. Heck, we’ve never spent more than a week camping combined. But regardless of all of this, we are passionate, impulsive, and ready to get more than a little messy. Inés comes from the Celtic nation of Galicia, Trianna is a weeb for Welsh culture, and I myself am Welsh through-and-through (Swansea Abertawe boiiiis) – and we all want to dig deep into the heart of the country.

Our all-woman team is going to face unsurmountable highs and lows, and spending every hour of every day with one another is going to be the ultimate test of our friendship. Plus, we are going to see a lot of each other – and as someone with Crohn’s Disease who knows that she’s going to have to sh*t in the woods, it’s not going to be pretty. But what better way to spend the summer than sleeping on mountains infamous for making you awaken either a madman or a poet? Kicking back on islands where all of the inhabitants are convicts? Meeting the people loitering around abandoned insane asylums? It’s an expedition where really, nothing could go wrong.

Crohn’s Disease is something that I have talked about before on the blog, but have never really delved into the details of. It is an immobilising, merciless disease that no one actually wants to talk about. It seems that the general public still knows nothing about Crohn’s (and even a lot of gastroenterologists are clueless about how to treat it), and so I’m hoping that by undertaking this journey, I can bring light to a subject that is commonly avoided.

Ed Stafford:

“[These girls] are embarking on a fantastic adventure to capture Wales in all its gritty glory. I wish them well and give my full support to the project.”

I know that over the course of the journey, I will face the same stomach pain, weak joints, scarred skin, and malnutrition that I face on a daily basis at home – but man, I want to be an explorer, so it’s just something that I’m going to have to suck up. By the end of it all, you guys are going to be fluent in Crohn’s-related vocab, and the stereotypes relating to auto-immune diseases will be thoroughly challenged. It’s going to be a wild ride.

I will try to update you all on our expedition as it progresses – but the fact that we will spend days even without food means that I can’t guarantee a stable internet connection. I’m hoping that we will be able to find some sort of local accommodation most nights on the road when we haven’t planned anything, but understand that a goat will stop us from a lot of people letting us stay in their houses. But hear me out: to undertake this walk with a weird-looking dog in tow would be funny, and thus, worth it.

We have already received support from numerous explorers and celebrities, such as Ash Bhardwaj, Ed Stafford, Darius Arya, Chris Bonington, Benedict Allen, Reza Pakravan, Hayley Long, and Bill Bryson – all people I have spent my life looking up to. It’s as exciting as it is scary – but knowing that we have so much support from not only the people mentioned above, but radio stations, magazines, and local businesses, makes us feel as though this is a journey that really means something to people. And if they have faith in us after knowing how hopeless a team we are, well, I guess we have to do it.

To follow our journey, why not stalk our Twitter and Instagram?

If you would like to donate, please visit our gofundme.

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WHY YOU SHOULD EXPLORE YOUR TOWN AT NIGHT

Amy Aed — Thu, 30 Nov 2017 16:12:00 +0000

Considering I’ve only lived in the student town of Aberystwyth for a couple of months, I’d say I’ve fallen in love with the place pretty quickly. Filled with history and stories and nationalism (and Vodka Tuesdays), Aber tends to draw you in completely. In some ways, it’s relatively similar to my hometown of Swansea with its beaches and hills and castles, but something about this sleepy seaside makes it completely foreign. So far, I’ve basically only been out during daylight to go to lectures or to walk back home after a long night out, but I wouldn’t have it any other way as I’ve had some of the best adventures at midnight. From stargazing to skinny dipping, towns like this are so much better when darkness falls.

EVERYTHING IS QUIET

At a small university town, during the evening you’ll find that most people are either in bed doing some last minute reading, or celebrating having done some last minute reading with a few pints, rendering the streets relatively bare. I caught the flu a couple weeks back, and a friend brought warm soup for us to sip as I cwtched up warm in my big fleece jacket, and we sat on the edge of the pier. Swinging my legs off the side and gazing out towards the ocean, with only distant sounds being audible against the vast ocean silence, is both eery and calming. It’s equally as surreal looking down over the town from a mini mountain as the sun falls down behind streetlights and background-lit windows, and with no one around, there’s hardly any accompanying sound. It’s weird, but awesome.

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EVERYTHING SEEMS MORE PERSONAL

One night last month someone took me out to the jetty to watch the stars, gazing up at the milkyway and pointing out which constellations were which. The only sound between our voices was that of the Irish Sea lapping against the shore, and the only things we could make out in the darkness were the stars, distant town lights, and each other. It was one of the most charming nights I’ve had in my life, and it would have been completely ruined had it been filtered with sunlight and tourists.

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ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE

Somehow, I imagine that had I clambered up the side of a castle to eat cookies with someone at 11am instead of 11pm, I would have had a different experience to the chill, undisturbed one I did have. Or, if I’d ran naked into the ocean with a society during daylight I’m pretty sure that the locals and holidaymakers would have had a thing or two to say to us. What I’m basically saying is, the second the sun drops down the horizon, the world is your oyster to explore and do things that daylight would otherwise unlikely permit.

EVERYONE’S MORE COMFORTABLE

I’ve met some of the most chill people at night, as by the time the clock strikes 3am everyone’s too sleep deprived to care about anything. You can have some deep discussions as you wander down to the beach as fireworks go off overheard on Bonfire Night, and people are always hazy with guileless glee in the arcade when all the windows overlook a pitch black town. Time moves slower, people are happier, and it’s a pretty decent atmosphere to experience.

A SENSE OF DANGER

So one day at Aberystwyth, we were all emailed warnings to not leave our flats to go to evening lectures because Storm Ophelia had hit and there were loose roof tiles and the like flying about everywhere. So naturally, one of my friends suggested that we go down to the ocean and watch the storm erupt chaos into the town. You could barely move in one direction due to the sheer force of the wind, and the waves coming up and hitting the streets were mental. As it got darker, everything felt less restricted and more ominous, and whilst I felt safe, there was a prominent question mark hovering over what would happen. It’s exciting and I love it.

From eating candyfloss at a funfair to sipping soup on the edge of a pier, to even going dry slope skiing, some of my best experiences at this uni town so far have been during dark. They’e exciting and personal and honestly, it makes you fall in love with everything twice as quick and I can’t recommend then enough.