1) Obviously your book was inspired by your travels, but did you decide to write your book before you set off on your journey?
No! I initially thought I would blog about my travels and started a page where I would post weekly updates and photographs. This came to an abrupt halt when I realised I couldn’t count on WiFi signal deep in the Caucasus Mountains or the Himalayas.
I always loved writing and I carried journals throughout my travels, and would post them back to Scotland each time I finished one. When I came back to Edinburgh and was faced with all my journals, I realised I had a book there waiting for me to write. I initially tried writing my book in diary style, word-by-word, but slowly understood that there was a deeper story behind my flowery words. A year later, I rewrote the entire book by changing some identities and editing the travel route, allowing me to have a better perspective on what was important to share and carving out an exciting plot.
2) When you were travelling on your own, was this scary or are you quite the seasoned traveller?
It was terrifying! To begin with, I was dealing with the grief of heartbreak, but also loneliness. For a long time, I had been completely reliant on other people, specifically men, who’d been making decisions for me, carrying my bags and haggling with the locals. It felt like a completely new trip being on my own, but with it, came an newfound freedom. I was able to make up my own mind, walk my own pace and began opening up to people I met on the way.
3) Did it take a long time to plan such an epic journey or did you just take it one day at a time?
My partner at the time, ‘Andy’, and I spent about a year daydreaming about a trip which would involve walking and hitchhiking around the world. We watched plenty of travel documentaries, read hiking memoirs and followed blogs. We wanted to start somewhere relatively untrodden and off-piste. When we discovered Georgia, it ticked all those boxes. Besides from Georgia, I had in mind that I wanted to make it to Nepal, but there wasn’t a plan or timeframe for it. (In fact, as you’ll read in the book, Andy had other plans!). I never imagined I would end up in the remote, beautiful places that I did and that the journey would take a year.
4) What was your experience of the people you met along the way?
I’d like to answer this in two parts; meeting the locals, and meeting other backpackers.
One of the reasons I was so desperate to travel, was because I wanted to know more about different cultures and meet people living in these remote and wonderful places. It’s hard to answer a question about the local people I met in such a concise manner without generalising, so you’ll have to read my book for more of a detailed explanation.
During my time in the Caucasus, it was wonderful meeting the locals through hitchhiking, where I’d spend hours at a time in their cars. One thing I noticed, was that even if they had no knowledge of English, they were not shy of speaking or using the limited words they knew. Both Georgians and Armenians were incredibly proud of their country – the history, the food, the sites – and were very keen to share their knowledge with us.
In Nepal, the villagers we met along the way during the Annapurna Trail were incredibly hospitable and kind. There was a modesty and calmness about Nepali people that I hadn’t expected, and a huge warmness. In India, we often came across locals who were very keen to practice their English and, again were delighted that foreigners had come to their country which they were so proud of.
In Spain, I felt like the locals were my friends. We shared the same mother tongue, Spanish, and I felt like I could finally communicate again. Of course, The Camino, is now purpose-built for pilgrims, and the locals are very involved in adding to the experience and proud of their heritage.
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Every single traveller you meet on your way has a story, and I found all of them fascinating. I met a young Russian girl who worked at an orphanage in St Petersburg, a Swiss who’d just motorbiked through Pakistan, a Spaniard who’d completed a month’s silent retreat in the Nepali mountains and an Irishman who’d travelled from Ireland to Spain by boat, to name a few. Only a fraction of these people were featured in my book, as it would be too long to write.
There is a unique, intense relationship you make with fellow travellers on the road, a connection that is rarely found back home. You go through cultural shocks, homesickness and enormous experiences – reaching the peak of a Himalayan Mountain Pass, seeing a sunset over a dying glacier, witnessing poverty and death at the cremation sites in Varanasi – which bonds you closely. You very quickly create a sort of comradeship.
5) You had some very scary moments, was there any point during your journey that you felt you had taken on too much and wanted to stop?
Absolutely. The insta-worthy pictures certainly hide the darker side of travel. There were plenty of tears, knocks in confidence, injuries and fights. Although I had an idea of the hikes we might take, I was not trained or very fit, and the first month of hiking almost destroyed my body. It didn’t help that I had begun with 18kgs of non-essentials, and there were many tough lessons that I had to learn quickly.
There are two very clear moments where I thought I would stop travelling and return home. One of them was in Armenia, where things in my relationship got tough. We were exhausted after two months of hitchhiking, camping and walking. We had an enormous, pent-up fight, ended up spending a night in different hostels, and some unexpected decisions were made. I thought our relationship was ending, and I was really not sure of my capabilities and did not think I’d be able to continue travelling on my own and thought I would call the whole adventure off.
The second time, was during The Camino, and it was down to a smaller kind of threat – dogs! After completing the Camino Santiago, I impulsively decided to walk the Camino Portuguese. However, this walk involved facing packs of stray dogs. They would run up at me barking and snarling and I found that experience terrifying. It was an unsettling feeling and I kept on having to improvise my walking route, frequently getting lost, and adding anything between 5 to 15km to the walk.
I thought long and hard and decided that I’d had enough of my journey and would make plans to end the walk. However, that was the night I reached the hostel, and met my first female traveller friend, ‘Eva’. She offered to walk with me the next few days, and that made all the difference to keep on going.
6) What would you like readers to take away from this book?
There will only be certain points in your life where you might get the opportunity to go on a journey and travel the world. Grasp these moments with both hands and make the most out of it. Explore the world while you can, before a career, or a family, health, God forbid another pandemic, reshuffles your priorities. Travelling is the best way to learn about our world, not through media and the news, but speaking to locals, seeing their country through their eyes. It also gives you a fresh perspective of your own home. It’s a wonderful, truthful way to learn about yourself and to test your boundaries.
This book also focusses on relationships and break-ups. Relationships in your 20s can be intensely emotional and defining. To anyone struggling through a relationship or heartbreak, I hope my book might offer you a little reassurance and serve as a reminder to give yourself grace, believe in yourself and be your own biggest champion. Life is too short to be in doubt on whether someone is right for you or not. Don’t let your hesitation stop you from exploring all the opportunities that are lying ahead.
7) Do you have any advice for readers, who may be inspired to follow your example and try parts of your walk for themselves?
I’m not sure I’m equipped to hand out expert advice, as I was so ill-prepared for any of these walks. I didn’t have maps, my boots were broken, my backpack was far too heavy (I took hair straighteners!), I had no fancy hiking equipment and exercise does not come naturally to me.
I was certainly not a travel influencer, or a daredevil. I was a girl who loved reading about adventures, and who had a dream to go out and live her own. I wanted to go on a long-distance walk, where all you needed to do was…walk. And during my, rather long, walk, I got to experience a rather marvellous adventure.
So here are a few thoughts:
I think it is natural to conjure up a bunch of excuses when you’re scared to do something. I had many. But I think if you really want to go on a beautiful walk around the world, you just need to do it. The scariest part of the entire journey will be time you spend thinking about doing it.
You don’t need a crazy budget or a personal-trainer (I had neither, although some initial fitness might have helped ease the shock at climbing the Caucasus Mountains), and you don’t need to overthink timings, seasons and dates (I walked The Camino in the middle of Spain’s worst winter. I missed a best friend’s wedding. I quit a job. Spoiler alert: I survived). You need a good pair of shoes (I learnt that the hard way), an open-mind and a little bit of guts. Everything else is secondary.
As a female traveller, it is worth mentioning safety. I was incredibly lucky not to experience any danger during my journey, not just locally, but also from the people I was on the journey with. Travelling can be highly isolating, stressful and exposing and can lead to dramatic personality changes and clashes on the road. There can be minimal ways of contacting support in a foreign country with different languages to protect someone from abuse. I only met a small handful of girls on their own, and I think this says a lot about how much of a risk it is for women to travel solo, especially in remote countries. I would therefore encourage women travellers to always keep safety in mind, be aware of local and virtual communities (Facebook and Instagram Travel groups are wonderful ways of connecting quickly with others) and have local emergency numbers to hand.
8) Who are some of your favourite authors and did they inspire your travels?
Whilst travelling, reading became my biggest comfort and cure to loneliness. I would crave the evening, where I’d take my books into my tent or hostel and read into the early hours of the morning. I would read on long train rides or bus trips.
I wouldn’t have travelled, or written a book, without the authors that inspired me. I’m a big re-reader, and I devoured my favourite travel books countless times, until I felt they were friends keeping me company on the road. My main heroes were Cheryl Strayed, Levison Wood, Guy Grieves, Dervla Murphy, Robyn Davidson and Rob Lilwall – all incredibly brave people who endured very wild journeys.
9) Do you plan to go on any adventures in the future?
I hope my next big adventure will be to go back to my roots, in Chile and South America. As much as I have explored different countries, I have ashamedly never really explored the one I came from. I would love to travel the length of Chile, from bottom to top, and then head out into the rest of South America. There is so much history and magic involved in every aspect of Latin American’s history and culture, that I would love to learn more about.
However, having spent the last few years on the move, living in London and South Africa, I have recently moved to Edinburgh where I hope to stay for some time. I think there’s nothing more romantic or inspiring than the dramatic landscapes of Scotland and I can’t wait to explore the country in more depth.