Hello and welcome to Going the Distance, a new travel blog! I’m Tom from the West Midlands in the UK. From early holidays with family to trips abroad with friends, travel has always been one of my favourite things to do. An Interrail trip at 19 with four friends in the summer of 2011 from Barcelona to Berlin was my first real experience of exploring the world while having to fend for ourselves.

My experience of travel has changed considerably since meeting my girlfriend Emily in 2019. Before this, my friends and I would have gone to somewhere in Europe and cheerfully wondered around, before stopping at a beach or by a pool for a nice relax.

Since meeting Emily, her more adventurous (and organised) spirit has led to me travelling more widely and has involved hiking, kayaking, snorkelling and cycling, as well as climbing more than our fair share of mountains. There’s no more time for relaxing by pools on Emily’s itineraries, when there’s always somewhere else to see (or climb, usually). In my case, all this adventuring never seems to result in much of an improvement in fitness, but has provided us with amazing memories of parts of the world I’d have never otherwise seen.

In this blog I’ll tell the stories of the trips Emily and I share together, and hopefully inspire you to take a trip to somewhere unexpected too. Don’t forget to get in touch via the comments with any questions you might have about any of the trips. Enjoy!