What’s this all about? A travel blog with a twist…

I’ve been nursing the idea for this travel blog for a while now. I know, I’m literally just in time. Because there’s a grave shortage of sunsets, beachscapes, and pictures of quaint cobblestoned streets on social media right now. But, like a person who doesn’t get Tinder at all begs – please, stay with me, this could be the beginning of a beautiful relationship!

I love travel. Love it. I try to get overseas for at least two months every year. Saving to fund this does involve sacrifices. I colour my own hair, cut my own fringe (yes, that’s me rocking the apparent Joan of Arc tribute every couple of months) and I eat cereal for dinner more frequently than any self-respecting adult would. Sadly, even these drastic measures only save you so much coin. If I want to be away for a long time, I need to go to countries where the Aussie dollar stretches further. Sorry, Europe. And it’s just not going to work out between us, UK.

This is where the title of the blog comes in. Over recent years, my holiday destinations have been Vietnam, India, China, Mexico, Central America, and Cuba. All choices that completely horrify my darling younger brother, Jarrod.

In the lead up to my Central America trip, I was reeling off the places I was going to see – Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua… I got as far as the ‘Co’ in Costa Rica, when he cut me off. He shook his head, and – sounding genuinely disappointed, he asked me “why the f*&k…can’t you go on a f*&king holiday… anywhere f*&king nice?”

Now I firmly believe there’s no one size fits all where travel is concerned. Whatever floats your boat. I know everybody has their own style of travel and some destinations hold no appeal to some people. Personally, I like pulling on my backpack and staying in places that are fairly basic, but I’d never preach that everyone should do that.

You like a resort holiday where you lounge on a private beach or luxuriate by a pool with cocktails? That’s great. That would literally be hell on earth for me. I’m pathologically pale, so the sunscreen application and reapplication would be worse than full time work. Do you know, they say the guys who paint the Sydney Harbour Bridge start at one end, get to the other and by that time, they have to start back at the beginning right away. That’s my relationship with sunscreen.

Your standards run towards posh hotels with big lush reception areas? Four star minimum, you say? That’s great. Personally, they make me uncomfortable – I feel as though everyone is staring at me because I obviously don’t belong there. I’m like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, only I’m not tugging at a dangerously short skirt that threatens to reveal my flaps at any given moment; I’m smoothing down my dirty cargo pants and wishing I’d worn my ‘special occasion’ Havianas.

 So yes, each to their own and all that. But surely writing off all of my holiday destinations in   one fell swoop, implying there was nothing nice to be said about any of them was unduly harsh? And there, the seed for the blog was sown. I was going to sell the experiences and destinations to my skeptical brother Jarrod.

About this time, in a turn of events that seemed positively kismet – my employer put out a call for expressions of interest in Voluntary Departure Packages. Also known as Redunancies in some industries. (I guess my workplace thought Redunancy sounded somewhat mean spirited, like “ha! You BET you’re redundant. For the life of us we can’t work out why we ever needed you in the first place! Go on, get out of here, you won’t be missed at all!!”) I put in for a package and immediately started plotting about where I would go and the shape the blog would take. I was fizzing with possibilities and no doubt highly irritating to everyone around me, as I talked of little else. Georgia, Azerbaijan, the Safe Stans, Nepal, Tibet, Cambodia, Laos, South America, Africa, a return to India …

Then….I got the response to my application. I was considered ‘essential and vital to effective delivery of service’ in our health system. A sentence simultaneously flattering and devastating. The windfall that would have funded my full year of travel had been dangled in front of me then cruelly snatched away. I was going to have to fund my holidays like every other sucker. By winning Tattslotto.

So plans have adjusted, and this year’s holiday is just going to be South America in September. But I’m not waiting till I get there to start the blog. In the meantime I’ve decided to be a tourist in my own state and blog about that.

Let’s be honest – Melbourne doesn’t have the sexy, iconic attractions that Sydney does. We don’t have Bondi Beach, so if watching drowning Koreans being plucked out the surf is your thing, you’re fresh out of luck (*knowledge of Bondi Beach derived entirely from viewing 4 episodes of Bondi Rescue on tv). We don’t have an Opera House, we don’t have a Harbour Bridge. But I do believe there’s no shortage of things to see and do and write about.

I’ll be starting next week with “An Afternoon Getting High: The Melbourne Star”

And asking the question when it’s all said and done – “Jarrod, would you go there?”