Sunrise-Devon.JPGI didn’t need 80 days to travel around the world but the last month still feels pretty epic.

Since leaving London in early March, I have been to eight countries on four continents. First stop was Australia, where I spent a couple of weeks visiting friends and family in and around Sydney and Brisbane. I then flew to Houston via Los Angeles to make connections to Nicaragua for a week researching a travel story. Back to Los Angeles for one night, and then a 15-hour flight to Hong Kong. Still on assignment, I went from Hong Kong to Thailand, then a loop around South-East Asia that also took in the Angkor Wat area in Cambodia and a day in Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital, before returning to Bangkok. I flew back to Hong Kong for my flight home to London (the itinerary had changed but the ticket didn’t).

I was only in London for one day - just long enough to visit the laundromat since the washing machine had packed it in during my absence. Then I caught the train down to the Arvon Foundation centre in the Devon countryside for a fiction writing course. It felt like a retreat after all that time on the road, staying in a pre-Domesday thatched cottage, with lots of time to be creative and go on long rambling walks across the fields. The hope of seeing otters in the river did get me down there at 6.30am - I didn’t see the otters but I did see this beautiful sunrise.

Now I’m back in London, very glad to see my partner and looking forward to getting back to normal life - and the eight stories I have to write from the trip. Travelling is fab, even though the schedules can be intense, but I’m always happy to return, knowing that the next adventure is not too far away. Mongolia might be next.