No Fixed Abode

Two to three months into the first lockdown, winter came to Peru. In our small, walled-in hotel outside Ica it was still hot during the...

There was a checkpoint with little sentry boxes entering Denmark. The line wasn’t long and we were waved through, US license plate and...

IRELAND It was 1986 when I’d last been on a motorbike in Ireland. And the same could be said for Fran. The amount of water that’s flowed...

It would be like old times, the three of us, back on the road. We thought we’d be on the new Honda but at the last minute Portuguese...

Even in the olden days, when having a cup of tea and a Jaffa Cake with your mother wasn’t a potentially deadly pastime, the stretch...

It didn’t feel much like an occasion for celebration but August 21st marked the one year anniversary of our leaving Peru. On the other...

“It’s not all about you, y’know”, my 8-year nephew once informed me. The little squirt was of course right but if anyone out there has...

There’s something about arriving in a new country that makes you feel you’re on holidays, even when you’re not. This is reinforced by...

I like the nomadic life. It’s got the freedom of an orphan but without the ache of absent parents. My happiness with that state had crept...

After three years roaming the Americas, I must admit, I’m enjoying the comforts of European life. There’s a lot to be said for hot water,...

On the coast just north of Dublin I went straight into quarantine. It was in a place I’d only ever seen from the window of a train. At...

It was a little bit like war, those last days in Lima: long periods of boredom interrupted by short bursts of terror. Terror is an...

If you want to give God a laugh, make plans. Wise words from my uncle’s kitchen table in Michigan in October 2017. We’ve driven 43,000 km...

If I had to choose a painting that best describes our current life under the great Covid cloud, it would be Dali’s timeless dreamscape...

It’s May, winter is coming and lockdown mornings rise under a cold, white sky. Sometimes there’s fog on the dunes. After freezing over a...

Lima was our halfway point and we spent a week there in a small apartment in Barranco. It was very bohemian with leafy streets and...

The following post covers the weeks leading up to Peru’s State of Emergency. The resulting lockdown will be covered in the next...

It was pouring rain when we drove across the international bridge that connects Huaquillas in Ecuador to Aguas Verdes, Peru. At 8 AM we...

At 4:40 AM the Ipiales border was so dark and quiet our exit from Colombia felt almost as clandestine as our entry had 6 months earlier....

The little town of Camarones was our last stop on the Caribbean. In the Los Flamencos Sanctuary we rented a room in a place that was more...