Last year, I stayed in some incredible hotels Sri Lanka: The Fortress Resort & Spa near Galle was particularly dreamy. As I start planning my travels for 2025, I've been reminiscing about some of the other beautiful places I've stayed in over the years. I've put together this selection of my most unique and memorable stays around the world. I hope it helps inspire your own holiday plans!

I was sad to bid farewell to my old passport this week — not just because it was an EU one (*sob*) but also because the stamps inside remind me of the travel experiences I've enjoyed over the past decade. To highlight some of these wonderful memories, I decided to pick one photo from each year, and boy was that hard! (I cheated because the header image features an 11th photo!)

Later this year, I am travelling to Peru, where I hope to cross another item off my bucket list: hiking the Inca Trail and visiting Machu Picchu. I'm really excited about the trip, which will be my first time in South America, and I couldn't help but look back on some of the other amazing travel experiences I've been lucky enough to have over the past few years. I hope some of these will inspire you with your own holiday planning for 2018 and beyond.

I can hardly believe that it's already time for my end-of-year top five lists. I like to pick my top five 'leaps' of the year because it is a convenient — and somewhat quirky — way of reviewing my London-based and foreign adventures. It's been a hectic year at work but I've travelled to New York, Japan, Canada and Cannes, and there has also been plenty of fun in London, including Secret and Hot Tub Cinemas and many birthdays and gin experiences. None of these London activities involved any good leaps, though, so my top five leaps are all taken overseas.

I started planning my trip to Japan almost a year ago and booked my flights during BA's Christmas sale, but I only really got down to fleshing out the details a couple of months before I left. I booked only a ten-day trip because I was worried it was going to be very expensive, but it was a lot more affordable than I expected, especially outside Tokyo. 

Part of the reason I took a slightly bigger than cabin-approved suitcase to Japan was so that I could indulge in a little retail therapy if the mood took me. I was particularly looking forward to a) the stationery and b) the weird and wonderful 'only in Japan' type items. Here are a few of my favourite places.

Make no mistake: Japan is a tea country, and when coffee is available, it's often served iced. However, coffee fans shouldn't despair because it is possible to find places that serve good specialty coffee coffee, even in the unlikeliest of locations. It's all about the research, and I did a fair amount so you don't have to!

It was a lovely experience to spend Saturday night in a traditional Japanese ryokan, Ryoso Kawaguchi, although the noisy Spanish group in the next room seemed to be ignorant of how well sound travels through such thin walls. Yesterday morning, I rose early and went out in search of coffee, this time visiting Cafe Sarasvati, just down the road from my ryokan. 

It was another early start this morning so that I could spend half the day in Hiroshima — just two hours from Kyoto by bullet train — before taking the ferry to Miyajima, where I am spending the night. My biggest concern of the day — of the trip, in fact — was that there weren't going to be any big lockers available at Hiroshima station and that I would have to drag my suitcase around the city and onto the ferry. I shouldn't have worried; there were plenty on platform 1, from which the train to Miyajimaguchi leaves.

Last night, I decided to go for a stroll around Gion and was surprised to find that the Chion-in temple I visited on Wednesday was all lit up, giving the black, white and red exteriors a glowing, golden effect. It was very pretty, especially given that the moon was full (or almost) and that the heaving daytime crowds had long since departed.

No, this post isn't about climate change (I get enough of that in my day job). The real Kyoto protocol is simple: always carry an umbrella. It rains a lot here, especially at this time of year, and today the heavens opened for the first time of my trip.

As I was about to leave my hotel room this morning, there was a huge — to my British mind — wobbling. For a split second, I thought I had some rowdy upstairs neighbours but when I got back to the wifi this evening, I confirmed that it was a brief 5.0 earthquake. Just what you want when you're heading off to explore a volcanic region!

I wanted a proper 10k run this morning and by the time I was back, changed and caffeinated (thank you, V60!) it was almost 10.30. Before my trip, I was dead set on queuing up at the Tsukiji fish market at 5 am to try to get a place to watch the daily fish auction, but I think the early start is better suited to people with jetlag. But you can go down to the wholesalers' market between 9 and 11 am (or 11.15, in my case) to watch the hard-won fish being prepared. Although you would probably see more action earlier on, going late didn't work out too badly. It was less busy, for one thing, and I still enjoyed the experience.

This morning, I woke up early and ran two laps of the lovely Imperial Palace gardens, 10k in total. I might have been faster had I not had to carry my empty coffee cup most of the way due to the lack of bins. In any case, the long list of running path rules, included "do not run too fast," so it was probably for the best. I was also pleased to discover, near my hotel the Hanzomon runners' satellite, which offers coffee, snacks, running kit, showers and lockers. A very nice idea. The coffee was mediocre but at least it wasn't tea.

After a long flight, where I managed to sleep reasonably well, I made it to Tokyo's Narita airport this morning. Immigration was a little lengthy, and when they take your photo for security reasons, the little monitor gives yo the impression that you will be superimposed over a manga background. I was picked up at the airport by a family friend, so I didn't have to get to grips with public transport. In fact, I arrived at my hotel too early to check in, so I changed, reorganised my daybag and headed out into the sunshine.

Yes, that's right: I'm going to Japan today. Although I have a few other travel plans in the pipeline, this trip will be my main adventure for the year and I can't wait. Japan has been on my travel to-do list for a while, and I'm looking forward to the food, the shopping and, of course, the culture that is Japan. I'll be spending a few days in Tokyo before exploring other parts of the country and wifi-permitting, I'll be blogging about some of my experiences along the way.


Although I could probably pack everything I need in my cabin-size Samsonite case, I was worried about the amount of retail therapy I would do (hello, Mr 12-storey Uniqlo; hello, amazing stationery stores), so I'm taking my slightly bigger but super-light Antler Revelation case, which worked out very well for my trip to Costa Rica last year. I'm also bringing my go-to holiday handbag — my medium Longchamp Le Pliage in slate grey — and a crossbody brushed leather bag I picked up on sale in Madewell in New York earlier this year, which functions as either a smaller handbag or as a carry case for my DLSR and spare lens.

I haven't flown this far west in over a decade and the east-bound jetlag will probably feel weird. But I'm hoping that the sights and sounds of Tokyo will be enough to tire me out and get me acclimatised pretty quickly. And of course, my inner linguist insisted that I learn some basic spoken Japanese. I feel like I have a fair grasp of the basic grammar, but am sorely lacking in vocabulary. With its three scripts, I didn't even bother with the written language, but I'm sure I'll manage.