Ten places I really liked and want to go back to

(Not necessarily this year!)

London

I love London and I've returned a multitude of times, I love the fact that there's always something new to discover. This past trip I went up The Shard, explored Borough Markets and spent an afternoon riding a bike along the river at Richmond.


St. Petersburg

I only spent 2 days in St. Petersburg a few years ago as part of an organised tour I did of Russia with my mother. (So she could finally practise that high school Russian from all those years ago!) St. Petersburg was just amazing, especially as much of it has been restored, I barely scratched the surface and so would love to go back and spend more time there. 
I did get to experience the 'White Nights' we flew in at 11.30pm and it was bright daylight! 


Singapore

Singapore has been at the top of my favourite places to return to since my first visit when I was 12 years old. Love Singapore and like London, there's always something new to explore. Gardens by the Bay and the Supertree Grove (with the nightly lightshow) are fabulous.


New Zealand

For most people living in Australia, New Zealand is their first overseas travel destination as it's quite close. Not for me I was spending over 24 hours getting to Europe. Finally made the trip across the Tasman and wondered what had taken me so long! Need to go back to visit the South Island and explore the northern part of the North Island. This was Napier my favourite city in New Zealand. (so far!)


Berlin

Having made my 'reconnaissance trip' to Berlin I now need to go back and spend longer than 3 days there. 'Reconnaissance trips' are great, short stay to find out if you like the place, if not, well at least you've seen it. If you do like it plan a longer stay to really get to know the location. Berlin pretty much won me over on the first day so it's on the list for a longer stay at some stage.


Lake Como

I'm fortune enough to have relatives with a vacation apartment on Lake Como (not the actual lake but on the shores of Lake Como!) so have been to the lake numerous times. I've also holidayed with various friends in different towns along the lake, but there's still quite a few to see! The scenery with the lake and the mountains is just stunning, love Lake Como!

Porec, Croatia

I've been going to Porec since babyhood since it's the main town to where my family is from. It does have a large tourist industry but I don't think that the town ever feels overrun by tourists. (Perhaps as most of the hotels are further along the coast, north and south of the old town) 


Macedonia

Macedonia was the real surprise of my travels this year. I had the opportunity to visit, took it and ended up thinking Macedonia was the hidden gem of Europe. It's not really on any tourist trail and yet it's easy enough to explore, the city of Skopje has signs in the Latin alphabet (the Macedonia language uses Cyrillic). It's very cheap and quite safe, the mix of cultures make it really interesting. Skopje itself has had a lot of money spent on the city centre and so there's plenty there to see. I want to go back and spend longer than 3 days before everyone else discovers Macedonia!



Slovenia

I had spent time in Slovenia's coastal towns so was familiar with them, this year I went inland. Ljubljana was lovely and I would like to explore the Lake Bled area which is on everyone's wishlist for visiting Slovenia!


Japan

Japan is always fascinating and even though I explored quite a lot of it when I lived there, I'm now at the nostalgic stage and want to revisit many of those places. (I'm quite proud of this photo as I took it from a moving train, a very fast moving train! Other than the 2 industrial chimneys it's a terrific picture showing the scale of how enormous Mt. Fuji is compared to the landscape around it.)

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