I travelled loads as a kid to various different cities all over the world; even to some cities a young boy, on the wrong side of 13, with a love for Call Of Duty and some “alone shower time” shouldn’t be attending. Cities Such as Viva Las Vegas.

If you watch any movie set in Las Vegas Nevada, you will notice all the films have the same thing in common, none of them have a 13 year old boy flying around the casinos with his brand new heelies on that his parents had to buy him because – shockingly – a 13 year boy with big dreams but early stage acne who has recently been neglected by his so called carers, isn’t allowed to stop in a casino.

No seriously… It is illegal to be under the age of 21 in the state of Nevada and stop for more than 10 seconds inside a casino floor.

After my parents bought a house in the South of France, and I know what you’re all thinking…. “How can this working-class family afford to go to Vegas and buy a La Maison in the Cote D’Azur.’ (Admit it you found me speaking French sexy didn’t you?)

Well the answer to your question is quite simple. My mum’s a snob and my dad has a job… Well had.

Following 7 years of visiting the La Maison every half term, Christmas break and summer holidays, I grew a desire to speak to and meet new people who were not related to me nor were French. No offence.

As I entered early adulthood, or the “Clare Balding phase” as my dad likes to refer to it, new locations started to take my fancy.

Off the beaten track locations such as Amsterdam, Amsterdam and to change it up a bit…… Rotterdam. 

While everyone else was in Zante and Kavos, I was in Holland crammed inside a Dutch coffeeshop hiding away from the July sun with hundred other Europeans with zero ambition, zero conversation skills and a whole lot of brain dead faces on show. 

Thailand! That’s where the game changed for me. It literally has everything you want from tropical islands, women with male body parts, crystal clear oceans, long stretches of open roads with nothing but you, your ped, the wind in your hair and women with male body parts. 

Thailand changed everything for me from my personality to my gender… JK. In all honest, going Thailand helped me in more ways than one. I grew as a person, I gained confidence, I learned how to go toilet in places people might hear me and, low and be hold, I became an adult who finally knew what he wanted to do with his life – TRAVEL