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Welcome to About. Discover where I travel, how I travel and, importantly, why I travel.

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Africa & Middle East
Americas
Asia
Europe
Oceania
I've travelled to
1
countries
I've travelled across
1
continents
I've travelled solo to
1
countries
I've journeyed to
1
unrecognised states

 

 

 

 

From World Wonders to Odyssean Adventures

pagodas, pyramids & epic journeys

Arguably it's only when you've seen the globe's most famous sights that you can truly say that you've travelled the world. I'm lucky enough to have photographed some of the world's most iconic, among them the Statue of Liberty in the USA, St Basil's Cathedral and the Kremlin in Russia, the Taj Mahal in India, the Lost City of Petra in Jordan, Niagara Falls in Canada, the ancient Pyramids at Giza in Egypt, the Great Wall of China, the Blue Mosque in Turkey, the sparkling golds of the Shwedagon Pagoda in Burma, the azure mosaics of the Registan Ensemble in Uzbekistan, the iconic Dome of the Rock in Israel, the moody peaks of Milford Sound in New Zealand, Table Mountain in South Africa, the Kyoto Golden Temple in Japan, and the smiling faces of Bayon at Angkor Thom and Angkor Wat Temple complex in Cambodia.

I have also embarked on awesome multiple-country adventures. Some of my longer journeys include the epic European Inter-railing trip which covered twelve countries across north, east and southern Europe; my incredible independent journey through seven countries of the Western Balkans by bus; my unforgettable odyssey along the Silk Road in Central Asia including Kasakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan; my triple country trip around Southern Africa, which included South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland, my adventure around mainland Southeast Asia, taking in Thailand, Cambodia and Laos and, perhaps most unconventionally of all, my Long Way East journey across the globe through Belarus, Azerbaijan and China. 

 

 

 

 

Unforgettable Experiences

 

 

 

 

Wild Outdoor Experiences in Foreign Lands

volcanoes, glaciers & hot air balloons

Travel is about sights but also about experiences. I have camped overnight in the desert in Jordan; ridden an elephant on safari in India; climbed and abseiled down a glacier in Iceland; white-water rafted through Bosnia & Herzegovina and Montenegro; floated in the salty waters of the Dead Sea in the Palestinian-controlled West Bank; got up close and personal with rescued orang-utans in a Borneo rainforest; been an English as a Foreign Language teacher to teenagers in Spain; been on an African game drive in search of the Big Five beasts in South Africa, eaten lunch with nomads on the top of a mountain in Armenia and clambered over active mud volcanoes in Azerbaijan. 

I've also slept overnight in a yurt on top of a mountain plateau 3016m above sea level in Kyrgyzstan; showered in the cascades of a waterfall in Laos and in Cuba; been dolphin watching in the Arabian Gulf; climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia on my birthday; camel trekked through a desert in southern Jordan, drifted high above the ancient pagoda plain of Bagan, Burma, in a hot air balloon at daybreak on New Year's Eve; filmed incredible underwater creatures while snorkelling through a coral reef in Fiji, walked several kilometres of the Great Wall of China on a cold winter's morning, swum with sea turtles in the Philippines, hiked a mafia-controlled active volcano in the dark in Indonesia, hiked across a Polynesian island from north to south in the Cook Islands and swum in the inky waters of an otherworldly  underground cave in Tonga.

 

 

 

 

Magical Landscapes

 

 

 

 

Beyond Conventional Travel

death masks, dictatorships & ufos

I derive great satisfaction from having been to some of the less frequented places out there; some elicit complete bafflement or just concern from the people that I tell. These are the kind of places most of my fellow countrymen would choose not to visit. I have a taste for the unusual and an inherent distaste for tourist honey traps. I've visited communist countries, absolute monarchies, emirates, unrecognised breakaway states, sultanates, police states, hereditary dictatorships, full-blown military dictatorships, authoritarian regimes and some of the youngest countries on the planet.

Some of my more unconventional travel experiences have seen me technically stepping foot into North Korea through the infamous blue Armistice meeting room in the Demilitarised Zone whilst under the care of the United Nations; illegally entering an abandoned communist headquarters in the shape of a giant flying saucer 1441m up in the Central Balkan Mountains in Bulgaria; beholding Joseph Stalin's eerie death mask in his hometown of Gori in eastern Georgia; spending New Year in the capital city of the last dictatorship left in Europe in Belarus, as well as travelling to a country which doesn't even exist - the renegade breakaway state of Transnistria bordering Moldova.

As I attest often on this site, I try to seek out deep and meaningful experiences when travelling. I've walked through the stained torture chambers and beheld stacked human skulls in Cambodia's infamous Killing Fields on New Year's Day; wandered among the watchtowers, barbed wire and gloomy red brick buildings of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in central Poland; and clambered through the dimly lit wartime survival tunnels running under Sarajevo, dug by the army during the Balkans Conflict of the 1990s, in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

 

 

 

 

Wonderful People

 

 

 

 

A New Life Down Under

kangaroos, koalas & opera houses

With the prospect of the next few decades stretching out before me like an uninspiring concrete pavement and the words "more of the same" chalked tauntingly in large banal letters, I felt it was time to re-evaluate my life. It was now or never. So in 2016, and after a gruelling bureaucratic process, I packed up my whole world and moved from a rain-soaked part of England to the giant sunburnt country in the bottom right-hand corner of the globe: Australia.

Since emigrating I've travelled around a not-insignificant slice of Regional and Outback Australia, having now been to all eight Australian States and Territories. I've snapped an obligatory selfie with the smiling Quokka on Rottnest Island in Western Australia, climbed Cradle Mountain in northern Tasmania on Christmas Day, been whale watching out in the Pacific, appeared three times (briefly) on Australian television, been kayaking under Sydney Harbour's iconic bridge at sunrise, beheld the magical Uluru at dusk in the Northern Territory, sand-boarded down giant dunes on Kangaroo Island in South Australia, snorkelled the Great Barrier Reef in tropical far north Queensland and spotted three koalas in the wild in southeast Queensland. I've also developed a new-found love for hiking and the outdoors, having conquered six of Australia's toughest mountains, including the wonderful Warrumbungles (NSW), the strenuous Rawnsley Bluff (SA), the awesome Didthul Mountain (NSW), the iconic Cradle Mountain (TAS), the challenging Mount Sorrow (QLD) and the highest of them all: Mount Kosciusko (NSW).

In 2020 I embarked upon the metaphorical journey of Australian citizenship and in 2021 became a citizen of Australia. I'm now officially British-Australian - although I'll always be an Englishman at heart.

 

 

 

 

Captivating Wildlife

 

 

 

 

You're Probably Wondering...

frequently asked questions

Q: So, what are your travel plans?
A: My recent trip to Timor-Leste was not only my 101st but also meant that I have now travelled to all eleven countries making up Southeast Asia. Palau will be my 102nd and the first time I'll have been to Micronesia in Oceania, not long followed by my second Overseas Territory of France in the Pacific, with a solo journey to French Polynesia. Check out my Latest & Coming Soon page for a full run down of places I'm going and places I have just been. 

Q: What has been your favourite country? 
A: I get asked this question the most and struggle to choose; I start off with three or four in the hope of narrowing it down from there but then end up with a longer list. The truth is, I've found something to like and love in nearly every country I've been to. I suppose that's the way it should be, shouldn't it? I was smitten with the friendliness of Samoa, the positive curiosity of the Burmese in Myanmar and the colour and energy of India. Tonga was pretty awesome too. Oh, and I loved hiking in the Cook Islands, and... See what I mean?

Q: How can you afford to travel so much?
A: I spend far less time travelling than others might. Whilst some stay for two weeks, I'll stay for just one. This helps to keep my costs down. My accommodation is mid-range, I organise my trips independently from scratch and only hire a tour guide when absolutely necessary. I also travel off-season quite frequently when everything from flights to accommodation is less expensive. I only ever fly economy and, in more expensive countries, cook my own meals.

Q: Is it your plan to visit every country in the world?
A: Despite what the counters on my site may suggest, I'm not on a purely numerical quest. There are countries I'd love to travel to and others that I'm less interested in. Admittedly, though, I am looking forward to the moment when I step foot on my sixth continent, South America, soon, with a double country adventure to Chile and Brazil.

 

 

 

 

Beguiling Architecture

 

 

 

 

"Havana is a pastel-coloured place; colonial-era buildings crumble gracefully in pinks, blues and greens in a kind of fairy-tale poverty. The overgrown ivy, creeping mildew and rampant vegetation make Havana look almost post-apocalyptic...Havana is a fairy-tale city collapsing beautifully into itself, dressed in a revolutionary coat which is noticeably fraying around the edges."
"Egypt is the stuff of dreams, a magical land of Pharaohs and sphinx, pyramids and hieroglyphics, Tutankhamun and the Nile. This is the land you learn about at school but think you'll never be lucky enough to see in your lifetime. From my shores it seemed so magical, foreign and distant a place as to be a work of fiction - a place which can't possibly exist."
"Russia has an allure all of her own, a compelling and enchanting mix of the dramatic and of the dangerous. There is something of the dark about Russia. The Cold War may officially be over, but its legacy persists in the Russian psyche. It runs deep. Indeed, it is this Soviet hangover which will ultimately shape your experience of this most enigmatic and most misunderstood of countries."
"I remember thinking, "I love Tonga even more now". As the last band disappeared up the street, I crossed the road and had my evening meal in the locally famous Friends Café, something of a haunt for travellers. And so ended my final evening in Tonga: a land of friendly, gentle people and, for me, one of my most memorable solo adventures yet."

 

 

 

 

 

Unconventional Destinations

 

 

 

 

A Brief Guide to the Site

about agmtraveller.com

This site brings together my love of travel, photography and writing. It contains no advertising or sponsored content because it is, quite simply, about chronicling where I have been.

My Travel Chronicles are the leading pages of the site. They avoid the reductionist format of many travel sites which turn travel writing into listicles and top tens. Instead, I've opted for a detailed written piece supported by carefully curated photographs. This, I feel, helps to capture a more nuanced sense of place. Countries visited more than once have been given their own menu page and journeys which have involved multiple countries have been kept together on the same chronicle to preserve a sense of the journey undertaken in its entirety.

My Travel Anthologies group my journeys into nine themed collections. These include Travelling Solo which compiles those adventures where I set sail entirely on my own, Behind the Iron Curtain brings together my visits to countries of the former USSR and beyond, and Disputed Lands - my travels to 'countries' which come with some controversial inverted commas. 

My Diaries bring together three awesome strands of my travel life. The Adventure Travel Diary compiles those adventurous experiences in foreign lands which have well and taken me out of my comfort zone, The Australia Diary chronicles defining moments in my new life Down Under and The World Wonders Diary charts my ongoing quest to photograph the undisputed landmarks in global travel.

All photographic, visual and written content is original to this site and created by me. It is copyright protected. It's important that you read my Terms & Conditions. Enjoy your journey around my site. I hope it's a destination you'll visit often.