a backpacker's life

Bad weather, fish and chips, a cup of tea, or Mary Poppins… all associated with Great Britain. But there is a lot more to Great Britain than this. Experiencing it first hand while traveling
the South West of England and Wales we figured that Great Britain is the perfect summer destination.

Most of you probably would forgo Great Britain in summer. Well, there are a lot of other destinations in Europe that might be more attracting just like Spain, Italy, Portugal or France. And I don’t wanna lie to you. We were considering them as well.
But missing the language, the mentality and most of all full English breakfast we just told ourselves “FUCK IT” and decided to spend two weeks in England and Wales.
Looking back it was a great decision! However, no doubt we were quite lucky, as we’ve been told we had the best summer England experienced over the past six years. So please forgive us, if our opinion is a bit biased!

"Into the Wild" somewhere near Postbridge

I don’t know what it is like with you. But we are getting bored quite easily. So spending a week in a four –star resort somewhere in Croatia where you pretty much spend the entire day lying at the beach is just not our cup of tea. At the same time I don’t want to miss out on a great beach because of spending my entire time running around to see the must-see sights in a big city. So what did we do?

Postbridge - Dartmoor National Park

Monika has never been to London before, so we decided to spend the first four days in London. Sightseeing, wining and dining, watching the musical ONCE and strolling around Covent Garden, we had four amazing days. However, being tired of the big city we decided to rent a car to heading down South towards Dartmoor National Park. At the beautiful little village of Postbridge we decided to go for a walk just to get lost and came across amazing landscapes.

I felt a bit like “Into the Wild”, standing at the top of a big rock and seeing nothing but wilderness beneath my feet. From there we were heading to Cornwall, really excited to spend a few days at the beach. And again we were blown away by the beauty of the country. Seas of dazzling turquoise and gold-coloured beaches made us forget that this actually was England. Steep cliffs reminded us of the scenery of so many Rosamunde Pilcher films that we just wanted to stay and never leave again. Right from the beginning both of us fell in love with St. Ives a little but quite touristy town on the South West coast. Stunning beaches, steep streets and cobblestones in the city centre caught our attention. And the cute little shops selling beach themed décor perfected the postcard-like picture.

Keen on having some party and a few bevvies we made our way to Newquay (basically the Rimini of England), a party town that has no equal. Attending the Boardsmaster festival 2013 and camping on a campground with probably the dirtiest showers and toilets we’ve ever seen (and we stayed at some really shitty places before - so this means they were actually really shit) we met some guys from Wales and had a great night out at Central and Walkabout Australia Pub.

Two days of partying, however were enough to
satisfy our durst and we decided to make our way up North towards Exmoor National Park. We visited the beautiful towns of Lynton and Lynmouth and stayed at a clean and comfy campground. It seemed that peak season was already over and apart from us there were only a few other tourists in the streets of Lynmouth, exactly what I was looking for – a beautiful and quiet coast town.

From Lynmouth it was about a three hours ride to Wales so we decided to take the chance to get to know this beautiful region.
Visiting Cardiff and Gower Peninsula I have to say that Wales is definitely worth a trip. I don't know if it was just of the bad weather we had but it was pretty quiet at the peninsula. In Parkmill we went horse riding and in Port Eynon we walked around the beach and had a great meal at a traditional pub. Unfortunately the weather wasn't too good and we only had one day at Gower so we didn't make it to see the other parts.

Back in Cardiff we started the night at a pretty quiet Kiwi pub and finished the night in a crowded Irish Pub. After having a great Italian meal in a lovely restaurant in the centre of Cardiff we made our way towards Cotswolds. I heard a lot about the Cotswolds and always wanted to see it, so when I first saw the towns of Lower and Upper Slaughter, it turned out to be exactly like I imagined it. And again, this feeling of wanting to stay and never leave again was back. I can’t tell how often it hit me during this vacation. After having a traditional full English afternoon tea in the gardens of the beautiful Lords of the Manor hotel it was about time to leave the Cotswolds and to head back to London to make our way back home!

Must see spots: