Author: Louise Hogan

Foodie Flashpacker Top 5: Southeast Asia

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If you’re heading to Southeast Asia, the food is likely to be a major highlight of your trip! In 2015, I visited Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand; the year before I went to Sri Lanka. So although I’m hardly an expert, I picked up a few things along the way! So if you’re a foodie flashpacker, here are my top 5 must do! Bangkok Food Tour I did the Best Eats Midnight Tuk Tuk Tour with Bangkok Food Tours and I highly recommend it! Our guide was friendly and extremely knowlegdable about Bangkok, its food and its history; the food we had was even better than I had expected. There was a real variety shown and choosing to get around by Tuk Tuk rather than on foot meant we could scoot around the city and experience the best all over. We made at least four restaurants stops, a late night temple visit, a market stroll and a rooftop beer overlooking the river. My favourite dish? Probably Khao Moo Daeng, a rich, sticky barbecued pork dish. …

February: This month I’m . .

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Being a boring git. I’m off booze and working from home. I couldn’t be more anti -social if I tried! Working out. A lot. Again, for reasons above. 4-5 sessions a week, lots of BBG, some yoga and the odd outdoor run when there’s a break in the rain. Right now, that’s not even once a week. My skipping rope has been getting a lot of use.   Rocking these. The good thing about being a boring git? It saves you money. Which you can then blow on trainers like these. 95 euro from Lifestyle Sports. Dreaming of Portugal. Specifically Bura Surfhouse in Lagos. To cope with the crap weather, I’m holiday planning for May. Lisbon has been high on my to-see list for a while so I decided I just had to go this year! While looking for somewhere beachy with yoga to combine a Lisbon city break with, I came across the very cool looking Bura Surhouse, a beachhouse/hostel/surfcamp with rooftop yoga and wine tastings. Sold. Planning my next pair of CVDs Custom Vintage …

#RetreatLife: Yoga in Bali & Cambodia

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I took up yoga a year ago, looking for a slightly gentler form of exercise to do on my ‘rest’ days. Some people get hooked on yoga; I didn’t get hooked exactly, more pissed off that I wasn’t very good at it. I wanted to improve so I developed a bit of a yoga habit quite quickly! Yoga is a great form of exercise for when you’re travelling; it’s easy to do solo with no equipment and there are also classes everywhere. Last year, I did yoga classes in 6 different countries! I also went on two yoga retreats; one in Bali in April and one in Cambodia in November. They were both quite different experiences. A yoga retreat is a great idea for a short break in its own right or as a break when you’re travelling long term. But each yoga retreat is different and you need to find one that suits you and what you’re looking for. This is my take on the two I experienced. Blooming Lotus Yoga, Ubud Bali I absolutely …

High Tea @ Giraffe Manor, Nairobi Kenya

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One of my favourite ever travel memories is having high tea at Giraffe Manor in Nairobi with one of my best friends Catherine. And it happened by complete fluke. I’m usually an excellent travel planner. But when I went to Nairobi in July 2014, I was visiting my university friend Roisin who lives there. I skipped my usual meticulous travel planning, knowing that as a Nai resident, Roisin would tell me what to skip and what not to miss. And she did. On a day out in Karen, a legendary expat enclave suburb, to visit a giraffe sanctuary and the Out of Africa musuem, Roisin spotted the beautiful Giraffe Manor. ‘Ye should really try to do high tea there,’ she confided. ‘Everyone raves about it,’ We strolled over to the house (well, the front gate actually) but high tea must be booked in advance so we returned a few days later. So what’s the deal? $50 gets you afternoon tea at the Manor which entails a selection of sandwiches, cakes and pastries, tea or coffee and …

Flashpacker Weekend Edition: Brussels, Belgium

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Brussels can get a bad rap from tourists; frequently labeled as ugly and often overlooked in favour of prettier Bruges or cooler Antwerp. But on a recent three day trip, I found the Belgian city full of cobbled streets, cute houses and beautiful squares. Sure there’s some unattractive administrative buildings mixed in there too but considered overall, Brussels is jam packed with great restaurants, bars and cafes and has enough shopping and sights for a great weekend away. Top tip: Still not convinced Brussels is your best bit? If you have three days you can easily combine a visit to the city with a day trip to Ghent or Bruges- or even both. If you want to avoid the tourist throngs, opt for Ghent. It’s just as nice as Bruges but more low key. Back in Brussels, head out early in the morning and walk the pretty cobbled streets. Visit the Royal Palace and wander down towards the Palais de Justice, enjoying the beautiful architecture you encounter along the way. Then,  go to the European …

5 Top Tips for Keeping Fit on the Road

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  Travel: It’s good for the soul but not always for the waistline. If you’re travelling medium to long term, you need to figure out realistic ways of staying fit on the road. Here are my top tips! #1 Let it go (just a little) First things first: don’t stress about it too much. If you’re on an amazing travel adventure, that should be your primary focus! Travel is unpredictable and you need to accept this means you may not be at your absolute fittest. But the amazing experiences you’ll have along the way should more than compensate! You’re out of your normal routine, moving around constantly and you don’t always know where you’ll be so there’s no way you can plan to fit in five full workout sessions a week. You’re going to have to adjust and fit them in when you can, if you can.Try to relax about it and be content with keeping a base level of fitness, even if it’s not your personal best! #2 Location, Location, Location I found that when …

Moving to Muscat? Top 10 things you need to know

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You’ve accepted a job in Muscat, the capital of Oman. You’ve looked it up on the map after realising you only had the vaguest notion of where it actually is. You can now confidently describe its geographical positioning  and are getting a little sick of people quoting Chandler from Friends at you ‘You’re going to Yemen?!’ Here’s some tips and hints about life in Muscat, a mix of the practical and ‘you really should know this if you live here’. #1 It’s not Dubai You know this of course- you looked it up, remember?- but I mean in more than just the literal sense. You won’t find skyscrapers and malls with ski slopes in Muscat; Oman is more traditional than its Emirati neighbours and has made a concentrated effort to preserve its own culture while modernising. Although sometimes you may curse the poor selection of restaurants and bars when compared to Dubai or Abu Dhabi, I always found that on balance, I much preferred living somewhere that has still retained its own culture. Muscat has …

14 weeks, 5 countries, 2 continents: My Flashpacking adventure

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Flash-What? Flashpacking! It’s backpacking but fancier. A new travel term coined for millenials who mix high and low end experiences to create a more authentic way of travelling. The Numbers 14 weeks, 5 countries, 2 continents, 13 flights, 11 buses, 8 ferries, 7 cities, 3 beach towns, 2 islands, 1 yoga retreat The Route Dublin- Abu Dhabi – Hanoi – Halong Bay – Sapa – Hoi An – An Bang – Ho Chi Minh –  Phnom Penh – Sihanoukville – Siem Reap –  Bangkok – Krabi – Railey – Koh Lanta – Ao Nang – Phi Phi – Bangkok – Brisbane – Shannon The Highlights Brisbane, Australia I went to Australia solely to see my brother Rory, his beautiful girlfriend Rachael and meet their almost 2 year old son, my nephew Lachie. It’s not that I didn’t want to explore the country but budget/time wise, it wasn’t realistic so this was a ten day, Christmas/family visit to finish off my trip. After almost 13 straight weeks of solo travelling and all the planning, organising and …

The Books that Made a Modern Nomad

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Before I could travel, I would read about travel. I always wanted to go places and do things. My favourite books weren’t necessarily traditional travel books which I usually found a little tedious; lots of I went here and I ate this and I did that. I preferred biographies and memoirs that talked about women’s lives in interesting places; books about pioneering female foreign correspondents like Martha Gelhorn or explorers and diplomats like Gertude Bell. Reading biographical books about women like this made me truly believe that I could do the same thing. That’s why the books that really made an impact on me and made me want to travel weren’t actually what you would label as travel books. There are many wonderful, inspirational books I’ve read down through the years but these are the ones that I’ve read again and again, the ones I continuously turn to for inspiration and reassurance. Memoirs, novels and collections of journalism, they are all about strong women, exotic places, difficult lives and carving your own path in the world. The Place at the …

Plot Twist or F**k Up? Thanks, 2015!

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The only thing we know for sure is that things will always change. Nothing is permanent. And when we find ourselves in the middle of trauma, in the middle of crisis, even when you’ve hit rock bottom and you have no idea how on earth you’ll ever find the courage to climb back up, you are still okay. You are okay. Rachel Brathen, Yoga Girl I had a rough year. That doesn’t mean it was all bad of course; there were many amazing things. I traveled to Kuala Lumpur, Bali, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Australia. I began practising yoga and after years of intermittent exercising, finally built up a proper fitness habit where I felt consistently healthy and fit. I even had visible abs for a small while early in the year (far too difficult to maintain but I’ll live off those few months forever!) I read good books, drank good wine, cooked good food for myself, for family and for friends. I danced and drank and ran on beaches and stayed in five star …