I love to travel and experience landscapes and places through activity and have spent many of my holidays hiking, cycle touring, and mountain biking in Europe and North Africa. Living in Keswick, in the Lake District, is perfect for me. The human scale of the area makes the place easy to live in and accessible to explore, which I do mainly via mountain bike and on foot. Mountain biking here often involves plenty of walking!
The Atlantic Islands, touched by Portugal’s presence, are fascinating to explore. It would be easier to call them ‘Portugal’s islands’ but of course both Cape Verde and Sao Tome and Principe are now independent countries. I love their volcanic nature, something that is so apparent on Sao Miguel in the Azores, where the hot springs of Poca Dona Beja are my favourite place to head to. Pico mountain is another favourite, its upper crater is an amazing place to be awestruck by nature’s power. In Cape Verde, it’s impossible to ignore stark and arresting Fogo, a huge stratovolcano. Visiting Fogo is one of the highlights of my travel life so far. Each archipelago island has its own distinct character, which I have been lucky enough to have discovered by visiting and touring with the locals we work with. You can have this too, exploring in the company of the people we work with, whether in Madeira, tropical Sao Tome, the Azores or Cape Verde, gives you a much more authentic and in-depth experience, in a way that scratching the surface by yourself cannot achieve.
My work life has had plenty of variety, the central theme being working with people to understand what they want, and then help them get it, something that helps me when putting together holidays for our clients.
