You make it feel like 2016 (a 2026 update post)

Niche song reference in the title – google ‘1990 something’ for the soundtrack to this post – and a rambling start of year update post like I haven’t really done since maybe 2021. But I’ve just finished my belated year in review post and I want to bottle up this feeling. I do genuinely miss writing this blog. I’ve had a pretty lacklustre year to be honest and very low on the adventures front but, having just been made redundant again, unless something radical changes with my finances I don’t know how I can afford to do anything grand. And now I’m over 30 train travel is exorbitantly expensive, so I guess I’ll just have to cycle somewhere. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Basically, I was writing my year in review realising that so many past adventures I was referencing (Two Moors Way, Walker’s Haute Route – heck even Morocco x2) never even made it onto this blog. I used to be able to reliably link back to other pages for more detail. But not any more. And I kind of want to write those stories properly and tell them on here. So maybe I will go back to that sweet spot of two posts a week – she says optimistically at 10pm on her week off. In fact, I’m only even able to write this because the camp got cancelled due to high winds and/or snow.

But this website is like a garden to me. I’ve tended it for a very long time and, although I’ve neglected it for the past few year, there are still beautiful flowers. And if I just got back to it regularly, maybe it would be great again.

Why did I stop writing on here?

Well, lots of reasons really. I think the beginning of the end was when I started working as a staff writing for Much Better Adventures. Because suddenly I was already writing 2 posts a week about adventure, so I didn’t need to scratch that itch. And I often wonder what would have happened if I’d actually kept with this blog all the way through that time, so that when covid happened I might have has something more to fall back on. Maybe. It’s hard to know really isn’t it.

I dunno man, I think it was a combination of spending my writing time elsewhere (and not badly: I’ve written 3 books since 2020 and published goodness knows how many articles on other people’s sites, including national newspapers) plus life getting in the way. And I know that’s easy to say and easy to dismiss, but boy did it get in the way. The second half of covid was an absolute disaster for me. I was jobless and then homeless. And then I was frantically running around trying to be an Adventure Travel Writer whilst paying for a mortgage that I could no longer afford. And then I was completely disillusioned with the whole thing (imagine being told your piece is being axed without a kill fee, that you’ve submitted while you’re being ill at both ends thanks to the water in Morocco). And then I was just haemorrhaging money until I found a stable part time job. Which I’m being made redundant from at the end of February.

So, excuse the somewhat flippant precis of the past five years, but I can only really talk about it flippantly without getting serious and sad. It has been a lot and ceaselessly so. And although I haven’t stopped writing in the least, my ability to stand up and perform online (by which I mean type like this in spite of my reality falling apart around me) has been limited. Oh and then there was the end of 2024 which was another drop-everything situation. None of these things I regret in the slighted. It’s just sometimes you really do have to set everything else aside to focus on what actually matters in life. Or at least that’s how I feel.

So you’re not going to write here still?

I didn’t say that. And I hope I didn’t sound too negative either. I’m just tired, tired like the end of non-stop hike that keeps getting longer and you just want to be allowed a full night’s sleep, not 30 minute naps woken by screaming. Or to just be told the point after which you’ll be done, where the finish line even is, so you can sprint towards the hot shower and sofa.

I think I might write more here this year. And I think I might do that to stop myself spending so much damn time on youtube, frankly. Because even if I’m typing flow of consciousness nonsense into the internet, at least I’m not scrolling. Which I promised myself I would never do when I submitted to a smart phone in 2019. I mustn’t let the tool own me. And you know I don’t edit these, right? Perhaps you can tell! But this is all just typed straight out in one and rarely thought of again.

Anyway, I digress. The answer: yes, I think I will write here some more.

What have you been writing recently?

Books mainly. Obviously I wrote All the Tors in 2020 and self published it. Then I wrote a middle grade fantasy adventure that I pitched to agents. Not one wanted it, sadly. Which I kind of think speaks more of my ability to sell it than anything, based off the responses. And then I wrote Climbing Toubkal, which is a guidebook to the area published by Cicerone. And I learnt a lot in that process as well – because the process is just so different from working in magazines.

I think the last article I got published as a freelance journalist was in July-ish 2024. Which feels like forever ago now. My freelancing work focus has been much more on editorial this past year, because the work is more regular and predictable. It also requires a lot less creative energy, since you’re shaping what’s already on the page.

Oh, and I forgot that this past year I’ve been writing my book about the JMT adventure. Whilst also sort of working on another fantasy adventure, but I haven’t got as far as sketching out the chapters yet. Although I still have most of the plot.

And I did some gear reviews commissioned in 2025 but the site stopped working with freelancers slash didn’t get budget, so those never made it to light of day.

And adventures?

Well, as I’ve mentioned in my 2025 review, I thought that the big adventure for last year was going to be finally making it to Kyrgyzstan. Which I was unbelievably excited about and then never actually happened. And the truth is that I just don’t have the money to do anything grand like that without it being a work trip – by which I mean a press trip that I go on with the premise of writing about it. And, really, the same goes for everything: whether that’s a flight or a train journey. I find it hard to justify the expenditure when it’s ‘only’ for fun and time off = time unpaid.

But, putting aside the money aspect, there are a few things that I would like to do in the not too distant future. Although exactly how long that’ll take, who knows.

Firstly, I feel like I’m long overdue a bike trip. Even if that’s in the UK. I never actually did do the West Kernow Way. That might be fun. Or, if ferries could be arrange, how about the Tour du Manche (UK south coast and French north coast).

Secondly, I left my Winter ML hanging after losing motivation with it. I do still really want to do it, but my main motivation was to get the extra qualification so that I could potentially teach Hill and Moorland Leader on Dartmoor. The requirement is 2 qualifications above, but looking into it in detail, they actually only list IML, not WML. And there’s no way I’m doing that (please see above re money). Never mind that it took me something like 4 years to actually get a completed WMLT (thanks covid) and even with some international days, I still need at least 10 QMDs in Scotland. Which sounds easy if the weather would only play ball.

The other thing I’d really quite like to try – and feels more realistic in terms of UK-based – is to do an ultra marathon. I know I’ve been kind of saying that for years now. But it’s a growing curiosity that I need to know whether I can do it. Because I am very good at enduring, even if I’m not quick at running (except downhill). So we’ll see. I did a press trip with the 13 Valleys Ultra a few years ago that’s tempting. I just need to find an outlet to write about it for. Also loads of my friends are trying to get me to do the Dartmoor Marathon this spring, but it sounds completely miserable.

Other places on my general radar are, in no particular order… Mountaineering in Japan. Hiking in Taiwan. Lofoten Traverse (still). Slovenia (as always). Patagonia (duh). Going back to Morocco for more winter routes near Toubkal.