Travel

A lot of us have dreamed of taking off on a campervan trip with road-tripping supplies, our partner, and our dogs. Before the pandemic turned the travel world upside down, Annie Groves did just that, so we asked her how it went and what we might be able to learn from her experience.

I was just 19 years old when I first arrived in Berlin from the UK with high expectations and lots of hopes. However, my initial impressions were underwhelming; despite witnessing impressive buildings and interesting exhibitions, the city failed to capture my imagination. This changed, however, when I took a four-hour walking tour on my second day. Suddenly, the streets came alive with stories, fascinating anecdotes, and intricate histories. I found myself falling in love with this complex city, and by the end of the tour, I was sure of two things: I wanted to live in Berlin and I wanted to be a tour guide!

Edward Abbey famously called it “an oasis of ugliness in the midst of a beautiful wasteland,” and, at first blush, Phoenix, Arizona does seem like a city defined by such sharp contrasts. A hard, bright light falls on the concrete grid which presses up against the undulating waves of the Salt River and Superstition Mountains. It’s a city whose ancient irrigation networks, built by the Hohokam people, were later used to grow a lush network of post-war golf courses and subdivisions sprawling across the Valley of the Sun. But there’s more here than meets the eye.