Ever since I was little I always had a strong desire to travel and to go to new places to see how locals lived and to learn more about their culture and everyday lives. I was definitely bit by the travel bug a long time ago which led to me constantly wanting to travel to new places. I grew up with moving to new places due to my dad’s job. I was born in November 1996 in Wrexham, Wales which for those who don’t know where that is, it’s in the United Kingdom, Wales being next to England. When I was only a couple of months old my parents and I moved to Wichita, Kansas where we lived for 13 years before moving just outside of Toronto, Canada. Almost 4 years later we moved back to Wichita, where we’ve been living for just under 2 years. Of course at first when you learn that you’re going to be moving it isn’t an idea that you love, but over the course of time I’ve grown to love moving.

Due to being from the UK and all of my family still living there, I get to visit there every 2 to 3 years. This summer, on June 5th I traveled back to Wales with my best friend, Emily. My trip lasted a total of 5 weeks which was filled with adventure, sight seeing, shopping, eating and good company. I’ve been to the UK 10+ times over the past 18 years, but these past 5 weeks were a lot different for me compared to the other times I have visited. Being older when traveling has a lot of advantages due to being able to experience new things such as going out at night (drinking age being 18 in the UK) and being able to tour around places on my own. I have been back in Wichita for only a few days now, I’m back at work and I’m getting re-adjusted to my every day life, enjoying the rest of my summer vacation, however I’m already wanting to start planning my next adventure that will hopefully be sometime in the near future. Adventure always awaits, in my opinion.

I thought I would give you a small rundown of my adventures over the past 5 weeks abroad—if you would like a more fluent look at what I was up to on my trip you can visit my personal blog, allanahtaylor.wordpress.com where you can see a day to day update including more pictures and descriptions… but here are some highlights:

1. Hiking through poppy fields surrounding the edge of a river to see a 700 year old castle’s remains.
2. Being from a town located on the England/Wales border has many perks, such as being able to travel from one country to the other to explore.
3. I was introduced to my favorite new singer, James Bay (check out his song “Hold Back The River.”)
4. Traveling by train across Wales to visit Cardiff for the first time over a long weekend. I was there during the Wales vs Belgium football (soccer) game which gave the city an amazing atmosphere.
5. Taking my little brothers and Emily to Liverpool on our own to shop and explore the birthplace of The Beatles.
6. Traveling about an hour and a half away to Llandudno to a huge castle where people were rock climbing up it, then driving to the beach and then hiking up the mountain to toboggan back down.
7. Strawberry picking in a luscious green field looking out onto Welsh mountains.
8. Going to London for 5 days where we took a city tour bus, shopped, walked for miles, ate at a cute British Pub where the Prime Minister eats that is surrounded with hanging baskets that are made up of colorful flowers, watched the changing of the guards outside Buckingham Palace, walked through Green Park to Picadilly Circus and Oxford Circus, walked around Covent Garden and more.
9. Family reunion/Taylor garden party at my Dad’s cousin’s house.
10. Exploring the Welsh country side with my Grandparents, petting a cow and visiting little villages.
11. Drinking coffee, eating yummy cakes and drinking more coffee.
12. Visiting Manchester for the day which was filled with shopping and going to see John Legend in concert.
13. Taking a trip to Lanzarote, Canary Islands which is located between Spain and Africa for a week with my aunt, uncle and cousin which consisted of: beaches, caves, island touring, old town markets, having fish pedicures and eating at local tapas restaurants.
14. Visiting an old Roman city called Chester which is about 20 minutes from Wrexham where I found a Central Perk Cafe (which is the cafe that Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Ross, Chandler and Joey always met at in Friends.)
15. Going to Chester Horse Races where I placed small bets on 5 races and won them all (picking the fun names like Fast Dancer, Anonymous Joel, Save The Bees and Character Onesie apparently does work.)
16. Saying goodbye to family and friends is always hard, so that’s why you should simply say “see you soon” instead.