I am Daniel (or Dan), a Kiwi, who was living in Wellington, New Zealand until I moved to London, UK to do my OE (Overseas Experience) in November 2014 and has spent much of the time since travelling around various parts of Europe.
I have a wide and varied array of interests, but travel is a pretty big one and so is railways - with a particular interest in Steam Locomotives, so these two subjects crop up a lot in the blog.
Before heading over to London, I had never been to the Northern Hemisphere - in terms of going overseas, I had only ever been to Australia and the Cook Islands, though I had travelled around most of New Zealand. I had always wanted to visit the UK and Europe, although initially I only had in mind visiting as part of a holiday for 4-6 weeks and twice had made up my mind to do so - but for various reasons it they never came off. They did teach me some good lessons though, such as the need to prepare and save funds much further in advance and also that rather than do a tour I could do things quicker and cheaper if I were to do it by myself, which was rather daunting. In the intervening time some friends had gone and done their 2-year OE"s in the UK and by the time I resolved I was going to finally visit the UK and Europe, the holiday was not just 4-6 weeks but a working holiday for up to 2 years. It made sense - there was too much to see in such a short amount of time, and while previously uprooting myself for up to two years didn't appeal or suit me it did now. I took a 5-day trip to Australia in October 2013 to prove to myself that I could travel just fine overseas solo - then I set a date to move to the UK to that suited me and left enough time to save plus do all of what I wanted to do before leaving NZ. The rest, well that's essentially the contents of this blog!
I have a wide and varied array of interests, but travel is a pretty big one and so is railways - with a particular interest in Steam Locomotives, so these two subjects crop up a lot in the blog.
Before heading over to London, I had never been to the Northern Hemisphere - in terms of going overseas, I had only ever been to Australia and the Cook Islands, though I had travelled around most of New Zealand. I had always wanted to visit the UK and Europe, although initially I only had in mind visiting as part of a holiday for 4-6 weeks and twice had made up my mind to do so - but for various reasons it they never came off. They did teach me some good lessons though, such as the need to prepare and save funds much further in advance and also that rather than do a tour I could do things quicker and cheaper if I were to do it by myself, which was rather daunting. In the intervening time some friends had gone and done their 2-year OE"s in the UK and by the time I resolved I was going to finally visit the UK and Europe, the holiday was not just 4-6 weeks but a working holiday for up to 2 years. It made sense - there was too much to see in such a short amount of time, and while previously uprooting myself for up to two years didn't appeal or suit me it did now. I took a 5-day trip to Australia in October 2013 to prove to myself that I could travel just fine overseas solo - then I set a date to move to the UK to that suited me and left enough time to save plus do all of what I wanted to do before leaving NZ. The rest, well that's essentially the contents of this blog!