Yep! That’s me.

Where to start..

I suppose getting to know me ‘a truly difficult task ahead’ where people have tried and failed, would help you even slightly understand my reasons in making this blog, travelling, and in general LIFE! As mentioned 2020 lockdown, a global virus! And whilst a lot of us lost somebody close because of it, it also opened doors and ideas. If it was ok for ‘Bozza J’ it was certainly not going to stop myself from the first chance going out and socialising.

Stage 1 – Relaxation of meeting immediate family members, or something along those lines. Was it my fault my family members just happened to grow by the hundreds at that exact point. Im sure like many others being able to leave the house was a bonus, but the country… now thats where it all got interesting. With other countries relaxing their policies and UK doing its mighty fine job as always being last to everything, I couldn’t wait long enough to start browsing for some sunshine, sandy beaches, tropical climates and the sweet nectar of foreign beer. I found myself for hours scouring the internet, travel sites, blogs, TikTok just to get an idea of what I could do on certain budgets, I mean, what else was there to do in lockdown. Too old for ‘call of duty’, too lazy for running and have the attention span of a fish to read a book.

From my time going on holidays with my family and friends in previous years ‘mostly Spain’ (THE MOTHER LAND), well come back to that, I thought I would dabble into some cooking, paella, pil pil gambas, anything with cooked chorizo until a few months of cooking and not exercising took its toll…. So bored again looking for something else to conquer, Amazon was next, if it was for sale I was getting it. Firstly a basketball hoop, I have a pretty good shot in beer pong couldn’t be much different. Basketball tops followed, four or five balls for no reason what so ever, and all of a sudden the ‘G League’ was created in my small back garden. After quickly mastering the art of shooting hoops from 5ft with the rim at a kids height I started looking for more to do.

Stage 2 – The advice, So lockdown started to ease and friends were allowed to meet, of course this only meant one thing, House Party! I think everyone was pretty excited to see each other again, share a beer or 10 in my case and just get back to a normal life ‘what ever that is’, I found myself swaying, slurring and talking utter nonsense till 4am in my friends kitchen. But in talking ‘likely shouting’ to/at a friend something they said to me stuck, (well revisit this, i think its better you understand the background first). (To Be Continued)

Stage 3 – My Life, At an early age I loved football and was pretty good if I do say so myself, all I wanted to do was go outside smash a ball against peoples hard earned possessions ie greenhouse, windows, cars you name it id bounce a ball off it. As the younger brother of two, ‘making more sense now isn’t it’ we were pretty competitive in life, we would throw anything from a golf ball to paper balls and even rocks, yes rocks. It was always about who would win the header, as you’ll find out it seems I came off worse but at least it meant I won more headers. My father played rugby ‘loosely use the word played,’ disrupted a more appropriate term, and this somewhat rubbed off onto my brother but in football. My bamps played for Cardiff City and some local teams around the area, so apart from living in Cardiff my brother had no real allegiance to any club, so he chose to support Celtic, because why wouldn’t you… My brother if you didn’t know at the tender age of 12 fought in Ireland so took a real shine into the Irish republic and what it stood for… So me being me supported Rangers then! This obviously went down really well going on holiday with Mum & Dad, not being able to watch games together, me running off if they lost, you know the usual things. Getting older and watching Scottish football though took its toll I cant lie, the beautiful game of one bounce is fantastic for warming up before a Sunday league kick about still hungover from the night before but to watch it live day after day, it wasn’t for me.

Onto school, I cant say I was ever overly enthused by attending school, my parents were called for more parents meetings than I can remember, one particular memory sticks out. As the teacher was explaining to my parents that their son has a short attention span and needs to commit to school learning more, my mother mid sentence looks out the window and shouts, LOOK RABBITS! My dad looking at the teacher wondering if they need to go any further… highly amusing. I will say I had a great upbringing with parents that would do anything they possibly could for me and my brother to have the best life possible and for that I will always be grateful. Turning 18 then scraping through primary, high school, buying my way into sixth form as captain of the football team taking them to welsh cup finals, which was pretty sweet was pretty much my youth days. But eventually it was all but time to leave and join the real world, I cant say the appeal of scamming money off the government to pay for me to drink myself into a coma for another 3 years in uni wasn’t on my mind but I still felt I could play football.

Viva Espana, where my love grew for the Spanish. As mentioned I went on holiday a lot, sometimes not even with my parents, other family members would bring me along, travelling to Marbella eight times a year had its perks, changing colour full time was one of them. My aunty had a rather interesting name for me, something I cannot disclose here, but anyone remember the old Jaffa cake commercial. ‘We’ll leave it at that’. Anyway through contacts and some emails I was invited to trial for a team in southern Spain, Atletico Marbella UD, to say I was delighted was an understatement, this was short lived though when the manager screamed at me for not being prepared for pre season, me looking back wondering ‘this bloke doesn’t know who G is’ that was the mentality I had for most of my life and in short it worked… most of the time, after a gruelling pre season playing out of position, wrong side of the pitch I was able to bite my pride and work my way to what I believed I deserved and could offer. I was very fortunate at the time my family would let me stay in their holiday home which my father joined me for the majority of the time. Living the dream as they say. Due to the sheer size of Spain the lower the divisions the less sponsorship and marketing there is, I was on a pay per play an unused sub fee, all very new to me. But they offered me a coaching role as well, this is where ‘Spanish G’ was born, I loved Spain and everything about it especially the football. This was before the Spanish Armada ruled the world from 2008 to 2012, and coaching these kids who were doing things I could only dream about really opened my eyes to the life outside of the UK. I dabbled in following some teams, from David Villa’s Valencia to Joaquin’s Malaga but one team stuck, at the time they were playing second division football but because of their principles and ties with Wales, Real Sociedad were the team for me. For years to come I followed this team around Europe and went to see as many home and away games as possible. I still do. On returning from Spain it was time to say goodbye to football, after playing in Spain football wasn’t the same, I tried in the UK, trials in Barnet, Forest Green but as time went on my love for football just wasn’t the same. It was time to get a real job!

At the age of 20 I moved from house to house, my brother moved out and in the end it was myself and ‘Big Phil.’ With him breathing down the back of my neck for some income I became a plumber, ‘Plumber G’ was born, (theres a lot of G’s) we haven’t even scraped the surface yet. It’s what I still do, I have worked my way through the ranks and still very ambitious to go further, I love my job, my role as a supervisor uses all the qualities I believe I possess, some will say different of course. But it’s what allows me to be able to finance these trips, technically this blog. (See I told you we’d finally get back round to the travel.) I am self employed and find myself if not working on paperwork once I am home, then searching the Internet for the best deal as far away as possible. So how did this start well let us dive back to stage 2.

Stage 2 (Continued) – So me completely wasted, how most things materialise, talking to a friend in the kitchen with a homemade Pina colada in hand and during the absolutely useless dribble we would usually talk about, fighting to speak over each one another, they made a very good point, that I am in a very lucky position where I have no real commitments outside of work and why don’t I go see the world, now it sounds very common or obvious and apart from travelling back and fourth to Spain I had no real ambition to see anything else. I knew people in school who would travel the world, go inter-railing, save some giraffe with 5 pound a month and all that, but it was never on my radar too. But I slept on it, and it stuck, earning big boy money, with no mortgage to pay or kids, I could go, do and see things people could only dream about. So investigating begun ‘Inspector G,’ within a month I have researched over 20 different locations, 30 different routes within those locations, and over 100 things to see and do per location. Its safe to say I was hooked and didn’t even step foot out of my bedroom yet. Before even going away I am on Amazon buying a world scratch map. Not only can I see the world I can record it by scratching a country shaped flag off a meaningless bit of paper. And I love it!

So without further ado I have created this blog to back track and further record my travel, I will try keep it as P.C as possible but no guarantees I am afraid. I am hoping this blog helps solo, couples and families who already or are considering some holiday destinations reconsider certain places in the world that is incorrectly broadcasted to them, I am hoping it gives some knowledgable tips from what beers to sink at 9am to what excursions to go on, to help you with routes I took off the beaten track and places worth visiting that are not talked about, and in all I hope you just have a great time reading through it, I know I will writing and reliving it……