About

Who or what is Retrospective Traveller?

This is the travel blog of Jonathan Tyrrell aka @retrotraveller – a ‘wanna be explorer’ from the UK. Here you’ll find posts about the long journeys and the short journeys including a mix of travel experiences, stories from my around the world trip, some from closer to home and plenty of my travel photography.

Travelling is not just about sun and lazing on a beach (though I’m not knocking that!), instead I realised by doing it, that it is about the people you meet and engaging with other cultures. It is about finding out about how the world really works and learning just as much about yourself as it is learning about others…

I also believe that photographing what you see, where you go and who you meet is so important as it helps you to remember, share your experiences and show others parts of the world they may not have seen before. That’s why I started a travel blog which allows me to take a retrospective look back at the experiences I’ve had along the way.

So, what’s in the name?

• ret·ro·spec·tive ~ contemplative of past situations, events, etc. looking backward
• trav·ell·er ~ a person who travels or has travelled to distant places or foreign lands

It is my way of recalling some of my travel memories through photography… after the event – why waste hours in Internet cafes (and I have!) or weigh yourself down with laptops and iPads, wait until you return!

So where have I been?

I’ve racked up quite a list of countries now and I like going off the beaten path. I particularly love central Asia and the Middle East. Here are the countries that I’ve had the good fortune to visit so far…

Back in 2008 I was between jobs through redundancy and had always wanted to do a ’round the world trip’ and wanted it to be a real overland adventure. I never went to university, so it was my way of taking the ‘gap year’ I never had when I was younger having gone straight into work from leaving school.

My first long-term travel journey as a backpacker was to be an epic 9 months travelling to 15 countries – five of those months were on the road, travelling on and living off a truck, including local home stays and wild camping like a modern day nomad. I’d never put a tent up before… by the end I was showing the newbies!

I came to love overland travel – you get to really experience a country and it’s people, and to visit places off the beaten track.

My journeys have left me with a longing to get, as Willie Nelson would say, “on the road again“, somewhat of a ‘wonderlust’, and a diary stuffed full of experiences to share… some 65,000 words to be exact!

The travel memories and other traveller tales here are mainly ‘after the event’ – a retrospective look back at journeys past. You’ll find short stories, thoughts, travel experiences (some sanitised) and plenty of travel photography too.

Check out my blog posts for tales and photos from my journeys – I hope they inspire you to travel too!

If you are on Istagram why not follow me there, where I post some of my favourite travel photos instagram.com/retrotraveller

My travel wish list

Here are the places I’d love to visit next… in no particular order.