872 Day 1 – Home to London – Wednesday 15th May 2019

You may or may not know, that in May I went on a tour around the Highlands and Orkney. Over the next few weeks, I will be sharing with you where I went, and what I experienced while I was in Scotland. Don’t get me wrong it was exhausting, early mornings, packing, unpacking, rushing around, carrying cases up and down stairs but I would do it again in a heartbeat. If you are looking for a relaxing getaway in the sun, I would maybe give this one a pass, but it is 100% worth it. You get to turn the internet off; the phones go in your bag, and you can just breathe and take in what you can see. In total there was 8 days door to door of touring. The first one wasn’t as much fun as the rest so we will start with that one and it will only be getting better.

I will give a brief outline of the days and where I was, and you can stay tuned for full details.

• Day 1 – Home to London – Wednesday 15th May 2019

• Day 2 – London to Edinburgh – Thursday 16th May 2019

• Day 3 – Edinburgh to Inverness – Friday 17th May 2019

• Day 4 – Inverness to Kirkwall – Saturday 18th May 2019

• Day 5 – Stayed in Kirkwall – Sunday 19th May 2019

• Day 6 – Kirkwall to Ullapool – Monday 20th May 2019

• Day 7 – Ullapool to Edinburgh – Tuesday 21st May 2019

• Day 8 – Edinburgh to London and then to Home – Wednesday 22nd May 2019

On this trip, I went in a taxi, on a train, on a mini-bus and a ferry. The only way left to travel was to fly. It was crazy, fun, exhausting, amazing and just plain breath-taking. So here goes with the first day, buckle up.

Day 1 – Home to London – Wednesday 15th May 2019

Today was boring, the holiday kind of started. I left my house today, so I am counting it. I worked until 17:00 as normal, it was a little stressful because I’ve never had to get a week’s worth of stuff into a carry-on-sized suitcase. Turns out it is a little easier than I thought but it is harder trying to determine what I might need. It’s a tour, I have never done a tour before, a different hotel most nights etc. I didn’t want to have 100 things to pack each morning, but I also wanted to have everything I might need or at least everything necessary. I was restricted to a carry-on bag because it is 16 people on a minibus, and there is only so much luggage that will fit.

I was torn about what handbag I should take with me; I wanted a big one so I could carry around the bits I might need during the day like chargers, camera, spare batteries, tissues, purse, and any bits I bought along the way, but I didn’t want it to be so big that I am going to have a sore shoulder.

It worked out a little easier than expected, to be honest, I was super ruthless with the bits I took. My trick is to put everything I want to take on my bed, go through each item and put them into three piles, take, might not need and going to leave at home. Then I put everything I want to take in my bag to see what space I have left. Once I know the space I play around with the maybe pile.

Once I was all packed up, I left the house, and my dad dropped me off on the outskirts of London. It is where I stayed the night before as it is easiest to get to the train station. I got McDonald’s on the way because I was a lot later than expected and I was hungry. The recent YouTube videos of the letter the person in front choosing what I eat gave me some inspiration to try something new, so I tried the chicken selection for the first time; it was quite nice. I rarely get the courage together to eat new things. I typically have a throw-up reaction if I don’t like the taste of something however a little note to self, do not get the Smokey BBQ sauce that comes with it, it is gross (and spicy)! For the rest of the night, I just finalised backing up my laptop, got my camera ready, prepared batteries, synced my iPod, charged all the devices I was taking and whatnot.

That was the plain and simple day 1, stayed tuned for the fun stuff. I hit the hay early because I knew it was going to be a long day of travel tomorrow.

Leave your comments below and let me know if you have any packing tips. I hate packing.