Shell has a fond love of travel and adores all things outdoors and is a nature-loving, adventurous kind who thrives on adrenaline and finds that getting to explore the natural world leaves her at her happiest.
Shell likes to go on regular road trips to indulge her love of camping and she fits as much overseas travel into her life as her annual leave will allow! It’s on Camping with Style that she keeps her travel memories.
From snowboarding in Canada to diving in the Indian Ocean, experiencing all that nature has to offer is what drives Shell to explore, travel and share her adventures no matter how big or small!
MT: When did you start to be interested in travelling?
Shell: I’ve always loved travel and take every possible opportunity to visit somewhere new, whether that’s here in the UK or anywhere in the world.
I’ve realised I have a low boredom threshold and whilst I’m not the sort of person that would bungee jump or hurl themselves out of a plane, I do thrive on adrenaline.
Travel is a way of keeping my mind constantly engaged and challenges me.
Importantly when I’m exploring somewhere new and beautiful, it allows me to feel a sense of awe for the natural world on a very regular basis, something that’s proven to enhance well-being. Travel is good for me (or that’s my excuse anyway!).
MT: What is your first travel-related memory?
S: My first travel-related memories would be from our annual family holidays down to the South of France as children. We’d all squeeze into the car with me and my two sisters in the back for the mammoth drive down to Cap D’Agde in the South of France.
I have vivid memories of the first time I ever went on a ferry and gazing out of the car window looking at road signs I couldn’t read – the fact everything looked familiar yet so different at the same time.
Arriving at the campsite and being allowed to spend all day running around playing in the sunshine, happy, exploring, and learning – these are my most precious early memories of travel that will never leave me.
MT: What is your favourite place (travel destination) in the world? Why?
S: This is a tough one as my main love is snowboarding, so I’m going to cheat here and give you two destinations.
The first is Whistler in Canada which Is somewhere I’ve been lucky enough to snowboard in lots of times and it’s absolutely my favourite snowboarding destination – I’ve snowboarded all over the Alps and nothing compares, I’d go there every season if I had enough annual leave to do so!
The other joint first favourite place in Scotland. As I love walking and the outdoors so much, Scotland is high up on my list as it’s relatively easy to get there and doesn’t require using up vast swathes of annual leave to spend time there.
Every Easter, I head up to the Scottish Highlands to explore a different area. I love being able to kayak on a loch one day and then next climb to the top of a mountain covered in snow. Scotland is a very magical place and one I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of exploring.
MT: Have you ever had any bad experiences when travelling?
S: I’ve had some sketchy experiences, usually involving getting lost or rocking up to a city without having booked any accommodation and having to spend hours finding somewhere suitable to stay, but the worst travel experience I’ve had is probably the time I went to the Maldives.
After a mammoth journey involving a car, bus, two planes and a seaplane followed by a speedboat, I arrived at the island, shattered, only to find my luggage had gone missing and was put on the wrong seaplane at Male airport!
I was absolutely terrified I’d have to spend the week in the clothes I’d travelled in, with it being the Maldives, it’s not like you can just pop to the shops to buy new clothes and then claim on your travel insurance, so that was a huge worry!
Thankfully the hotel was amazing, and I was woken up the next morning by a knock on the door and a porter standing there smiling with my suitcase. It was such a relief and a potential travel disaster was avoided.
MT: Which countries have you travelled to?
S: I’ve been to 18 different countries (not including Wales, Ireland and Scotland), many of which I go back to time and time again; Canada, Mexico, USA, Egypt, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, Austria, Switzerland, Turkey, Italy, UAE, Maldives and Morocco.
MT: Do you have any advice or tips for aspiring travellers?
S: Just go for it! Travel is super important, I think it builds resilience and empathy and it also helps you to focus on the here and now. Forget endlessly instagramming and documenting everything you do. Escape from your life for a few days or weeks and fully immerse yourself.
MT: What are the challenges of travelling solo?
S: I travel by myself frequently, from Dahab in Egypt to solo snowboarding in the Alps and my top advice is to always make sure people know where you are.
I keep in touch with my fiancé and folks back home using WhatsApp so someone always knows what my plans for the day are and I usually check in at least once a day so everyone knows I’m OK. I also make sure folks back home know where I’m staying, flight numbers and so on.
The main challenge I’ve found as a solo traveller is trying to book a cheap package deal, because sometimes it’s nice to not have the faff of booking everything yourself separately, but as so much of the holiday industry is geared up to couples it makes getting a single room more difficult, making it more necessary to book trips independently or pay heavy single supplements.
MT: How have your travels changed you?
S: I think travel has given me a great deal of gratitude. Particularly when travelling to areas that are clearly much poorer than the UK. I am always humbled by the experience and as a result, I’ve developed even greater empathy and respect for the way other people live their lives and I have a greater sense of gratitude for all that I have and for being lucky enough to travel at all!
MT: What country or city is your travel bucket list?
S: There are loads of places still on my bucket list; Patagonia is high up on the list but probably isn’t ever going to happen so more realistically, I’m hoping that I’ll get to visit Costa Rica, Zanzibar and Borneo over the next few years.
MT: Future travel plans?
S: I’m currently in the process of wedding planning, so that means after the wedding is out of the way, we’ll start saving up again for the honeymoon which will give me the opportunity to get another place crossed off my bucket list!
At the moment we can’t decide between Costa Rica, Borneo and Zanzibar. I’m not sure how we’ll decide as they all have so much to offer but I know another big trip isn’t too far away.
In the short term, I’m hoping to get out to the Alps again snowboarding, back up to Scotland at Easter and we’re going back down to the South of France next year – other than that, I never know what travel opportunities will pop up, which is one of the reasons I love writing about camping and travel – there’s always an exciting new travel opportunity just around the corner!
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Did you like it? You might also enjoy the other interviews in the Meet The Travellers series so far:
#8 | Victoria Sully – Travel Vixta
#7 | Regan Thacker – Dusky Blue Skies
#6 |Kristina Carrodeguas – Living Wonderfilled
#5| Emmalene Fletcher – Brummie Home and Abroad
#4 | Krystyna Henderson – Passion and Peace
#3 |Tanya Shelburne – Travelling Tanya
