My Top 3 Travel Companions (did YOU make the cut?)

OF COURSE I HAVE TRAVEL BUDDIES - WHO DO YOU THINK TAKES PHOTOS OF ME? BAG DOLCE & GABBANA

"Are we there yet?" 
"JASIMINNE SHUT UP"

Keep your friends close, your enemies closer, and the few who can tolerate your quirks and idiosyncrasies for more than 24 hours without wanting to wrap a hairdryer cord around your neck closest. 😈  As in, their names written down in your black book of 'people to travel with'. I mean, the world as it is can hardly contain my special brand of obnoxiousness, never mind hand luggage restrictions (what do you mean I have to stash my purse in the overhead compartment?!) that are barely big enough for my Travel Privilege. Self-deprecation aside, I am a dream to travel with if you need skincare and beauty products, a photographer (and retoucher), and an endless supply of plasters (you'll prise my pretty-but-impractical shoes off my cold, dead feet). Travel companions, sorry, consistent travel companions are hard to come by - RIP the scrub who'd happily take up a free holiday and hotel stay on my press trips in exchange for taking a few photos of me, but would mysteriously develop back pain whenever I needed help with the camera 🙄  - so in celebration of this month's #TRAVELLINKUP here is my tribute to the 3 people I haven't yet throttled (and vice versa) while in pursuit of new horizons. Visas, valium, and wine at the ready... 😅

#TRAVELLINKUP

CATEGORY 1: FRIENDS  ...and the winner is: Luxy It could've gone so wrong - two big personalities on the same far end of neuroticism travelling together for the first time in a socialist backwater with no wifi and the wrong voltage for my hair styling tools (and we know that internet and hair tongs are my 2 major food groups), yet somehow mine and Luxy's friendship survived Havana and Cayo Largo Del Sur...and then continued to survive New York, Orlando, Milan, Sydney, and Hong Kong. Emboldened by our success (ie. not punching me for stopping every 100 feet to catch Pokemon), I've extended Luxy a YipAdvisor invitation to Malaysia for Chinese New Year.  LUX LIFE BLOG

CATEGORY 2: FAMILY

...and the winner is: mummy dearest 

Hands down (sorry, dad). While both my parents can take credit for making a Tiny Traveller out of me, I am a mummy's girl through and through. Whether it's whisking off to Prague for a Mother's Day city break, to Amsterdam to tiptoe through the tulips, or rescuing her from the thorny grip of cactus in Cinque Terre (that's a story for another day); we ride and die - occasionally with matching Dolce & Gabbana. Sometimes I have to share mummy with her friends - such as my recent 3 week road trip across Austria, the Balkans, and Italy - but giving the ladies a crash course on "posing for Instagram 101" is a small price to pay to travel with someone who judges me only a little bit for being such an unabashed camera-whore.

ABOVE Throwback to 1993: At the tender age of 7 I was already throwing shapes and out-posing my mother. LEFT Taking the Pis-a: mummy and her friends know they can lean on me to get the perfect shot. BELOW Women are from Venus, men are from Mars. In the red corner - mother and friends posing like a Vanity Fair cover in Portofino. In the blue corner, with the selfie stick: that ain't no stranger to us - that's my mostly-ignored-by-my-camera father making do. I AM DECEASED 🤣

...easily the best picture I've ever taken. Iconic.

And finally...

CATEGORY 3: 

LOVED ONE

...and the winner is...?

There's no competition here, at least not in the distance department. In the 17 months since we met, we've flown 17,000 kilometres (not including return flights) to see each other - averaging a thousand kilometres per month. RIP my carbon footprint. We've rendezvoused in London, Barcelona, Split, Kuala Lumpur and Penang, and Melbourne. Who knows, there may well be more to come... 😌

...let's raise a glass (and passport) to the noble souls who've braved my tantrums, my narcissism, and my morning breath. Who are your favourite travel companions?