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What's this blog all about?

Hi, I'm Nicola - welcome to a blog begun in 2012 about family travel around the world, without leaving the UK.

I love travel adventures, but to save cash and keep my family's carbon footprint lower, I dreamt up a unique stay-at-home travel experience. So far I've visited 110 countries... without leaving the UK. Join me exploring the next 86! Or have a look at the "countries" you can discover within the UK by scrolling the labels (below right). Here's to happy travel from our doorsteps.

Around 2018 I tried a new way of writing my family's and my own UK travel adventures. Britain is a brilliant place for a staycation, mini-break and day trips. It's also a fantastic place to explore so I've begun to write up reports of places that are easy to reach by public transport. And when they are not that easy to reach I'll offer some tips on how to get there.

See www.nicolabaird.com for info about the seven books I've written, a link to my other blog on thrifty, creative childcare (homemadekids.wordpress.com) or to contact me.

Tuesday 25 September 2007

Frontline

Pete, Nicola, Lola, 9, and Nell, 6, spent three happy months during the summer of 2007 traveling around Britain. Now we’re home but the travel bug is still there. Join us for occasional sightseeing plus tips on how to shrink your carbon footprint…

It’s nearly a month since we came back home to London and I’m on my first trip out to London – Paddington to be precise. This sounds silly, after all I live in London but even though I live in a busy, crowded bit of Islington it doesn't have the vibe that I associate with central London. This time I'm just using the underground so I can meet my lovely friend Nicky, who normally lives in Zimbabwe, and have a delicious dinner at the very stylish Frontline Club which even the insiders reckon is famous as “a place for those with a nomadic temperament to gather and not tell war stories”. We discuss all sorts, including how fast London changes - she's been away 10 years and is stunned by the crowds of 20 and 30 somethings; I've been away three months and can't remember how to exit instinctively from the tube.

Frontline is the right place to meet: I still want to be a nomad even if I'm not sure when I'm going back to Africa, and I've never ever had a war correspondent's temperament.

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