A huge part of travel for me is the people I meet and the friends I make in the places I get to experience. Some of, well most of my best friends are people I have met while living overseas & the number one thing we have in common is that we get it. Get what? This whole travel life. The coming & going frequently, the moving towns often & regularly. The fact that we will rarely live in the same place for long. And the feeling of saying goodbye/reuniting with each other. So when I meet people who share this same passion I immediately want to know more about them and where their adventures have taken them.
When it comes to London I'm always game. Since the first visit I was hooked and always on the hunt for new places to explore & unique sights to see. Cue my love affair with Ellie's Instagram account over at The Wandering Quinn! I've been following her since before I moved to the UK and she's always got something amazing to share from her explorations around London, and the dozens & dozens of European destinations she's been to. Most recently she's done away with the full time job she had to go at full time travelling & blogging which is so so exciting! She's straight up #goals for me when it comes to how often she seems to be jet setting around Europe & beyond, so for that & many more reasons you'll soon read about Ellie Quinn is this month's WanderWoman!
Alright girl, tell all these wanderers about yourself…
Hello! I’m Ellie, I’m 28, from England and I am a Travel Addict and Travel Blogger at
http://www.thewanderingquinn.com. I currently live in London and I’ve been living here for just over 2 years. Right now I have visited 49 countries which I’m very proud of!
What is something people might be surprised to learn about you?
That I actually have a full time job too! I go away a lot and often people seem surprised that I do work full time and have my blog as a side gig at the moment! Although I’ve been with the same employer now for nearly a year and thats the longest I’ve worked in one place since 2011! (On second thoughts, that might not be surprising to hear!)
(Cliffs of Moher, Ireland)
Did you always want to travel/what made you start? I first got the desire to travel when I was in my late teens, I knew some people who were older than me who had gone to Australia and it sounded like the dream and I knew I wanted to go too.
My first trip was in 2010 when I was 20 years old, it’s so cliche but I had broken up with my boyfriend of 2 years the summer before, it got to Winter and I decided I wasn't going to spend this coming Summer in the UK so I went on to Google, read about Camp America, applied, got a position and that Summer I spent 3 months in South Carolina followed by a month travelling around the USA.
A year later I went to Australia on a working holiday visa, I was there for 2 years and I knew that travel would be a big part of my life now.
(Zaragoza, Spain)
How do you decide where to travel to? Usually its very driven on the flight prices. Whether I’m flying from my base (now London, but my parents home before that), or whether I’m on a big trip and I’m looking into where to go next.
I also usually have a few ‘dream’ and ‘bucket list' destinations in mind so I do try to ensure that I visit those somehow even if the price is going to be higher or they’re more difficult to get to as at the end of the day, seeing somewhere online or hearing about somewhere, deciding that I’m going to go, and then going, is the best thing in the world for me!
In the last year I have done quite a few press trips through my blog too. Some of these have been because I have seen somewhere I wanted to go and reached out to work with a brand, others have been very random and they’ve come to me, so this has been a big deciding factor on where I’ve travelled to in the last year as well but I’m finding that really fun!
What is your travel style?
It’s always been very budget focused, my motto is - the less you spend, the more you see.
Again, this applies to longer trips where I’ve been time rich and money poor so I know the less I spend on accommodation, the more nights accommodation I can get. It also applies for weekend city breaks, I know if I come home with money I have money to spend on my next trip.
These days however whilst I have a full time job too I am willing to spend a bit more on accommodation for a more comfortable stay and happy to spend a bit more on a flight for a better time… but only a bit!
I also love travelling solo, recently I seem to have been on more trips with friends or a group as part of a press trip which I still really enjoy but I do find myself craving a few days away alone.
Top 3 bucket list places you’d love to visit?
This is hard because I have soo many but I really want to visit India, China & Mongolia.
(Egypt)
If you could move somewhere tomorrow with no question of visa where would it be and why?
Australia & Melbourne in particular without a doubt!
I spent 2 years living in Australia and 15 months of that in Melbourne, I just love the city and the lifestyle there. I am really keen to go back and see how I feel about it now, I often wonder if I loved it so much because I was just there on a working holiday visa, I was younger with no commitments (not that I have any commitments now! haha), having fun with a good group of friends but I feel like I would still love it.. in fact I’m pretty set on trying to live back there at some point in my life!
You have a blog- what was the motivation/idea behind it?
I do, I started it in March 2014 after leaving Australia and heading to South East Asia as a way of documenting my travels. I was reading a lot of travel blogs at that point to help me with getting around Asia and I wanted to share my experiences with others too so although it started off as a journal style blog I used to write costs, names of accommodation, how to book the boats and buses etc.
Since then, it has evolved into less of a journal and more of an information platform (Itineraries, reviews, top things to do etc) but I still enjoy that and that’s what I look for and read other blogs for.
My motivation behind it right now is that I am working with brands, going on exciting press trip and sometimes actually being paid to travel, which is what I always thought of as the dream, so I’m really motivated to see where I can take my blog to from here and if it can fund me full time!
(Thailand)
What is something you wish you could share with your pre-travel life self?
I would tell 16-20 year old me not to worry about the lack of friends I had at home where I grew up, the lack of excitement in my life then, the lack of parties, the lack of feeling ‘popular’, the lack of interest from guys because your 20’s will bring so much fun! You’ll meet so many amazing people, you’ll will be able to party as much as you want and meet as many guys as you want (who will be a lot more exciting than the guys from school!). You will literally travel the world and life is going to get a whole let better, so don’t worry!
(Jordan)
Best & worst travel moment?
I’m not sure if this is THE best and worst but going to Machu Picchu encompassed both aspects of awful and incredible which just shows how crazy travel can be and how it can totally not go to plan.
Long story short, I took a bus from Cusco in Peru to the town where Machu Picchu is close to, the altitude and the erratic driving really got to me and I pretty much had a panic attack on the bus. The even worst thing was that the whole group and everyone on the bus spoke Spanish and barely any English and I didn’t know any Spanish so it was so hard to communicate and no one really cared about me. I was also really annoyed because the lady I booked the trip with knew I didn't speak Spanish!
It felt like such a stressful and emotional day, not how I’d planned to see this Wonder of the World!
However the next day I got up early and headed to Machu Picchu and it was just so incredible to see with my own eyes and it made it all worth it!
What’s next for you/the blog?
I’m really excited about what 2018 holds for me and my blog. I going to keep working hard on it and keep going on as many trips as possible!
I’m also very interested in wellness and mindfulness in my own life and have been really into it for about a year so I’m starting to bring this into my blog too. I’ve got some trips coming up that are more health and wellness focused, I want to talk about products I’m starting to use that are more environmentally friendly, how to stay healthy when travelling etc etc .
Shameless plug, but to help me delve in to Wellness more and see what audience I have I have created a newsletter called Wandering & Wellness Wednesday which I send every 3-4 weeks so if you like the topic of wellness you can sign up on my blog!
(Bolivia)
Famous Last words for all the wanderers out there...
Just go!
It’s so simple but its so often said that not travelling is what people regret most when they’re old, so if you want to go somewhere make it happen and don’t create regrets.
I believe that if you’re working to make it happen, you’re believing that its going to happen, then it will. Whether thats a city break to a dream city, a 2 week holiday to a gorgeous island, a big trip around a whole continent or moving to live in another County!
(Georgia)
To see more from Ellie & follow up on her explorations into wellness & the world click on the handles below to check out her socials!
Instagram ↝ @thewanderingquinn
Twitter ↝ @wandering_quinn
Facebook ↝ @thewanderingquinn
Pinterest ↝ @Wanderingquinn
Youtube ↝ The Wandering Quinn