About

I’m studying for a masters degree, hold down two part-time jobs, pour hours and hours of my spare time into working on my blog and online presence and still have the time to travel.

You can, too. Let me show you how.

Who am I?

Hello and welcome to TravellingTom.com! I’m Tom, a 24-year-old student from the United Kingdom who is totally obsessed with travel.

Flags, capitals, cultures, food, sightseeing, transport – the lot – I am completely enamoured with the idea of leading a nomadic life.

I do have another love, and that’s sports. Although not athletically gifted I have many sports teams which I follow. Everton, where I am a season ticket holder, the New York Jets of the NFL and baseball’s New York Yankees, to name a few.

And while I love seeing the big sites and visiting the renowned destinations of the world, I also revel in heading off the beaten track. My ultimate goal is to visit every single country, and places like North Korea, Turkmenistan and Mozambique hold just as much appeal to me as France, Japan and the United States.

When I graduate at the end of the year, I cannot be certain of the next step, but if it involves travel I’ll be extremely happy.

Why did I start this blog?

It is totally cliché, but starting a travel blog was the proverbial lightbulb moment for me.

So, there I was, home alone on a Friday night watching the television when, suddenly, the idea to start a travel blog sprung to mind. No prompting, no foresight, just an idea summoned from the recesses of my mind.

It makes sense, I suppose. I was coming to the end of my undergraduate degree in journalism and was hot off the heels of a summer which had seen me travel to six countries in three months – then a foreign concept to me.

Piece the skills I acquired as a student together with a love for globetrotting and it made complete and utter sense.

Before that I was mainly into sports journalism, but travel was different and appealing in that I was the story myself and not 11 men on a football field. I could be the centrepiece of my own adventures and journalistic escapades. To me it made total sense – an exciting endeavour if ever there was one.

Soon after I made the decision to travel frequently, using the blog as a part excuse to travel more. Aside from encouraging me to push the boundaries and set the goal of travelling at least once a month, it has also forced me out of my comfort zone, trying things like hostels, Couchsurfing and solo travel.

Over the past year-and-a-half I’ve juggled a degree, part-time jobs, a social life and my escapades, too. It’s made me realise that travelling or being a traveller isn’t limited to heading off half way around the world for several months at a time. Little and often still satisfies the criteria.

What do I want Travelling Tom to be?

Travelling Tom is as much for me as it is everyone else. While it has encouraged me to pursue my wanderlust-infused passions, it has also made me want to highlight two plights.

The first is advocating frequent travel, and I post help and guidance on how to travel like me – that is organisation and time management at home to maximise opportunities to explore our amazing planet.

I’d love for my followers to understand that travel doesn’t have to be a million miles away, nor does it have to be expensive. As a student, I know the perils of a tight budget, and most of my adventures are taken on little more than a shoestring. Travelling cheaper, better and longer is something I both preach and practice.

The second is going off the beaten track. As much as I love the popular cities, like New York and Rome, I’m a big fan of lesser-known places, too. Take my recent trip to Minsk in Belarus, for example. Belarus is Europe’s third least-visited country, behind only Liechtenstein and Moldova.

The fact that fewer people have been there naturally gives it more appeal. Exclusivity is very attractive and there’s so much more to planet Earth than the few destinations in travel agents’ brochures.

But perhaps most of all, I want Travelling Tom to become a travellers’ resource. A website and blog that someone would consult pre-trip, a place where people go to not only get help on how to travel on a budget, but also what to do and where to go.

I want my experiences to be your inspiration.

So join me on my journey where I country-hop across the globe, bringing you quality content and real advice on the amazing industry that is travel.

Get inspired, learn new things and remember: travel isn’t a privilege – it’s for everyone.

Don't forget you can also find me on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and Pinterest!

DISCLAIMER: All views expressed on this website are my own and not those of any employer, unless explicitly stated.