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I quickly found out that Hamburg ticks all the boxes for a great weekend city break: a perfectly-sized city centre for exploring on foot or by bike; a historic old town; a waterfront (and even a beach! ); It’s a modern hotel of 46 rooms located in Winterhude district in the north-east of the city and just south of the city’s main park, Stadtpark, which is known as the “green lung”. The continental buffet was stocked full of German breads, hams and cold meats, cereals, pastries and fruits (and even sparkling wine), and each day the hotel’s breakfast properly set me up for the day’s exploring ahead. If you’re looking for a romantic luxury hotel for a couple’s weekend away, then you might want a sightly smaller boutique hotel with a more intimate and exclusive feel.

I spent Easter this year in walking boots, roaming up and down the north coast of Cornwall, stunned by the sheer cliffs, the rugged and remote bays, the long expanses of beach, the brave surfers tackling the cold waves, and the sheer unspoilt beauty of the coastline. It’s nothing like the busier and more developed parts of the south coast of England – instead it’s wonderfully natural

While it’s true that I’m spending most of my time in a 9-5 routine in London, my job allows me to travel abroad occasionally, to use my languages, to learn and develop professionally, and to gain experience in a field I’ve wanted to work in for nearly 10 years. Of course I do miss the travel involved in my former Erasmus Mundus Master’s student lifestyle and I’m looking forward to spending more time abroad this summer when I finally start using my annual leave, but I also feel like I’m in a good place right here and right now in London. My wanderlust is ironically at its worst during these short work trips and for the 3-4 days immediately afterwards, as I’m confronted so directly with what I’m missing by not living on the continent. Isabel Allende’s for Spanish, Paulo Coelho’s for Portuguese) and reading books based in other countries (‘Rose of Sarajevo’, ‘War with Russia’ and ‘I Am Pilgrim’) to ensure my worldview stays as open-minded as possible and doesn’t succumb to the British island mentality that I studied last year during my Master’s.

When undertaking this journey as a solo vessel there is a small concern around health, accidents, vessel damage and as we were approaching half-way I did feel exposed since any emergency help would need to come from other vessels in the vicinity (and we only saw 3 tankers throughout the entire trip! ) We had a 3-day rotating watch with two 6-hour stints between 8am – 8pm, followed by three 4-hour watches throughout the night. It almost created a mini-world with the 3 of us in the boat, the sky, the waves and the odd sealife that paid us a visit. It felt ironic to experience a mere ghost of land as our first sighting for 20 days and 2,728 miles!