I’m sitting in a north London flat drinking red wine after just grabbing my favorite naan for 1 Quid from the shop that’s between my tube stop and the apartment and I’m wishing that I wasn’t already leaving for Rome tomorrow. My time here is never long enough. It’s like Paris in that way.
Now, my London isn’t of Big Ben, Buckingham Palace or a luxury hotel with to-die-for views. It’s the curry places, the vintage clothes to be sourced in pop-up markets, the artisan coffee shops, the long walls of abundant street art in dodgy parts of town, the places that still sell working-film-cameras, the pubs tourists don’t go in the neighborhoods tourists don’t know about and the little corner outside Kings Cross station that will forever mean something to me which cannot be put into words – written or spoken.
I believe that sometimes travel bloggers concentrate so much on Top 10 Lists and hotel reviews that they forget travel should be about more than ticking off lists and going wherever others recommend. London is one of the places I travel to again and again because I can be traveling but be without some of the burdens that come from always being in a new place and on assignment to report every detail.
Of course on my second or third visit i’d opt out to have a more off the beaten path experience – or why not mix it up from the first time?
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