My job as a travel writer takes me all over the globe, and in the past few months alone I’ve been cross-country-skiing in Cortina, diving in Belize and kite-surfing in Mauritius. Yes, my friends all hate me! I get to see a lot of luxury hotels, but my heart is truly in adventure travel, and so it’s a trip that my partner Sean and I took, driving a campervan around New Zealand, that really stands out. The Department of Conservation offers over 200 basic campsites that cost just £5 per tent/van and are located in some of the most beautiful bays, forests and valleys I’ve ever seen.

We slept under the stars in the Bay of Islands, we hiked the Abel Tasman coastline five days, we dived at one of the best dive sites in the world at Tutukaka and we worked on vineyards for a few weeks to learn about wine-making. We’d go days without a hot shower, washing in rivers and lakes, and we became seriously creative with one-pot dinners (chickpea curry, anyone?) that we’d wash down with a beautiful bottle of NZ Pinot Noir. There will always be part of me that loves the buzz of the city, gets a kick out of fashion and craves a bit of luxury, but my trip to New Zealand taught me that that side can exist alongside the part of me that’s happiest washing her hair in a lake!