Peckham

👋 welcome to marty on the map - my silly little sabbatical blog.

I'm heading out today on a 2 month trip to bop about the world, and I wanted to write about it as I go - so I built this site.

My only experience of writing since I finished my GCSEs has been the occasional tech blog post with a hot take about incident management, so this might start out a little rusty.

It feels kind of satisfying that the first time I went on a long trip was 10 years ago (big Duke of Edinburgh vibes). 2026 me looks a little less fresh but maybe we can blame that on the karaoke last night.

My plan

If you've not already heard me yapping about it, I've got 2 months off work! Wild! I'm leaving today to head to Taiwan, China, Bali, Korea and then Washington state. There is a rotating cast of characters that I’m linking up with that you can look out for along the way.

I'll try and post every few days from wherever I'm at, so you can follow along with whatever silly shit I've gotten up to, and I can look back on it in another 10 years when I'm even less fresh and have a little laugh.

My vibe on the whole thing

I love to not think about things in advance of doing them, so I have only this weekend clocked that this is somewhat of a long time to be away for.

I think the way I have spent my last few days in the UK reflects what I am probably going to miss most (apart from all of the people that I love). That meant some extended baths, unnecessary amounts of time in bed, a really crispy jacket potato with cheese and beans, and (a few) pints of guinness with various mates.

I keep thinking that the act of physically leaving the house for 2 months feels very main character. Obviously I would overdramatise this but I have been saying goodbye to the trees and cats on my road and being deep about the fact that I won't see them until after spring, for some reason I have decided that is emotionally significant.

To make sense of things I did a classic Marty and categorised things into numbered lists.

Cool things:

1. Hanging out with people I like in places I don't normally

• Everyone I'm meeting along the way I literally already can't wait to see. Meeting up with people you know in random places when you haven't seen them for ages feels like a movie.
• Specifically I'm doing a leg with my lil brother, and a leg with my mum, and I’m really really excited to do a trip somewhere totally new with each of them as an adult! Maybe I will regress to my teenage self and maybe we will all kill eachother - find out in episode 3.

2. Doing some solo shit

• I've literally never been away on my own for a non-work trip. Spending some time solo will be kinda wild.
• So far I have treated the solo time like eating my vegetables because it will be good for me but I hate not having someone to yap to. I am interested to see if I go insane or maybe I'll go all in and #findmyself.

3. Factory resetting my brain

• I have been locked into work mode for ages so I am just excited to see what my personality is when I don't spend half the time talking about whether things are in or out of scope. I think I will simultaneously miss it in a way that is obviously really cringe, and also probably forget about it all within a week. Excited to find out.

Weird things:

1. I love to not do things myself

• Travelling is so much easier when you are with someone who grabs you a snack when you crash out, or has a good sense of direction, or remembers to charge their phone, or is good at knowing exchange rates. I've gotta really lock in to doing shit myself which is truly not my forte. Hopefully survival instinct will get me through it?

2. It is really hard to know how much you'll miss shit until you do it

• In classic me style I haven't really thought in advance about whether I'll actually hate being away from my life, and I think there will aspects that will SUCK. I imagine that I'll be surprised by what they are. I don't really identify as someone who gets particularly homesick, but simultaneously the last time I went away for a long time was like 10 years ago when I didn't live in a place I loved so I could for sure change my tune on that. Either way I think finding out my vibe on it feels important whether it’s positive or negative.

3. Balancing how busy to be is tricky

• It's interesting doing a longer trip with people who are joining you for just a couple weeks at a time. The vibe of what you do on a 2 week holiday is kinda hard to sustain across 2 months. Gotta keep an EYE with a capital E on that to not accidentally crash out from too much bopping about. I must learn patience and the ability to sit down for a bit.

That feels like way more soul searching than I planned to do, so let's stop being dramatic and talk about what I'm taking with me.

What's in my bag?

I was trying to work out what to write in my first post when literally nothing has happened yet. Then I figured I'd throw it back to my favourite era of Youtube in 2010 with a rifle through my suitcase. Here's a little dive into some themes I noticed and roasted myself for whilst packing. This also goes with my incessant need to recommend things to people. Nothing brings me more joy than a stupid little item.

1. I guess I am getting old, slay

I really clocked today that I have truly leaned away from trying to be a backpacking legend.

1. Pharmaceutical goods

• Pictured above is one of the most satisfying organisational items I have ever bought: a medicine storage container. I never knew that popping so many ibuprofens could bring me such satisfaction (shout out Lauro Atkinson for the inspiration). I am so STOCKED with a little melatonin, a painkiller, an antihistamine, you name it. I am so expecting to get this confiscated by Chinese customs and it will be really funny when that happens.

2. Compression era

• I've treated myself to my first ever pair of compression socks for the plane. I hear from my superiors (Anna Hosey I'm looking at you) that they are life changing, I look forward to finding out how difficult they are to put on in an airport toilet. My plane OOTD will turn my enemies to dust. 

3. Luggage vibe shift

• Idk why it took me so long to get into 4 wheel suitcases but there is no better feeling in the world than rolling that shit along a smooth airport floor. Backpacks are so overstimulating especially when you have a 2nd little backpack on your front. It is literally so nice to open your suitcase and be able to see shit and not have to dig around in a never ending sack. I feel so free.

2. Why use your phone when you can pay more for a potato?

I'm taking 3 separate photo taking devices on this trip, and 2 of them are definitely worse quality and way larger and heavier than my literal phone. The nostalgia craving is truly hitting I guess.

Specifically I grabbed myself a 2008ish Sony camcorder on ebay. The quality is so satisfyingly bad but I'm hoping to take some classic home video style content. It was really stupid how much paraphenalia I had to buy to get it working. It's wild how much a shaky handheld zoom vibe can throw you back to the early 2000s.

3. Activity selection pack

I am consistently jealous of those little backpacks that people give kids full of random shit to keep them busy in a car ride, and I think maybe I've finally made it.

On my activity roster:

1. Books!

• I've loaded the fuck out of my kindle with stuff I want to read, I'm really hoping to get back into doing that. Maybe even a book that is hard work to read. Probably not. Please send me book ideas if you're reading this!!!!!!

2. Arts n crafts

• Liyah just got me the literal CUTEST mini watercolour set I have ever seen in the world so I'm going to do some lil bits and bobs. I love mini versions of big shit a stupid amount. I was also considering a lil junk journalling but obviously I've left it too last minute to buy any supplies. I've also decided that editing my stupid potato camcorder videos counts as a creative endeavour so we'll include it here.

3. Sponsored by NYT crossword

• This one will be kinda depressing because my little brother is wildly better at every possible NYT game than me. It's so humbling. BUT I do simply love a little crossword to get me through the day.

Ofc I will keep you up to date with how many of these I actually end up doing. I'm currently deciding whether the pros of deleting TikTok to avoid the utter slop I consume outweigh the cons of missing out on the high quality travel content.

See you in a bit!

That's it, I'll next see you in Taipei. Drop me a message if you have tips or thoughts or just want to heckle things I've said (that is aimed at you, Grandad), I'll appreciate it all.