Problem is, when you love books is that you can’t seem to put them down, or stop picking them up. Even when you do live out of a rucksack!

One of the joys of travelling is having time on our hands to read a lot of books, and one of the bonuses of staying in hostels is that they almost always have a book shelf to swap your old reads with new ones.

Not ones to pass up an opportunity of a good read, we often find we pick up a book to read for after the one we are currently reading, and we often want to read what each other is reading so we hold onto those ones, then there are the travel guides too – they’re usually pretty beastly! So, as you can see from the photo, we usually end up with a bit of a travelling library.

I’m not complaining. Far from it. A few years ago I discovered the joy of reading several books at once – I always used to think you read one after the other, but by dipping into books simultaneously I’ve found you can take in a lot more. For example Scott’s The Last Expedition is pretty hard reading as it’s just his journal entries but they are so interesting and whilst I can’t wait to read them all, it’s nice to break it up with a novel here and there.

Being surrounded by books is also a little bit of home comfort that’s nice to have on the road – that’s the reason why we built a bookshelf in the van!

Escapism, stories of the unknown, real life, real places and learning things you never knew before…I’ve already read one book this year. Here’s to the next ones!

And if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some reading to do…

I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book

J. K. Rowling