Chris Snowdon hails from the North of England and worked for The Northern Echo until September 2005. He then embarked on the trip of a life-time, travelling through the United States and then across the world. Chris will send regular blogs on his travels through the US and other stops around the globe.

Australia

April 27, 2006
Australia, Day 44
The search for a decent cup of coffee goes on. As with every Westernized country these days coffee shops offer a wide range of options. Frankly, they offer too many options. And yet, here in Australia, getting some hot water with filtered coffee beans and a bit of cold milk added is not one of them.

April 27, 2006
Western Australia
Driving the Nullabor is a potentially dangerous job. You're not going to get kidnapped by Mexican bandits but being Australia there's always a chance you might get murdered by a backpacker-stabbing yokel.

April 27, 2006
Sydney to Adelaide
Like all true environmentalists I'm stongly in favour of other people travelling by public transport. I, on the other hand, prefer to travel by car. Despite my long residency in one place in Sydney I do like to move around when travelling - you must believe me.

February 24, 2006
Sydney at Christmas
I arrived in Sydney on the first day of the worst race riots in living memory. Ugly scenes at Cronulla beach as Muslim and 'Anglos' knocked seven bells out of each other in a series of tit-for-tat attacks that lasted several days.

New Zealand

February 20, 2006
New Zealand's South Island - part two
Everyone says how English Christchurch is and it does indeed have traditional churches with dreaming spires, babbling brooks and a good old fashioned town square.

January 31, 2006
New Zealand's South Island
We got the last ferry to the South Island. It was 9pm when we arrived at Picton but Picton looked far too small a place to stay for the night so we decided to go to Nelson.

January 17th, 2006
New Zealand - The North Island
The New Zealand tourist board doesn't miss a trick. From the moment you get off the plane in Auckland they will make it very clear that you are going to have to spend a great deal of money if you want to live the dream.

Fiji

December 12, 2005
Flight to Fiji
Cards on the table time. I didn't really know where Fiji was. I assumed it was a few hours away in the middle of the Pacific so when I found out it was 11 hours away it came as a bit of a shock.

America

November 19, 2005
The big drive
I would've stayed in San Francisco a lot longer. I didn't even scratch the surface. However, I had 3 days to get back to Minneapolis to drop the car off. I had already driven well over 3000 miles but this was going to be the big one.

November 18, 2005
On to San Francisco
The next day I left Roz to make her way South from Santa Cruz while I pushed on San Francisco. It was a relatively short drive after all that had preceded it and I was there by lunchtime.

November 17, 2005
Through Death Valley and on to the West Coast
Vegas is north of Laughlin on Interstate 95, on the other side of 100 plus miles of scorched nothing.

November 16, 2005
And on to Las Vegas....
The decision to leave came quickly. Or perhaps not. I had been promising my friend Roz a lift to San Diego for several days but neither of us had been in a fit state to make the dream real.

November 15, 2005
The Grand Canyon
I was going to give the next day wholeheartedly over to Route 66. From the moment I stepped out the door I was on the old road and I was determined to follow it faithfully until I was well into Arizona and close to the Grand Canyon.

November 8, 2005
Across the political landscape
If you expect to the overwhelmed by something, if everybody's told you for days how amazing it is, is it inevitable you're going to be disappointed by it?

October 17, 2005
Route 66
I didn't need anyone to tell me the way to Amarillo. I just had to follow Highway 287. What I didn't know was how long it would take. I had left Dallas at 2pm and it was way past nightfall when I arrived.

October 2, 2005
The road to Dallas and Dealey Plaza
Just as the towns you pass on the Interstate are always smaller than you expect, the cities are bigger. Dallas is a case in point. Massive, it is.

October 1, 2005
Through the Bible belt
Kansas City is not in Kansas, it's in Missouri. Kansas might not be the most glamorous state in the Union but that's no reason for 'Kansas' City to be underhand. With that one deception it wrote its way out of my itinery and I drove straight through.

September 30, 2005
Across the prairie to Kansas
I had a feeling that going for cheapest of all car options was going to be a piece of penny pinching I would regret for 17 long days. But my fears of getting some sort of 0.8 litre Citroen Saxo were unfounded.

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