It’s been going a couple of weeks now but my time to pick up the baton for Team Purple in the LowCostHolidays.com blogger relay – kindly passed to me by @laura_davies80 from SouthEastAsiaBackpacker.com 

If you’re not in the loop it’s a chance for bloggers to share their weird, wonderful and amazing experiences with you – although narrowing it down to a top 3 is definitely a tricky business! They then nominate who they wish to pass the baton to and the blogging team with the biggest chain win a heap of awesome techy stuff to make up smile heaps!

So here’s My Top 3 Travel Experiences;

3. Van Life

My Awesome Van – Leslie

It had always been one of my life long dreams growing up to head to Oz, buy a van, chuck a bed in the back and live a true nomadic lifestyle of catching fish, cooking epic BBQ’s and waking up in a random car park! Seriously since I was like 8 or something!

When I finally got to Australia I got straight to it – hiring a van with 8 random backpacker and campervanning Perth – Darwin, but it was missing something – surf.

So when I landed on the east coast I bought my own van – I strapped a 9 foot longboard to the roof, built a make shift kitchen, shoved a bed in the back, a girl in the passenger seat and proceeded to surf and travel my way up the coast! It was everything I hoped it to be!

 2. Hiking Machu Pichu

Tired, Sweaty But Stoked at Machu Pichu

The Inca Trail is pretty much on any backpackers bucket list – and I was stoked to get the chance to do it with G Adventures earlier this year during my month in Peru.

The hike itself was a balance or sweat, tears and smiles – it was easily one of the toughest things I’ve ever done but also the most rewarding. I met a great group of people on my (who I’m travelling with again soon) and had an amazing time. Even though the highlight was coming through the sun gate to see the infamous view of Machu Pichu itself I would’ve happily just done the trek – it was heaps of fun!

1. Surf Coaching 

Another Hard Day In The Office!

At first I thought picking a top travel experience from all the wonderful places I’ve been lucky enough to visit would be difficult. Then I realised there’s one that is the constant backbone of my conversations – with people I meet on the road and also my family back home, and that the time I spent in Ecuador working in my dream job as a surf instructor. It was easily the best job I’ve ever had and was filled with mojitos, waves, sun and a whole heap of crazy people from around the world. Kicking back with Vago the other surf coach we truly lived the dream; waves, babes and bad decisions!

I’m also going to cheat slightly by giving you a couple awesome experiences that almost made the list;

• Exploring the Galapagos
• Diving with Whale Sharks
• Releasing baby turtles in Bali
• Surfing with my buddies in Morocco

And so comes my time to pass the baton on – and I shall be nominating the ever infectious (not in an STI way, I think…!) and charismatic Will (aka @myspanishadv) from My Spanish Adventure – he’s got heaps of stories to tell, so I’m intrigued to hear what tops his list!

You can follow the action in Team Purple via the twitter hashtag #TeamPurple (bet you didn’t see that one coming!) via the lowcostholidays twitter feed and of course be a traitor to the purples and check out the other teams too via the hashtag #BloggerRelay – and if you want to join in and be part of team purple hit up neil@backpacksandbunkbeds(dot)co.uk