Other Holidays.

I went to Marrakech in June 2024 for a short break with my friend Lisa.

Marrakech is the fourth-largest city in Morocco. It is one of Morocco's four imperial cities and the capital of the Marrakech–Safi region. The city lies west of the foothills of the Atlas Mountains.

The city was founded in 1070 by Emir Abu Bakr ibn Umar as the capital of the Almoravid dynasty. The Almoravids established the first major structures in the city and shaped its layout for centuries to come. The red walls of the city, built by Ali ibn Yusuf in 1122–1123, and various buildings constructed in red sandstone afterwards have given the city the nickname of the "Red City" or "Ochre City". Marrakech grew rapidly and became a cultural, religious, and trading centre.

Photos from Marrakech.

In 2014, my friend Paul Dunne and I planned a two-city break in Spain. We flew to Madrid, spent a few days there and then caught a train to Barcelona, where we planned to spend a few more days before flying home.

The plans didn't work out quite as planned for me. I ended up in a hospital in Barcelona. I came close to death, even closer to losing my right leg and will never get over the injuries I sustained there.

As if that wasn't enough to give me bad memories of the trip, my dear mum died in the UK whilst I was in the intensive care unit of Barcelona University Hospital.

These blogs are about the places I visited and what I did when I took my mum to see my house in Florida, the USA in 2011. We travelled from Southampton in England to New York on the Queen Mary II. We then drove down the East Coast of America, to my home in Cape Canaveral, Florida and spent 3 weeks there before driving back to New York and returning to the UK on the Queen Mary II.

When I was 13 years old, and my sister was 11, our mum and dad took us to the USA. The trip of a lifetime stoked the embers of my interest in travel. I remember how they told us we would be going on holiday. We were all sitting at our dining table at Christmas the year before the holiday. Mum and Dad told me and my sister that we would go on a family holiday the following year and wouldn't have much for Christmas because of the cost. They told us we could choose where we wanted to go. We all secretly wrote where we wanted to go on holiday on a scrap of paper, and whichever place got the most votes we went to.

I think I chose Butlins at Bognor Regis, and my sister chose Black Gang Chine on the Isle of Wight and these were the first two places read out. Next came my mum's choice, and she decided on Disney World in Florida. We all laughed at this until my dad's choice was read out, and he also chose Disney World in Florida. Mum and Dad then told us that we would be going on a road trip right across America and that we could pick the places we wanted to go.

These stories are my memories of our journey across America in 1980.

These articles are all about the holiday I took in 1991 when I went to stay in Jamaica for two weeks.