ABOUT ME

I’m Caitlin Wallis, a Brit living and working in Sydney, Australia.

I was in my mid-20s at a talk in London one night when the speaker said “turn to the person next to you, and tell them what you’d spend the next 6 month doing if money wasn’t a consideration“

Pondering this for a while, I said “I’d spend 3 months travelling and 3 months living somewhere overseas“. I loved London very much, but weeks were merging into months and into years, and I knew I could easily pass the next 5 years of my 20s in much the same way I’d passed the first 5: working hard, socialising hard, probably spending a bit too much… or I could try something different for 6 months, and even if it didn’t go well I would have it to look back on.

My neighbour at the talk asked me “where would you live for those 3 months?” my key criteria were: somewhere with a good climate, somewhere with a decent economy where I had a chance of getting a job if needed, and finally (and slightly shamefully) somewhere English speaking. I didn’t want to have the combination of a country where I knew no-one and not being able to speak the language. I narrowed this down in my head to a few options, and partly due to the easy availability of the working holiday visa for Australia, I settled on Sydney.

Within a couple of weeks of that talk I’d negotiated a sabbatical from my job in finance, and booked tickets for 3 months of (largely solo) travelling through Cuba, Central America, California, Fiji and NZ. It was one of the best experiences of my life, and looking back on those 3 months it felt like 3 years of experiences rolled into one, full of fantastic people, places and moments.

And…5 years later I’m still in Sydney. Part of me will always still be in the UK, due to friends and family ties, but I love the outdoor lifestyle that Australia has to offer, and mid-week big nights out have (largely) been replaced with mid-week early morning bike rides.

ABOUT THE BLOG

‘Where’s Wallis?’ was born in October 2014 to document my 3 months of travels, and I’ve continued it long after arriving in Sydney.

As I explain in my first ever post I created the blog for three reasons:

• To keep family and friends up to date with my travels;
• To have a record of my experiences to look back on; and
• To provide some recommendations and tips to travellers who visit places after me.

It’s great to be able to refer friends to the blogs for those cities/countries where I’ve highlighted my favourite of the places to stay, eat and drink, and activities!

If you have any specific questions please get in touch via my ‘Contact me‘ page.

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