Hi, welcome to Bemused Backpacker and thank you for stopping by! Stick around and hopefully I can give you some hints, tips and advice on how to make your gap year dreams a reality. Follow me and I’ll walk you through the logistics and pitfalls of following your dreams of world travel as well as regaling you with a few tales from my own round the world adventures. I hope you all enjoy my work as much as I enjoyed creating it!
Who Am I?
My name is Michael Huxley, and in case you haven’t guessed it already, I am the Bemused Backpacker.
I have spent the last twenty years travelling the world independently and on my own terms, trying to see of much of it as I possibly can and fulfil as many bucket list dreams as possible. In all that time I have had some amazing adventures in over 100 countries on almost every continent. I have explored the last remaining ancient wonder of the world and visited several newer ones, I have had epic decade long quests to find lost relics, climbed mountains, explored oceans, trekked jungles and deserts and even peered into the edge of an active volcanic crater!
I have been travelling the world independently for over twenty years, and I want to pass all of that advice and information on to you so that you can follow your own dreams of round the world travel.
My passion for travel has allowed me to explore my other interests too. I have furthered my lifelong obsession with martial arts by studying numerous disciplines in their spiritual homes, become a published author and novelist, and discovered a passion for wildlife conservation by volunteering in elephant and orang-utan conservation camps and working with smaller animal sanctuaries and NGO’s such as BAWA.
These are just some of the gifts travel has given me.
Of course nothing goes right all of the time! No traveller is perfect and if there are travel mistakes to be made I’ve probably made them at some point! Among all of these awesome adventures I have caught dengue fever, nearly drowned in Thailand, nearly caused a riot on a train platform in Delhi, been caught up in part of the Arab spring and had a cat save my life in Cairo! A monkey even nicked my damn sunglasses once! These are just a few of the many scrapes I have managed to get through over the years, but none of them have put me off travel. In fact some of them have become some of my best travel stories and if anything I hope my mistakes inspire you to not be afraid to make a few of your own!
Travel has given me some amazing memories, it has given me the opportunity to see and do things most people can only ever dream of and for over twenty years now it has helped shape who I am. In between studying for multiple degrees and advanced degrees, and building a professional career in between trips, it has allowed me to build my passion into a full time profitable business!
In case you haven’t guessed yet, I absolutely love travel and am grateful that it has allowed me not only to forge a life for myself where I can travel whenever I want to whilst having a successful career, but also build a full time business too.
What I do.
During my round the world travels I also built a successful career as a qualified advanced nurse practitioner with specialisms in emergency nursing and travel medicine.Although I left nursing when my business boomed, this qualification evolved into becoming an expert health consultant within the travel industry, providing advice on pandemic response and IPC procedures, and running my own online travel clinic through Bemused Backpacker, where I give backpackers expert travel health advice and information before they set of on their gap years, or occasionally emergency advice when they fall ill or get injured abroad.
I’m proof positive that you can have a great professional career, follow your dreams and ambitions and travel whenever you want at the same time!
I created the Bemused Backpacker website to be an indispensable resource for travellers on how to backpack and travel the world independently, and have watched it grow over the last decade into one of the most successful travel blogs out there. I have been able to use my platform to speak at a number of industry events and expos to both travellers and industry alike, and I have been featured in some of the worlds largest A list media including the BBC Travel Show, the BBC World Service and Indonesia’s Metro News, as well as numerous print and online media including The British broadsheet The Guardian, Canada’s Globe and Mail and many more.
If you are a brand, tourism board, DMO or other travel industry provider who wants to work with me, please find more detailed information on how to do that here.
Most importantly Bemused Backpacker is here for you. Bemused Backpacker is the ultimate resource for every independent traveller and backpacker out there, whether you are planning your very first gap year, have been travelling for years, want to take a career break or sabbatical or even if you have never thought travel was possible for you before but are looking for some guidance, this website is for you. I want people to know that independent travel is not just possible but achievable for everyone, and I want to give people the inspiration, the advice and the tools they need to follow their dreams and travel around the world on their own terms.
Bemused Backpacker is here to provide education, information and inspiration for all backpackers, gap year travellers and independent world travellers alike.
I absolutely love backpacking and travelling the world, and I hope to share some of that passion with you. After all it is you, the reader, who makes Bemused Backpacker what it is. It is you who I want to inspire to follow your dreams of round the world travel. It is you who I want to impart all the knowledge and experience I have gained over the years to and help you prepare for your very own round the world adventure.
So I really hope you all enjoy the site and more importantly find the books and information here useful!
If you want to keep up to date with what is happening, new releases, competitions and special offers, then please feel free to sign up for email alerts in the box in the sidebar or follow me on Facebook or on Twitter, and I hope to see you all out there somewhere!
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