Doctor turned inquisitive globetrotter
Meet Abigail King, British travel journalist and photographer, who is about to set off on an InterRail trip across Eastern Europe. She once worked as a hospital doctor but left the profession for world discovery and cultural exploration.
Start date: 29 November, 2011
End date: 17 December, 2011
Travel plan: Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary, Austria, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Germany.
Follow Abigail's blog as she goes in search of the undiscovered beauties of Eastern Europe by train.
Blog: www.insidethetravellab.com
Twitter: @insidetravellab
Interview
Get to know a bit more about Abigail in this interrview with Interrailnet.com...
Tell us something about yourself.
I’m a journalist and photographer who swapped a career as a doctor for a life on the road. I’m also a fan of Blackadder, eat far too much mango chutney and always love marmite toast, buttered just right.
What experience do you have as a travel writer?
I’ve circled the globe twice, camped in the snows of Kilimanjaro and Patagonia and tracked down tigers, turtles and panda bears. I’ve since had a hot shower and embraced the city life of New York, Rio, Paris and Tokyo. Through work, I’ve interviewed Michelin-starred chefs, Formula One Race Engineers, aid workers, ministers, Tlingit elders and plenty of people on the street. I write the award-winning travel blog Inside the Travel Lab and my print work has appeared in National Geographic Traveler, Lonely Planet Magazine, France Today and more.
Why are you excited to travel with an InterRail pass?
I’m looking forward to seeing countries slide passed the window rather than stumble into them suddenly at the end of a flight.
Have you ever travelled around Europe by train?
Not for an ongoing journey like this. I’ve used the Eurostar to reach Paris, Brussels and Cologne from London and I’ve also used the sleek high-speed train between Seville and Madrid
.
What do you think the advantages are of exploring Europe by train?
When you arrive in a city by train, you usually arrive right where the action is, rather than an hour or so away in an airport. You get to see the country you’re travelling through and you don’t need to worry about parking, traffic or undressing for airport security...
What is your plan for this trip?
I’m interested in the divides that have run through Eastern Europe and so I’m starting my journey in Istanbul, where the Bosphorus River separates Europe from Asia, and then I’ll travel up to Berlin, where east and west used to stand either side of the Berlin Wall. I’ll continue that theme as I travel through Sofia, Belgrade, Zagreb, Ljubljana, Vienna, Bratislava and Prague. Although I’m intrigued by the history of these places, I also want to find out what they’re like here and now in the 21st century.
What is your most memorable travel experience to date?
Errrr…an impossible question! Probably searching for tigers in India’s Ranthambore National Park. We’d been staring into the field of tall bleached grass, scrutinizing a shadow that we thought could have been a junior tiger prowling around and getting ready to hunt. I couldn’t see very well so I sat back town and turned around. There, barely a metre away, was an adult tiger staring right at me. We were on an open-top jeep and she’d crept up on us without warning. It was terror, joy and beauty all in one.
