Almost two months ago I arrived in San Diego. A place I had never visited before and I never would have had I not decided to extend my trip. Fortunately I made that decision and instead of relaxing on Miami beach for three weeks, I decided to travel back to Southern California and extend my surfing experience. San Diego is now a place I like to call my Californian home, and I would love to come out here to live visa permitting. I continued my couch surfing exp...

After experiencing the cool temperatures of Napa over the Thanksgiving period, that was enough of a reminder of what cold weather I'm to be welcomed by on my homecoming. Being a true sun worshiper it was time to return South as soon as possible and hit the 85F/30C temperatures of Los Angeles. That's exactly what I did the day after thanksgiving. I returned to the base of my Californian trip which was Paul & Drew's place in Hollywood (thanks once again guys)....

Thanksgiving in the valley. After two crazy weekends in Vegas and San Francisco, there is no better wind down than the short trip north to the Napa valley. Known as 'wine country' for obvious reasons, there are acres of countryside and vineyards. The temperature had dropped significantly since my previous visit in August. It was in fact a stark reminder of weather I will be facing when I go back home to England. I experienced my first road accident on my way t...

Nearly three months ago I made a promise to return to San Francisco and visit Alcatraz. This weekend I kept that promise. It was in the San Francisco International Hostel where I met my friend Paul from LA and we celebrated our "anniversary" by returning to the place we met. We drove up on Friday evening to beat the Saturday afternoon traffic and Paul's friend Jacob who was in town kindly let us share his hotel room for the first night. Due to the Californian ...

I have ventured 30 miles north to Santa Barbara, where I had previously spent one night two months ago. I stayed with couch surfing host Kate on Thursday and then checked into the Santa Barbara International hostel for three nights. Kate was a real bubbly character and a pleasure to stay with. She took me on a tour of Santa Barbara which was great as I never really had an opportunity to do so back in September. We had a semi relaxed night, however I did intro...