Forty years ago, I took my first solo trip. Well, it was a TWA Airlines vacation package to London. A tour guide met the group, at Heathrow Airport, and we traveled, by bus, to our Kensington (Olympia) Tube Station hotel. I can still remember a couple yelling at the tour guide and demanding good seats for some theater performance they needed help in booking. I was witnessing “the ugly American” firsthand.

The following year, after signing up for the Peace Corps, I returned to London. The plan was to spend three months backpacking through Europe, while waiting to hear back, on my application. I purchased a two week UK Rail pass and a two month pass for Western Europe. I was too old, at twenty seven, to buy the cheaper three month youth Eurail pass. Arriving in London, I already knew how to take the Underground, from Heathrow to Victoria Station. Once there, I went to the accommodations desk. Long before hotel booking apps, you simply told the ladies at the desk how many days you wanted and how much you could pay. After a phone call or two, you were handed a piece of paper with an address on it and given verbal instructions on how to get there.

I easily found the guesthouse in Bayswater. I was directed to a room with three twin sized beds. That evening, one of my roommates old me about a Youth Hostel, in nearby Holland Park. It was much cheaper and full of backpackers. When my two nights at the guesthouse ended, I headed over to Holland Park. In those days, London youth hostels kept your passport, until you checked out. You also had to return to the hostel, by 11:00 pm. If you arrived late, you had to find another place to spend the night. From London, I visited York, Cambridge, Oxford, and Bath. I then headed up to Scotland, for visits in Glasgow and Edinburgh. I then made my way back to London, in time to meet an old college friend who had worked for Club Med. Her french was fantastic. After a short London stay, we headed to Dover, then on to Paris.

After my Peace Corps assignment, in Kenya, my time was spent in grad school. I completed one degree in Ohio and then, two years later, began a graduate program at the University of Michigan. I completed that degree in eleven months and headed to my first professional archivist job at The College of William and Mary. It was there, while attending a lecture, that I learned of Sarah Parker Remond. She was born into a free black family, in Massachusetts. In 1858, she sailed to the London and spent two years giving anti-slavery lectures, around England, Ireland, and Scotland. She led me back to London.

I spent three or four years, traveling to and from London, conducting research, on Remond, at the British Newspaper Archives and the Royal Holloway College. I looked up old newspapers articles about her lectures. I was also interested in her enrollment at the Bedford Ladies College, in London. Those papers are held at the Royal Holloway College. Back home, I managed to turn my research into a few articles and invites to conferences, in London, Bristol, and Bath, along with a women’s history conference, in Spain.

A few years before retiring, I told the rep from one of my vendors that I had finally discovered football (soccer in the USA). That led this very Red Manchester United fan to her first football match at … Arsenal Stadium. I was given two passes for a match in late December. Clueless, I tried using them to get through the turnstile, at the stadium. But, I didn’t have those types of tickets. My type was a corporate pass that took me through the door of the stadium. My seats were amazing. The program and drinks were complementary. I couldn’t believe my luck! I failed at getting tickets for ManU. So, Arsenal was my very first football match. A few days later, I went by train, to Manchester, and took the stadium tour.

In 2017, I was retired and once again serving 27 months in the US Peace Corps. And, like my 1986 assignment in Kenya, I was a high school teacher, in Armenia. When a few months later, my godson’s mom asked if there was any chance that I could meet up with the family, in London, over the Christmas holiday, I said yes! I met them at their AirBnB, a few blocks from Paddington Station. We did a lot of touristy things, the Harry Potter bridge and train station, a bus trip to Windsor Castle and then on to Stonehenge. We made a visit to the Royal Observatory, in Greenwich. While there, we had our first Pie and Mash, with a side of jellied eels. I was a two time Peace Corps volunteer, at that point. Jellied eels, not a problem!

After my Peace Corps service ended in Armenia, I had thirty days, before my service began in Ethiopia. I flew home from Yerevan, with a stopover in London. I visited VB’s Dover Street store (Hi Posh), revisited the Original Hard Rock Cafe, went to Selfridges and purchased the products needed to get the InTheFrow tote bag. Then, I made my final stop, the Pat McGrath Labs Mothership launch at Harrods. This was my final time in London, before the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2020. I was evacuated from Ethiopia, March of 2020. I returned to the USA and was serving, with AmeriCorps, in Alaska, by the following August.

Last year, for my 67th birthday, I walked the 500 mile Camino de Santiago. I also visited a few friends living in Italy. When my EU Visa was at an end, I headed to the UK. After visiting Cardiff in Wales and Derry and Belfast in Northern Ireland, I headed to England and back to London. It’s now a year later and I’m back again. My current hotel is only an eleven minute walk from that old Youth Hostel, in Holland Park.

It’s London and it’s raining. My lunch at the Hard Rock and visit to Dover Street (Victoria Beckham’s store) will have to wait. I’ll get there, eventually, on this trip! Some old travel habits are hard to break! XOXO —GGT