Hi! My name is Aimée, and I am the creator of I Dream of Mangoes.
I am originally from Sussex in the UK, but I have spent parts of my adult life living in London, Bristol, Australia, and New Zealand. I love animals, yoga, food, wine, hiking, and all things ocean!
Within my travel guides you will find practical information for independent travel to adventurous places, with real costs, honest reviews, and authentic experiences.
I have always had the travel bug, and I embarked upon my first backpacking adventure straight from studying Zoology at university, a little more than 14 years ago. This was the typical ‘banana-pancake trail’ that I carbon-copied from a college friend, with endless cheap beers and those elephant pants.
After three months in South-East Asia I found myself yearning for more… this wasn’t the travel experience I had dreamed of.
Some time after I got trapped in a soulless sales job, and in between cold-calling and counting the dreary minutes go by, I would daydream of travelling again, but this time properly, to far-off tropical places where mango trees grow, which is where the name of this blog came from.
So off I went, starting by spending six months with a volunteer project for orphaned Chimpanzees in Cameroon, followed by traversing much of India solo. Talk about jumping in the deep end!
After that, it was all about getting off-the-beaten-path, and travelling as cheaply as possible for as long as possible. Believe me, I have stayed in some grotty places and made some unbelievably arduous journeys just to shave off a dollar or two.
A rank hotel room in Siliguri in North India with dirty blood-stained sheets, no mattress, and sewage-flooded toilets with no lock on the door.
A 15-hour journey hitch-hiking in a truck across Zambia in 40 degree heat, with a driver with a floppy, broken hand, and me doing the gears for him.
Crouching in stress position for 9 hours, rumbling across Java, Indonesia, in a minivan meant for 8 people but stuffed with 15, with my feet burning on the engine because there is a hole in the floor of the vehicle.
Yep, yep and yep.
I have hundreds of experiences like these, and while they were pretty uncomfortable or scary at the time, they make the best stories!
Nowadays, my hostel dormitories and elephants pants are mostly behind me. I like a bit more easy-in-between time between missions, so while basic homestays are fine, every week or so I prefer a couple of days in a hotel with a gym and pool, with somewhere I can work on my blog in that goooood air-conditioning.
It is certainly true that with time, my destinations have become more adventurous. Still, my style of travel has remained the same: budget-friendly, eco-conscious, and with a desire to hang with the locals.
In between my travels, I have trained to become a Yoga Teacher and a Sommelier. My adventures are all self-financed; there is no trust fund here! Working as a Sommelier is what has paid for my travels so far, and my pattern is to work really hard for a year, save all my money and then travel for as long as I can, and repeat.
Even though there are sacrifices that come with this lifestyle, like not owning a home or car and missing special family events, I just know the 9-5 isn’t for me. Give me a juicy mango on some far-flung island that took three days to get to instead, anytime!
I would like to go to every country in the world, but I am in no rush to do so. I have always found I have enjoyed a country more when I have travelled there more slowly – hiking in nature, staying with a local family, zipping about by public transport and sometimes volunteering.
My favourite continent to travel is Africa. It is the most exciting region of the world for authentic travel, there’s just something about it. And I have a real love for the Pacific Islands, I just admire the warmness of the people so much (very different from my cold British heart). And the slowness of life – it’s worth emulating.
My travel objectives for this year are to see more of South America, so far I have only been to Colombia. I am going to spend four months starting in Peru, and heading south at a leisurely pace – trying to avoid the tourists hotspots as much as possible.
My speciality is my in-depth knowledge of India, and I know it seems counterproductive going to India 10 times and spending close to two years there all together, when I want to go to every country in the world. But one of my closest friends, who died recently, ran a dog shelter in Kerala, so I was always drawn back to her and the country she helped me fall in love with. So even though I need a bit of space from India since Peshna’s death, one day I would like to see all the states and territories of India.
For 2027 – it’s the Caribbean baby! It is somewhere I’ve never been, and it’s imperative for me to do this ethically. That means only staying in locally owned guesthouses, no private/foreign resorts, and as few flights as possible. I know it will be a challenge and I am up for it.
I also love to scuba dive, so the world-class dive destinations are always calling. The Galapagos, Socorro (Mexico), and Palau are all on my bucket list, but as they are expensive destinations, I’ll need to spread them out over many years.
Will I ever stop travelling?
Sometimes I do ponder the idea of creating a nest, and then after 6 months of being in the same place, I am ready to move on again. It is not really the home I want, but the dogs. I really want dogs. So if I ever slow down the travelling, it will be to get a bunch of rescue dogs (and pigs, I love pigs too).
When I eventually do decide to have a home base, it probably won’t be in the UK. Of all the countries I have been, the three that have caught my eye as places I think I would love to live are: Colombia, Malawi & Spain.
This blog is a product of 13 years of travel and thousands of hours of writing and editing, and I love doing all of it. So THANK YOU for reading, sharing, and supporting I Dream of Mangoes.
