A tasty Christmas dinner at home is my favourite meal of the year and it's the thing I look forward to most during the winter. This year the turkey was the best ever. I hope that this bird has some close relatives and that I can eat one of them next year...

Gatecrashing Yeti's last two 1st-year Dutch classes is a great way to pass the time.

Dos chicas mexicanas hit the UK for nine days of gig-going, partying, sightseeing and shopping, using my flat as a base for a couple of nights. Good excuse to see GoodBooks at Leadmill...

There's a hitchhiking competition from Sheffield to Belgrade next Easter. There were a couple of hundred students dominating South Sea and Juice to kick off Bummit 2007. Spent ages on the costume...

Finally made it to Utrecht on the bus and then straight to Hilversum. After a meal with Linda and family it was back to Utrecht to meet Jorgen for a couple of drinks, then to a big house party to meet Marte and co., and take advantage of the alcohol on offer. One night there, one night back in Hilversum, one more random trip to Holland complete.

A couple of nights in Plzen, getting lost in the industrial wilderness and partying with students. Cheers to Kostya for hosting me and to the others for making Plzen a place to remember. Found it (literally) hard to leave...

Four nights in Prague! Where has this place been all my life? Beautiful city, even in misty November when you've almost walked your feet into bleeding, you stink, you have no money, you don't know how you're going to get to Amsterdam and you can't speak the language. The food and beer are tasty and go great with each other. Thanks Zuzana, Daniela and Michal for being great company, giving me rooves to sleep under and showing me the pubs, shops, districts where the locals go and the tourists miss. I'll be back for sure...

Hosted some homeless Dutch AEGEE students in my room for three nights. What started as two students soon became a very cosy five. They descended on Sheffield in a group of 24, I think they could've only all stayed at my place if they can sleep standing up! Although with the amount of alcohol many of them drunk after attacking Sheffield's pubs and clubs, sleeping like that would have been possible...

At a Hallowe'en party. How much time did it take to decorate this place? Should've stayed longer.

Deal.

Group of pictures from my last day in London, in Camden. Thanks to everyone for a weekend that I won't forget in a long time :) Talli, thanks for a great few weeks, have the time of your life and paint India red! And come visit us in Europe again sometime!

Photos from the HC meetup organised by Florian and me in the Angel Pub. Yes, two guests to the city managed to get a meetup of 29 people organised with 8 hours' notice :).

Friday night was spent finding accommodation by chasing an HC meetup round north London, catching them in the queue for Fabric, then going somewhere else and recovering the next morning :). These photos are from Saturday afternoon with Florian, meeting with Talli and Dana and organising a big HC meetup that night...

In London for four days. The reasons? To give Talli flight tickets to India, to give moral support while she journeys the beaurocratic odyssey of getting a new Israeli passport and Indian visa, and to meet loads of Hospitality Club members. I arrived in London at 10pm without any accommodation - luckily an HC meetup at the Angel Pub the same night solved that problem.

Back in Sheffield, back in Halifax Hall, back to being a student...

This is the last night of my holiday - the next day I go back to the Isle of Man, pack my bags and head off to Sheffield. 4657km hitchhiked, 61 days, 16 countries, the most amazing experiences along the way and my last night is spent slaving in Mojca's kitchen cooking hundreds of Swedish meatballs. It was a good party though :). Thanks so much to everyone who made my travels possible! You're welcome to visit me wherever I'm living...

I'm in the Netherlands to catch a flight home but I may as well spend three days looking around Leiden. And it was cool to see Mojca again after over two years!

After the seven-hour nightmare near Rosenheim we decided to go simply wherever the next driver would take us. So here we are back in Frankfurt. This was a good place to relax with friends, and to go and see Verlen play their last gig for a while in Hofheim. I stayed for a few days, then said bye to Talli in Frankfurt and hitchhiked over the Dutch border...

More photos exploring the Swiss countryside with Andri, Ursin and the rest of the Hutter family. We were sad to leave them at the end, but had to move on sometime. The morning after these photos Ursin dropped us off at the Swiss-Austrian border and we tried to hitchhike to Vienna. It was a disaster - the lowpoint was after seven hours at the same service station just outside Rosenheim, the worst hitchhiking experience either of us have had so far...

After travelling from city to city to city, Talli and I decided that we needed a break and wanted to explore some Alpine countryside. A coin flip decided that we'd stay in Switzerland; we then chose the St. Gallen canton as it looked rural and mountainous, and went onto Hospitality Club to find someone living in a village there. We found Andri and his family - they had a large lovely house in idyllic countryside, and they were perfect hosts!

Talli performs her fire character to Anniko, me and whoever happens to be passing by on the shores of the lake at Lausanne.

The first performance of Talli's sock character on a street in Lausanne, Switzerland. The public loved it and she earned many more Swiss francs than needed...

Finally in Switzerland! Our driver was going through Lausanne, so we got off there and found Anniko and Djunga through Hospitality Club. We stayed with her for three nights and explored the beautiful city, whilst Talli earned some money juggling on the street.

On the way to Switzerland! We chose this destination by sitting at the Piazza Navona in Rome, opening the map, saying "Let's go to Switzerland" and it was decided. We really didn't mind where in Switzerland we were going - as long as we crossed the border, we were happy. Crossing the border took over a day's hitchhiking, but we made it eventually...

Left Calabria early and set off travelling with Talli for a couple of weeks. The first journey was with Massimo and Pierre to Rome - we stayed two nights and used the time to relax, enjoy the dolce vita and decide which country to visit next.

Left Praia a Mare on Sunday, here are the pics. Thanks to Martina and everyone for a memorable weekend at the HC beach camp!

Pictures from a lazy Saturday at the HC beach camp at Praia a Mare - playing Werewolf (why wasn't it Mafia?), messing about and going into town.

Pictures from the the amazing HC beach camp in Praia a Mare, Calabria. At a sunny beach on the south-west coast of Italy, people gather from all over the world to jump off a 25-metre cliff and take photos of each other. Do HC, you know it makes sense.

A daytrip to Hampton Court. After these pictures my break comes to an end - we go to Newcastle for a few days, then I fly to Rome and carry on with Part 2 of my trip...

A family reunion at Janet and Jim's, Lowesbury Farm.

Going on a daytrip with Daniel to London. We didn't really know what to do when we got there, so we spent most of our time hopping random buses and taking strange pictures.

A few photos of a trip to the Roman baths at Bath.

A trip up to Wiltshire to visit my uncle's family and stay with them for a couple of nights. It wasn't until the second day that my cousin let slip that there was a quadbike in one of the sheds. We'd been wasting our lives up to this point.

With my suitcase I took the Eurostar to London and stayed for nearly two weeks with my family in England. This gives me a break from travelling for a bit, and it gives my family and I a chance to see each other. These pictures are from the Chertsey show - my aunt and uncle own a nearby farm.

This is my Ten-Minute Travel project made on 11th Aug 06 in Basel. Every ten minutes I stopped in my tracks to take a photo of whatever I saw. Your job is to pretend these photos are your own, and tell me about your afternoon in Switzerland! Please tell me about 'your trip' by leaving comments under each photo, by sending me an email (tomcmoon@gmail.com) or by telling me on the "Experimental Travel" group board on Couchsurfing, facebook, or anywhere else you found this link from.

Thanks! Looking forward to hearing your holiday stories!

Somehow a European trip wouldn't be complete if I didn't go to France. These are pictures from a day trip to Colmar, a town in the east.

Yoanna lives and studies in Freiburg, she was my guest in Frankfurt not long ago and so she returned the favour by inviting me to Freiburg. This place is beautiful, maybe the most beautiful town I've visited in ages.

Back in Frankfurt - the first 'leg' of my trip is complete! After spending a night at Ömer's place I'm onto Christoph's to be reunited with my suitcase, before hitchhiking to Freiburg for a couple of days.

The hitchhike from Copenhagen to Frankfurt/Main was probably the luckiest hitchhike I've ever done. After getting three lifts quickly out of Denmark I got left near Hamburg at a service station with hundreds of rock fans coming back from the Wacken festival, mostly travelling southwards, mostly with space in their cars and mostly open-minded enough to take hitchhikers. I hit hitchhiking gold!

Diego had gathered 20-25 HC and Couch Surfing members together for a party in Copenhagen. I met several people I knew previously and we ended up quite drunk in Dan's house. The next morning I gave up hitchhiking as I'd started too late, so spent an extra night on Diego's bed and left early the next morning.

Copenhagen was amazing. I'm not a fan of how much the city bows down to tourists, or how expensive everything is, but seeing Diego and many other HC members again was great fun and I ended up staying an extra night. The pictures in part 1 are of a day spent exploring the city, meeting friends who I hadn't seen since June and waiting for the party later that night...

Hitchhiking from Uppsala to Jönköping was a failure - out of the 300km distance, I made just 30km to Arlanda airport and then took the train. Hitchhiking from Jönköping to Copenhagen was even worse - after waiting three hours for a lift I spilt orange juice over all my posessions, decided I couldn't continue and took a bus. But hitchhiking was to get a lot better afterwards...

I spent four days in Sweden, two days in Uppsala and two days in Jönköping. The Swedish leg was probably the quietest, most peaceful part of my journey - I spent a lot of it alone or with a couple of Hospitality Club members. In some ways I was missing the exciting times I had in Vilnius or Tallinn, but in other ways I was glad I had enough time to gather my breath back, relax and reflect on various not-so-deep thoughts.

I didn't do nearly as much as I had planned in Åland. I stayed around Mariehamn for most of the visit - I had planned to take a bike ride round some of the islands but it never happened. I didn't go camping either, and I didn't hitchhike anywhere. But I did have a lot of time relaxing and exploring the surroundings whilst speaking as much Swedish as I could muster. I left by ferry from Eckerö to Grisslehamn in Sweden, next destination Uppsala.

Mariehamn is the perfect place for me to get some rest from staying in big cities, and Outi treated me very well as her guest for four nights. I spent the first two days meeting people and the last two lazing about and exploring Åland.

The plan was to take a day trip to Helsinki on the way to Mariehamn, but the day after last night I woke up too late to catch a ferry to Helsinki. So I stayed in Tallinn for the day, did my washing and a bit of shopping, then caught an overnight ferry directly to Mariehamn. The adventure continues...

Made it safely to Tallinn, and after a strange experience with my first Hospitality club hosts I found Maret, her boyfriend and her cat (sorry I've forgotten their names!) and stayed with them in their luxury flat near the sea. (It's up for sale by the way ;)...) These pictures are from the day visiting Merike in Rakvere and the night meeting up with James and some new friends at a pub Tallinn, including one guy who goes to Sheffield Uni. Small world.

To hitchhike from Vilnius to Tallinn, the best way is to go through Riga. The man who picked me up in Vilnius was a Russian who lived in Riga, and was very enthusiastic about giving me food and accommodation with him for a night. I turned down the accommodation, but still visited his house, ate some food and got to meet his family. He then dropped me on the northern motorway and I was in Tallinn later that evening. Thanks very, very much!

Partying in Vilnius with three Lithuanians, four Latvians and a Norwegian. One of the best nights ever, Vilnius knows how to show you a good time!

Visiting Pavilnių regioninis parkas with Gaudilė and Tuchkus, and then Trakai with Tuchkus on day 2 of my Lithuania trip. I'm feeling very 'at home' here in Lithuania for some reason - the place reminds me of all the other holidays I've had in the Baltic states and I feel completely relaxed here. The Baltics are definitely my favourite places to be.

Made it as far as Vilnius! The journey here was tough - I gave up hitchhiking and went by bus which still took 17 hours. However I met many people on the second bus from Warsaw which helped the journey go a bit quicker. I was Aureja's first guest - these pics are from the day just before she received her 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th guests... these pics are the calm before the storm :)

I'm off on a two-month hitchhiking tour of Europe! The first destination is Wrocław to stay with Ania, Marcin and Behemot for two nights. Weirdly, most of the people I know from Wrocław are not even in Poland anymore - the only person I met here was Lena and I was lucky to catch her before she left for Ireland!

Small get-together of five HC members (including guests from Freiburg) and a bottle of wine.

Hosting Anto and Geri for two nights as they end their tour of World Cup cities. My first HC guests :) and they were great fun. Went to see two Last 16 matches and then to a keller.

The last night in Poland and the last part of this collection. The next day I had a great trip back home, even travelling via Potsdam just for the hell of it. But tonight was spent with Marta's classmates, celebrating the end of their exams by having a bonfire. The mosquitos had a field day and I ended up with over sixty bites - now have to understand Polish instructions on a tube of anti-mosquito pills...

Part 2 of my holiday in Wrocław. Taking a few pictures of the city and going on a sightseeing (and signpost-stealing) tour with Marta, Lena and Pierre.

My most ambitious hitchhike so far - to visit friends in Wroc³aw, Poland for a long weekend. The journey there was about 800km (I made a detour to visit Halle), and this collection has pics taken in both Halle and Wroc³aw. Thanks to Lyndsay, Marta and Dorota for being great hosts!

Hitchhiked to Utrecht and spent three nights there revisiting people and places that I hadn't seen for ages. Very relaxing short break, and thanks to Lewis for being the best host possible!

The scenes from the banks of the Main river in Frankfurt, as the England football team come to visit. Thousands and thousands of fans watched the game in the baking sun - either at the stadium itself, or on giant TV screens in the middle of the river. The streets were littered with broken bottles, strewn England flags and the odd collapsed body. Saw the England game with England and Germany fans, saw the Sweden game with Sweden and England fans, and saw the Argentina game with all nationalities...

Packing up and leaving on the fifth and last day of the Berlin beach camp, organised by the Hospitality Club (http://www.hospitalityclub.org). Wow. The last five days have been ABSOLUTELY ****ING AMAZING! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! for all 598 people who showed up, and to everyone that I met a special thank you for being so great. Expect to see me around with the club sometime again, in the very near future...

A small Sunday-night tribute by Ian and me to thank all the girls at the Berlin beach camp for being gorgeous :). Here are 12 lovely faces who agreed to form the "Berlin Calendar Babes of HC". Which one's your favourite?

The fourth and penultimate day at Berlin, partying with the Hospitality Club at the beach camp. A bit more volleyball, then a trip into Berlin to join the crowd at the Carnival of Cultures. Then a long, long night... I'm splitting these days up according to when I went to sleep. So there are a few pictures from Monday morning in this collection...!

Round the fire for the final part of day 3 at the Hospitality Club's 5-day beach camp in Berlin. Not many times that I like drinking tea, but this was definitely one of them.

PART 2 of the Saturday at the Hospitality Club's 5-day beach camp. Tonight I could have spent time at the beach, the tents, the benches, the café, the sauna, the lake, the fires or even the toilets. But the hall was the place to be, with some great live music and most types of bad dancing you can imagine...

Halfway through the Hospitality Club's 5-day beach camp in Berlin. The 3rd day was so big I have to put it into three parts... so here's PART 1, the Berlin city tour. The weather had been great all through the camp, apart from on this city tour. If I'd known, I wouldn't have been wearing a t-shirt and shorts. I swear I was wearing more borrowed clothes than own ones through most of these pictures.

Day 2 of 5 at Berlin Hospitality Club beach camp involved a bit of football, hours of volleyball, resting on the beach, eating, drinking, playing music, drinking, lazing about, chatting, drinking, wearing orange hats, drinking, eating, drinking, playing volleyball, dancing, drinking and enjoying the fires...

Photos from the first day of a massive 5-day beach camp in Berlin, with almost 600 people, organised by the Hospitality Club (http://www.hospitalityclub.org). Today was spent trying to hitchhike to Berlin, then meeting all the people who'd also been able to show up on the first day... the party has begun...

Off to Brussels on another EU For You trip. Got delayed loads and didn't spend much time in Brussels itself, but it was still good fun. (Forgot to replace the umbrella, by the way.)

A Grand Day Out in Luxembourg and Trier on a tour with the EU For You program. The complete Moselle expericence in 5 hours, and all for the price of €28 + 1 umbrella.

I spent most of this night struggling to decide whether to stay out, or to get some sleep for Luxembourg the next day. I stayed out. Not sure if it was a great idea.

A few pictures of the Rund um den Henninger-Turm bicycle race in Frankfurt, which caused everyone in the city to stop for a couple of hours, cheer the cyclists on, and wait for the roads to reopen...

Most people in these pictures were dressed up and deliberately looking unusual...

Various pictures of my new home.

Very small gallery this one, but I took two pictures from my bedroom window during a snowy day in Douglas (very rare) and thought they looked alright. So here they are.

A few pictures of things I saw on a random trip to Sweden for three days. Well, I was bored and felt like travelling...

Mingling in amongst the paparazzi to get shots of Colombian foreign minister Carolina Barco on a state visit to Latvia. I was unable to get any closer shots due to the number of bodyguards in the area...

A few photos from the Big Freeze in Estonia during three weeks in winter.