The English seaside of Brighton

Brighton was a good choice for a place to hang out for a couple of days. It’s a seaside town not far from London. The sun was shining and the place was packed. It’s known as being an alternative city, popular with hippies, punks and the like. It’s also known as the gay capital of Britain.

The beach is a bit different to what we’re used to back home. It’s a pebble beach with big concrete sea walls. Brighton Pier is like Coney Island with ferris wheels, arcades and carnival food.

Based on the price, we knew we wouldn’t be getting a great hostel, but it didn’t even meet our low expectations. Compared to South America and New Zealand we have found hostels in England to be of quite a poor standard and not particularly sociable. We’ve already told you about our hostel in Bath. Our York hostel was in a nice building but everyone kept to themselves. In fact, when Craig said “good morning” to everyone at the breakfast table, he got a single slow nod from one person in response. Maybe more people here are on short holidays rather than being long-term travellers. We’re hoping that the rest of Europe will be more like South America where it was easy to get chatting to lots of different people. We’re also planning on doing some more CouchSurfing soon too.

It’s been nice getting some sun and beach time in Brighton. We’re both getting a bit of a tan on our travels – even the UK has been very kind to us with its weather. We’ve got a 10-hour bus to Amsterdam next, so we’ve just gone and bought some stylish travel pillows in preparation.

Written by Craig Drayton and Sally Robertson