Tin Box Traveller Diaries: April 2016

Sharing is caring!

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, April was another super busy month for us. I’m coming to terms with the fact that this is just how we’ll be rolling in 2016.

So what did we get up to in April. Here’s a taster!

Blogging

• I don’t usually start with what’s been happening on the blog, but something a bit crazy happened in the last week of April: I was shortlisted for two blogging awards. They are the MAD (Mum and Dad) Blog Awards and the Brilliance in Blogging Awards (BiBs). To say this has made my blogging year is an understatement. Thank you to everyone who nominated me and I’d be chuffed if you’d consider voting for me in the travel categories. Here’s where you can find the MADs voting form and the BiBs2016 form.
• Early in April I went to the Traverse travel blogging conference in Cardiff. This was great and if you’re a blogger interested in travel I can highly recommend it. I learnt a lot from the sessions, met up with some fab blogger friends and was able to check out what Cardiff has to offer families.
• This month I was asked to share some of my family travel know how for a feature on caravanning with kids by the style conscious people at Wayfair. There’s some great tips from other bloggers too so check it out.
• During the month I also blogged our Easter break in Cornwall (there’s a cheeky YouTube video too), 24 hours in Jersey, A delicious guide to food and drink on the River Dart, and MAD Blog Awards – I’m a family travel finalist.
• Over on my Travel Timehop series I had guest posts from The Weekend Tourist and The Writing Greyhound. Thanks so much to Jessica and Lorna for taking part. If you’d like to send me a Travel Timehop here’s how.

Home

• We didn’t spend much time at home together in April. In fact we had just one weekend when we were all in the same place. We made the most of it with some days out locally.
• Mr Tin Box and I also had a date night. He works at Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth and three times a year they hold a ball. The theme was Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
• We got a new car in April. Our LandRover Freelander has been struggling to contain all our clobber when we travel so it was time to find something with a larger boot. The winner in the trunk contest was the Kia Sorento. We picked it up just before a trip to London with our caravan. Mr Tin Box was very impressed with its towing capabilities (yawn).

Adventures

• Our most significant adventure of the month has to be watching Mr Tin Box participate in the London Marathon. He ran the 26.2 mile course in 4:10:22 in aid of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines Charity. We’re seriously proud!
• Ahead of the marathon we had parked our caravan at the Crystal Palace Caravan Club site with the idea that we’d spend a few days sightseeing after the run. I’ll be sharing more about our experience of the British capital soon but as a quick summary we visited the Natural History Museum, the London Eye, the Science Museum, the Cutty Sark and the Dinosaur Park at Crystal Palace Park. It was both fun and exhausting.
• After London we took our caravan to West Sussex where we met up with family and friends close to where we used to live in Hampshire. It was brilliant to catch up with everyone. While in West Sussex we also visited Chichester, West Wittering Beach and Soft Top Sunday at the Goodwood Breakfast Club.

Travel

• April was a hectic month for travel. It started with a child-free weekend for Mr Tin Box and I in Jersey. The Tin Box grandparents came down to Devon to look after the girls and dropped us in Exeter for a night before our flight to the Channel Islands. We had such a great couple of days.
• The following weekend I went off on my own to Cardiff for the Traverse blogging conference. I still have at least one post to write about this fantastic city.
• The month ended with our London Marathon inspired tour of Southern England in our caravan.

That’s your lot for April. As ever, thank you so much for reading!

Fancy catching up with last month. Read my diary from March 2016 or skip ahead to May 2016.

I love hearing what people think about my blog so feel free to leave a comment below or browse around. You can also find me on Bloglovin’, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Youtube and LinkedIn.

Sharing is caring!