About Me
Hi! First of all, thanks for checking out my blog! If you genuinely wanted to find out a bit more about me – a double thanks! If you clicked on this link by accident…well, thanks anyway – it’s great for my stats!
Travel Lexx in a nutshell
Alexei. 34. Londoner. Russian-born Brit. 48 countries (if only stopovers and airport transfers counted…). 5 continents. Countless South East Asia trips. 2.5 years in Australia. Active travel. Hiking. Sport. Tennis player and coach. Football. Gym, Richmond Park and Starbucks are second homes. Reluctant civil servant. Iced coffee and craft beer. Chicago sports for life. Want to see this little planet of ours. Explore, Dream, Discover…
5 Facts About Me
I was Born in St. Petersburg, Russia. Well, Soviet Union – gosh that makes me sound old! Moved to the UK at 13 and have never been back – didn’t fancy an army stint if I am honest! Currently live in London!
Sport has always been super important to me and I played tennis competitively for years. I still play at least twice a week and am a qualified coach. I also play football (soccer for my US audience!) for Civil Service FC – a founding member of the English FA – the oldest in the world!
I don’t like water. I’m just not a strong swimmer. Yet for some reason I decided that getting an Open Water diving license was a good idea! Still one of my proudest achievements!
I love watching US sports. I grew up watching Chicago Bulls and my love for Chicago has always been great. Ice hockey is my favourite, closely followed by baseball. I often stay up late watching my beloved Blackhawks and Cubs!
While I just about speak two languages (my Russian is mega rusty), I love listening to music from all over the world. Reggaeton and K-Pop are some of my favourites! I can sing in languages ranging from Spanish to German, via Russian and Korean. Although, badly…
A Longer Version…
I started travelling at a young age, joining my family on holidays and business trips around Russia and former Soviet Republics. Was lucky enough to visit places like Ukraine, Georgia and Azerbaijan (not that I remember much!).
My first solo travel experience was in 2006 when I moved to Australia on a study exchange at university. Talk about not doing things by halves! Travel took a bit of a backseat after that as uni, work and tennis kept me occupied.
Then in 2011, I returned to Australia on holiday and within a day of being there, realised something was missing. I thought about where I was in life. I decided that I didn’t want to look back at my 20s and have any regrets. Not travelling enough would definitely be one so I decided to do something about it. Less than a year later I was back on a plane to Australia.
I spent the next two years living and working in Australia. I lived in Brisbane where I went to university a few years prior. I was lucky enough to have the best of both worlds – meeting incredible people from all over the planet at my hostel while already having a great group of friends from my first stint in the country.
Of course there was plenty of travel too. A 50 day road trip around Australia in a bright green camper van, weekends in Sydney and Melbourne, camping on beautiful islands…The list goes on! I also got a chance to spend three months on a farm in Queensland doing construction work to get my second visa! I also did what any self-respecting Working Holiday Visa holder does and spent 5 months exploring South East Asia – a region I have fallen in love with and keep coming back to!
After coming back to London, travel became an important part of my life. I started using all my annual leave for travel – from weekend city breaks to cross-country road trips. If you want to see where my wanderlust has taken me, check out my Where I’ve Been page!
If I am not travelling you can probably find me on a tennis court, football (soccer) pitch, at Starbucks or watching my beloved Chicago Blackhawks and Cubs.
How Travel Lexx was born
On one rainy August day in 2015, I decided to start a blog. I actually started one a few years before that but it was all just random musings on football, life and video games. It came in useful while I living in Australia but it was more to just let people know what I was up to.
Anyway, I wanted to start documenting my travels, use my experience to help others and just have a creative outlet. I have a Journalism degree so writing was something I always enjoyed and felt like I wasn’t doing enough of. So, I secured a brand new domain and Travel Lexx was born!
I cringe just looking back at my early posts – I knew nothing of SEO and thought that heavily-filtered photos with inspirational quotes counted as “high-quality” content. Gradually, I learned more and more about blogging and started implementing those lessons into my own blog. There is still a million things I want to do with Travel Lexx – I have a vision for where I want to go and I will make sure I get there!
I hope that my blog helps to inform and inspire a community of like-minded people from all over the world who love to travel and discover new experiences. Or try some new food. Or meet somebody from a place they’ve never been to.
If you are still reading…you need to find something better to do with your life 😀 But, seriously – thank you and I hope you find something here you enjoy or find useful. Do get in touch too – I love hearing from people!
Alexei
