Frank's Christian Thoughts: Travel Biography Photo Extravaganza

Saturday, 10 January 2026

Travel Biography Photo Extravaganza - Part 56.

Backpacking Compromised?

Since 1973, solo backpacking has always been my preferred mode of travel, sightseeing, and self-education about the places I visit. This was after my first trip abroad with a college friend and without my parents in 1972, when I was 19. This trip was to a Spanish holiday resort of Tossa de Mar, on the Costa Brava. This 11-day package holiday consisted mainly of three issues. They were Beach, Alcohol, and Drunkenness. Indeed, the whole experience was rather BAD.

My college mate, Andrew, who was just two weeks my junior, was far more stable emotionally and stayed off alcohol. His mature stability gave him the ability to act as the layer of oil, calming the emotionally turbulent waters of a rough ocean. Such were the circumstances of a single-venue package holiday in a country where wine was served cheaply and abundantly in bars that remain open until three in the morning.

With the early hours of one morning spent sleeping in the hotel bathtub in a pool of vomit, my immaturity to travel showed up the culture and mentality of many young Brits abroad, even to this present day. There are stories of Brits ending up in a clinic, or worse still, in a prison cell. Even within the last couple of years, the resort of Magaluf on the Spanish island of Majorca had to impose early closing laws on its bars and nightclubs after gaining a reputation for drunken behaviour, mostly from young Brits, those around my age as I was in 1972.

Much has occurred in the year leading up to the summer of 1973. In December 1972, I was converted to Christ, and the whole outlook on life changed for the better. This included travel. Gone were the drink-laden single-venue package holiday, to be ushered in by a new and far better mode of travel. That is independent multi-venue travel known as backpacking, both here in the UK and abroad. In this new way, a quest to learn about the environment replaced the quest for alcohol. Indeed, the wonderful benefits emanated when looking at the bust of Julius Caesar in the ruins of Pompeii were greater than gazing at a bottle of wine in a Spanish bar.

Backpacking became the way of my travelling life for the following 26 years before our next single-venue package in 1999 in the Greek island of Rhodes. This was our honeymoon. This two-week vacation featured no alcohol at all, yet our enjoyment far exceeded the Spanish holiday in 1972. This was helped by our honeymoon hotel, which was rather isolated, with the resort town of Lardos, a quiet inland village a mile walk from the hotel.

The difference between Lardos and Magaluf cannot be any more different! However, had we honeymooned in Magaluf, would we have fallen into alcoholic temptation? A possibility, but still very unlikely. Nevertheless, the quietness of Lardos Bay was far more appealing to us than the party noise of Magaluf. My age? Have I matured? Yes, and this was boosted by two factors:

The first was my Christian faith. Under grace, I received a new set of desires, which includes a wish to abstain from alcohol. With this, also gone was the mentality to "prove my masculinity", whatever that was supposed to mean. Furthermore, without any intoxication, our enjoyment was far more fulfilling. Yet, throughout the years of church life, I never met another Christian packpacker! Most, if not all, single men and women in our fellowship were University graduates, and their mode of travel was basically the same for all of them - with Oak Hall Christian Travel, a firm based in Kent.

Oak Hall offered package trips abroad and escorted tours, usually the two combined, along with prayer meetings and Bible study in the evenings at the hotel, itself a Christian one. Catering specifically for unmarried adults, especially students, hence, each stayed together as a group and was exclusive from the locals or other vacationers. As a singleton, this was far from my idea of travel.

However, the second reason that our honeymoon was more enjoyable than the 1972 Spanish package was that I was no longer single. We were newly married, and while I was wondering what life would be like as one of a couple, psychologically, it was proven that married men lived more fulfilled lives than singletons. Hence, husbands who live fulfilled marriages don't usually become voraciously drunk in holiday resorts such as Magaluf!

With our two daughters being looked after elsewhere, in 2006, Alex and I took a two-week package holiday to Lanzarote. This vacation is not featured anywhere in the main Biography, as I finished it at the 2000 backpacking trip to Israel. Instead, she and I talked the matter over Lanzarote. She was happy to have our pics published here. Although this was a single-venue holiday, there are some wonderful views worth highlighting, and the first week of two features more underwater photos of marine life taken at Playa Chica, or Chica Beach, a small cove enclosed by two arms of basaltic lava plunging deep into the sea. These submerged walls of solidified lava provide habitation for schools of fish.

Fish swim over solidified lava, Lanzarote.

Unfortunately, as Lanzarote is one of the volcanic Canary Islands in the North Atlantic Ocean, there are no coral reefs. Since not all reefs are confined to corals, to say that this was Atlantic Reef Snorkelling was legitimate. Like at the Great Barrier Reef and the Gulf of Aqaba, I bought a single-use underwater "paper" camera sealed in a waterproof plastic casing. But different brands vary, and here in Lanzarote, the images are slightly softer. However, I have considered them suitable enough to be posted here.

As already mentioned, Lanzarote is the northeastern island of the Canary archipelago. Although they lie outside the Tropic of Cancer, to the east is Morocco, with its capital, Rabat, lying several degrees further north of Lanzarote. With its latitude of 29.035 Degrees North, the island is subtropical, although when we were there, it was January, and therefore, we enjoyed pleasantly mild weather with sunshine, but avoided the scorching heat of summer. Hence, palm trees and cacti abounded.

We stayed at the resort in Puerto de Carmen, a lively town on the southern coast of the island. Its main street, Avenue de las Playas, was bustling with shops, bars, and nightclubs. Rather like Megaluf, but without the drunken verve. Furthermore, the architecture of many buildings lining the avenue reminded me of Tijuana, across the Mexican border from California, where I visited in 1995. Throughout our two weeks there, we didn't touch a drop of alcohol. Our hotel was a self-catering apartment, one in a block surrounding the swimming pool and a bar. From the beach, we could see at a distance the resort of Corralegio, on the tip of the neighbouring island of Fuerteventura.

I hope you'll enjoy the following pics. There is no link to this venue in the main Biography.

Photos of our trip to Lanzarote.

My beloved peers over our hotel apartment.