Over 40 years travelling the Planet
In the early 1970’s the travel bug bit and Dinah and I set off for London…as did half the world. It was still a ‘swinging city’ and the centre of the pop culture universe. We spent two years living and working in London and in our spare time, travelling Great Britain and Europe, including three months on the Greek Islands. In London I worked for the famous Selfridges Department Store in Oxford Street in their advertising department looking after the Miss Selfridge fashion brand and then at Brunnings Advertising and Marketing in Whitechapel in London’s East End working on the TESCO account. Great experience and a lot of fun. Dinah worked for the Hendon Town Hall where she hob-nobbed with royalty at Kensington Place. We raged around this fascinating city, discovering and exploring places that, up until then had only been squares on a Monopoly board. Can you imagine our excitement at exploring legendary Park Lane and Euston Station! Fortunately, we missed out on going “straight to Jail”!
That was the start of our fascination with travel. Since then we have visited over 50 countries around the world. The last 15 years, working for major Australian universities as a Professor of Communication, has allowed me (and on many occasions, Dinah) to see even more of the world. International education conferences and global communication industry events, as well as trips to visit international university partners have allowed us to travel and experience even more of the world. Returning to London in 2015 after 40 years was a highlight of our more recent travels. While the London architecture had not changed markedly, fashion and culture certainly had. Hair was much shorter than it was in the 60’s and a pint of bitter, a lot more expensive!
Today we remain fascinated and excited by travel as we augment our international sojurns by exploring our own great country in our 4WD and caravan – beaches, forests and everything in between. So, we have decided to share our travel adventures with you – the local and the global, the highs and the lows, the good and the not-so-good. Travel is like that. All the planning in the world and it can still go wrong. But without the planning, you really are flying blind.
Flag where you have been
In the 60’s and early 70’s one of the most recognisable global logos of that time was the Union Jack. The flag came to represent not only Great Britain but also the cultural changes that it had sporned. So popular was the flag that it was sold as a souvenir cloth patch. Our first Union Jack cloth patch adorned a travelling coat. As we journeyed through Europe, we realised that we could buy cloth patches in all of the countries we travelled to – France, Spain even small countries such as Lichtenstein. So, every country we visited, we bought a flag. We have continued the tradition and today have over 50 individual country flags. While this is now far too many flags to sew onto any one coat, as a framed collection the flags provide a constant and colourful reminder of exactly were we have been. It is a great way to keep a record of your travels and show off your ‘globalness’ to your friends.
You are never too young or too old to travel and enjoy everything or planet has to offer. This site is about our travels and our experiences in our own words. We hope that you enjoy our stories and we welcome your comments.
Navigating the site
The stories nominate the regions that they refer to on their opening page. For example: EUROPE, UNITED KINGDOM, CHINA, ASIA/PACIFIC, AUSTRALASIA. If you are interested in stories about a particular region, click the region on the story you have open and it will take you to all the stories from this region.
GET YOUR ADVENTURE ON. GOCTHEPLANET.
Safe travels – Rod and Dinah McCulloch
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Rod and Dinah on a beach somewhere in the world.
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