Ellie Cleary - Travelstride Destination Expert

Responsible Travel, Yoga & Wellness Travel, Solo Travel, History

A Londoner born and bred, Ellie developed a love for travel and “getting away from it all” after finishing studying for a degree in History, with her first trip outside of Europe 10 years ago where she spent 3 months teaching English in a ramshackle hut in Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh. It was a character forming experience for her and one that taught her first hand about the issues with “Voluntourism” and the lessons that can be learned from it. Ellie’s interest in Responsible Travel was born.

Since then, Ellie has snapped up travel opportunities whenever she could, balancing the desire to travel with holding down a full time job; until this year when Ellie moved away from the corporate world into travel blogging full time.  

Ellie believes that travel is one of life’s most rewarding experiences, for all parties, if done well. With the growth of the global tourism industry over the last decade, the industry has brought challenges as well as benefits in terms of pressure on environmental and cultural elements; making responsible travel even more important. Planning travel that includes a chance to spend in local establishments, take public transportation and interact with local people in a genuine way are all great examples of this.

Ellie has worked in the travel industry for 12 years, for hotel groups and in online travel. She is based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and when not traveling and writing for Soul Travel Blog, she can be found enjoying cycling along the picturesque canals of Amsterdam, relaxing over a good Dutch beer with friends, or simply unwinding with a book.

There are two memories that will stay with me forever. One is the blissful timelessness of sailing down the Nile on a Felucca (a traditional Egyptian sailing boat). At the time of my visit (2008) Egypt was a still a very popular tourist destination, with crowds at most of the main sites. Once on the river though, it was like entering a different time. Relaxing on the deck of the sailing boat with little but the sound of the sails flapping over head and the occasional splash of children or animals washing by the banks of the river was a serene experience.

The second was on a trip to Thailand last year where I visited Kanchanaburi province in the west of the country, to visit the Burma - Thailand Railway (also known as the “Death Valley” railway. The railway was built during WW2 under Japanese orders, at the expense of over 100,000 allied and asian lives, as prisoners of war were forced to work and night through jungle and thick rock to build the railway to Burma. 

Made famous by the film "Bridge over the River Kwai" and more recently "The Railway Man", as a history student I had always wanted to see this place for myself. It was one of the most moving travel experiences of my life so far. Taking the journey from Bangkok by train, I was humbled to ride on the same rails that had been built at such human cost and awed by the beautiful landscape of green hills, jungles and rivers that we passed through, ironically contradicting the human ugliness that the landscape had witnessed years before.

I’ll be traveling to Tuscany by train from Amsterdam, via Switzerland in early august, before sampling some of Tuscany’s eco-friendly tourism efforts. 

Eco/Sustainable Travel

Yoga Retreats

The Netherlands

Egypt

Surfing

Amsterdam