So you want to know about us? OK, we’re Ben and Linda. We love to travel (we’ve been to 35 countries together) – and to share the handy tips we’ve picked up along the way.

We’ll show you how to get the most from your holidays – and make sure you don’t miss out on anything exciting. And we’ll also show you how to make your budget stretch just that little bit further.

We enjoy cruising, dark tourism, escape rooms and geocaching. We’re more likely to visit a graveyard than a gallery. And Ben loves to sample the local beers wherever we go.

We’ve also had some mad adventures over the years including meeting the President of Austria walking his dog, gatecrashing a legendary Italian footballer’s funeral by accident and running into the presidents of Bosnia and Serbia hanging out in a graveyard. Stay tuned for similar weirdness in future…

Oh yeah. Ben is also a professional technical copywriter and fledgeling novelist.

About us? This is what Ben and Linda look like.

This is us, abusing the free photo package on a Princess cruise

Why ‘Journey into Darkness’?

Yes, it’s a bit of an odd name for a travel blog, but it almost makes sense. Linda and I often visit ‘darker’ sights such as graveyards and catacombs. We also like colder destinations which tend to have shorter days – and therefore more darkness.

Why cruising?

Because we live close to Stansted Airport, we used to do a lot of city breaks. A lot of city breaks. However, Linda is awaiting a hip replacement so we need low impact, low stress trips for now. And that’s where cruising comes into play.

Once her hip replacement is done, you can expect us to take to the sky again. we have even started talking about our next post-op mad adventure…

Where have you been?

Thanks to the proximity of Stansted Airport, we’ve been able to visit a lot of Europe on the cheap using Ryanair. And by collecting Avios, we’ve been able to cut the cost of our long haul flying too. So far we have visited:

What’s on your bucket list?

  • The Nomad World Games
  • Palermo
  • Moscow (Ben)
  • Chernobyl / Pripyat
  • Antarctica