Like most English as a Foreign Language teachers, I’ve done my fair share of travelling and I’ve seen the world with all its wonder.

I’ve climbed the Himalayas on my hands and knees in pouring rain, walked along the Golden Gate Bridge, been to the top of the Empire State Building and the Twin Towers, strolled through the streets of occupied Jerusalem, floated on the Dead Sea, lived with nomads in the Sinai Desert, experienced excitement of a baseball match in the centre of Yokohama, ridden an Arabian horse through the streets of Cairo and stood beneath the Pyramids, watched the snow falling on the Great Wall of China, listened to buskers at Sydney’s harbour, seen the amazing humpbacked whales in the Pacific Ocean, climbed Ayers rock, swum with dolphins in Western Australia, camped with dingoes and snakes, had lunch with a Saudi princess in Riyadh, endured a five-day voyage across the Bay of Bengal on an old Polish ship to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, seen the sunrise over Mount Fuji, ridden an Enfield Bullet motorbike across India, survived typhoons in Tokyo and hail stones in Eastern China, crossed the borders of Zimbabwe and Mozambique, dived the Great Barrier Reef, walked along the streets of Kyoto with the geishas, cleaned my teeth in the Sea of Galilee, got very wet under Niagara Falls, heard the thunderous roar of an avalanche in New Zealand, flown with some of the worst airlines in the world ... and so I go and on and on.

You may be reading this thinking ‘show off’ but what I haven’t told you are all the things that have gone wrong; the ‘oops factor’. I’ve yet to entertain you with the bad luck I’ve had, all the mistakes and mishaps and problems and the times I’ve thought ‘here I go again’.

The mostly solo trips I have made over the years have been a million miles away from a package type holiday where one is pampered and looked after. But if I could do it all over again, oh I would love to be pampered! To be taken around the crowded streets of Mumbai in an air-conditioned car or to see Kolkata from the safety of a tourist bus.

The centre of a well-known city would have been less frightening for a lone woman travelling at night on a local bus if she’d been escorted by a travel guide and I remember the Greyhound bus travelling through the southern states of North America and wishing the chap next to me would take his hand off my leg. I think a nice package holiday would have given me running water in Dahab and heating in Kathmandu.

I’m very good at doing things the hard way, which, believe me, was never by choice — bomb scares on Air India, a mugging in Egypt, leech-infected hiking boots on the Annapurna trek, dysentery, collisions with Indian buses/Nepalese cows/mad people of all nationalities on bikes/a rickshaw/a rather large Arkala/a toy train in Darjeeling/a ridiculously large camera attached to a very small Japanese man. I’ve fallen off elephants, camels, bikes (push and motor), jeeps, canoes, my own feet after a late night on Bondi Beach.

And now my travels continue, but this time, as a single mum with my 12-year-old daughter. She is now, I am relieved to say, my lucky charm. Her positive attitude and gorgeous smile, make everything fall in place and the chaos and craziness that used to follow me, are now in the background and we move with ease through our journeys. Flight delays are never a pain when we can sit and play cards, pokey hotel rooms cease to be a problem when there are teddies strewn all over the floor, sleeping on tent floors with an aching back are bearable when my daughter reminds me to watch the sunset, her jokes and sense of humour keep my mood light when I face bad-tempered officials and her company is something I cherish no matter which part of the world we are in. With backpacks poised and chewy sweets in our pockets, we are ready for our next adventure.

Charlotte Arrowsmith is an English Language lecturer at the UAE University, Al Ain.