Sarah Wilkie

About @ToonSarah

69 years old • Female

Hi, I'm Sarah, an "exile" from Virtual Tourist and looking forward to reconnecting with VT friends here and making new ones too! I live in London UK and am a Londoner, born and bred. I am a librarian by profession, and worked for many years in local and national government, but am now retired.

I love travel and photography, and try to combine my passions whenever I can. I look forward to sharing my experiences here.

I hope it goes without saying that all photos and all blog entries are my own intellectual property. If you see anything you'd like to reproduce do get in touch - I'd be happy to help.

• Hobbies:

  I am a keen photographer.
  I love to socialise, to eat good food and to have a few drinks!
  I am a passionate supporter of Newcastle United.
  I enjoy the cinema, art exhibitions (especially modern art and photography), museum visits and more – both in London and on my travels.
  And I LOVE to travel!

• Favourite places:

  Natural wonders:
  The Grand Canyon, Arizona – especially watching a snow storm from its North Rim
  The icebergs of Antarctica – I feel privileged to have visited this most remote of continents
  The wildlife of the Galapagos Islands
  Yosemite – our introduction to the wonderful network of US National Parks
  The scenery of the US southwest – such as Utah or New Mexico

  Cities:
  New York, New York – the first city I visited in the US and still my favourite
  Paris, France – I keep going back to soak up its atmosphere
  London, England – noisy, dirty, full of vitality – I love living here!
  San Francisco, California – the city I want to return to
  Newcastle upon Tyne - my husband's home city and a second home now for me too

  Ancient wonders:
  Temple of Karnak, Egypt – especially at night in the Son et Lumière performance
  The Treasury, Petra, Jordan – could anyone forget their first sight?
  Macchu Pichu, Peru – we didn’t trek there but we still marvelled at the sight

  Experiences:
  Hot air balloon over the Namib Desert – well worth the pre-dawn wake-up call (and more recently near Marrakesh)
  Meeting the penguins in Antarctica – so cute and so friendly
  Whale watching anywhere, but especially Tofino, British Columbia – I have never been closer to a whale than we were there
  Taking a flight over the Grand Canyon – the only way to really appreciate the scale of this place
  A helicopter ride over Niagara Falls when on a school trip
  The Registan, Samarkand, Uzbekistan
  Tikal, Guatemala – another unforgettable location

  Journeys:

  The train journey from Krakow to Lviv – travelling with a great bunch of VTers
  On the road in California – our first of our many US road trips
  Cruising the Galapagos Islands on a small boat, the Angelito
  Driving the gravel roads of Namibia – occasionally hairy but for the most part an exciting adventure
  A cruise on the Rhine – not for my own pleasure, but seeing the delight it gave my late mother-in-law who had dreamed all her life of taking such a trip