Travel the World Like Influencer Alex Gillespie
New Zealand-born Instagram travel guru Alex Gillespie has amassed over 54k followers on Instagram over recent years, and has made a living travelling the world. He’s one of those enviable people who seems to be in a different country every other week.
Gillespie’s feed is made up of bright portraits of the people he’s met in various places around the globe (he’s been to 25 countries). As well as sugar-white sand beaches in remote locations and heaps of pictures of him jumping off things, or about to jump off something.
The influencer told digital newspaper, The London Economic all about his favourite places to visit, why he thinks travel is important, where he’s going next and why he thinks “you can’t call a place ‘shit’ because of your one particular experience”.
Gillespie, who grew up in Taupo, says the first place he ever visited, “like most Kiwis”, was Australia.
“[But] the first ‘real’ trip I had abroad was to Sri Lanka, where I began a huge journey which took me from the tropical beaches in the South of Sri Lanka, travelling the entire longitude of India and into the Himalayas of Nepal,” Gillespie tells the Economic.
“India is crazy man,” he says in response to a question about his favourite place. “If you want to really get out of your comfort zone and heighten all your senses, go to India. Travel south to north over a few months – your life will not be the same. It has the richest culture I have ever seen, the most beautiful landscapes and will challenge you the most. The diversity is what makes it my favourite also – from the tropics of the south right through to the deserts of the north and everything in between.
“I have lived a few places around the world, but Chiang Mai [would have to be the place I consider my second home]. I lived here for a few months and it really did become my second home. I made a bunch of Thai friends who I lived with, partied with and even went on holiday with, within Thailand. I had my local stall at the market I would go to everyday to get food and just knew the place like the back of my hand.”
Original article by Adam Turner, The London Economic, March 24, 2019.
