LAUREN HUGHES longed for the joys of foreign lands since a child but her first chance to really travel only came when she turned 18. Rather than going to university she booked a seven-stop trip around the world which saw her visit countries including the US and Australia.

She has since dedicated her life to travel and while often having to work in-between she has become a master of being able to find the perfect flights and the best deals to make the most of the time she has away.

We spoke to Lauren about some of her wildest and scariest experiences while abroad as well as what she has planned for the future.

Lauren blogs at hikingheels.co.uk where you can find out more about her and her escapades abroad.

When did you first realise you had a passion for travel and were there any major influences?

I think my passion for travel had always been present. My first memory of wanting to travel, was after I had watched my nan’s home video of her trip to Australia and listened to her stories. She told me that it was on the other side of the world and that if I dug deep enough at the beach I would eventually get to Australia (I was five at the time). From then on out, I used to spend most of my day at the beach digging…

When did you get your first chance travel and where was it to?

When I was younger, holidays meant trips within the UK and I always used to dream of going on a plane to somewhere hot, where the hotel’s swimming pool had a water slide.

When I was seven years old I went on a family holiday to Jersey, which meant going on a plane for the first time – unfortunately my grandparents picked the hotel and their priority wasn’t a waterslide!

My first chance to really travel came when I was 18. I was supposed to go to University, but instead used my savings to book a seven-stop round the world ticket to Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, The Cook Islands and LA. This is when the ‘travel bug’ really hit me and I haven’t looked back since.

Your blog features your thoughts on fashion as well as travel. Where did the idea for the blog come from and how important is it for you to connect with like-minded people on the Internet?

My passions have always been fashion and travel and I guess in the beginning I didn’t really know what I was setting out to do with my blog. If you go back to my original entries, they read more like a diary – in a way that’s exactly what they are. I’ve learned a lot along the way and in that time my blog has developed a lot but my passions have stayed the same.

I am always making new friends online and Twitter is a great way to have conversations with like-minded people about the journeys they are on. I also love to spend my lunch breaks looking at other travel and fashion blogs depending on my mood that day. Leaving comments and having conversations with bloggers about their experiences is also a great way to make new friends and find inspiring new adventures to go on.

Could you give us an idea of the amount of countries you’ve visited and where have been your highlights?

I have seen around 20 countries so far (with a few more on my list…), I have a map that I set up a while ago here, as I like to make the most of each country that I land in and tend to travel around quiet a lot when I arrive somewhere new – so you can see there are lots of pins in one country!

You must have faced some tricky situations on your travels. What has been your scariest moment?

I have and the question has made me smile, because top of my list has to be being homeless in Sydney. At the time I was so upset and scared and I literally didn’t know what to do. Luckily I had met a great group of friends while I was there who kept me company while we slept under the Opera House for the night and watched the sun rise over the harbour in the early hours of the morning. The next day, through exhaustion we all fell asleep in our breakfasts. So it all turned out ok in the end.

The only other really scary story that I have from travelling is when I lost my friend on the beach at the Full Moon Party in Thailand. She then had her phone stolen, so there was no way of contacting each other. My friend was missing for the whole day after too and I was getting seriously worried until we found each other nearly 24 hours later at the port on the island. Our nightmare day didn’t end there though, on our way back to the airport on the main island we were in a pretty serious car crash, but through some miracle we escaped the crash with only a few scratches.

And the funniest?

I think the funniest things when you are travelling are the miscommunications that happen through language barriers. My friend nearly had herself married off when we were in India and another friend was so gullible while we were in Asia, that we had to start writing things down.

Sometimes the least funniest things at the time are the funniest things after. When my friend and I were in India, we had henna tattoos done, which were amazing. However, what we didn’t think through was the fact that we hadn’t packed up our backpacks yet and we had the henna drying on our hands… We were reduced to hysterics trying to pack without crumbling the henna all over our room, while also realising how much rubbish we had bought while we had been in Jaipur. I mean, I’m not sure what we thought we were both going to do with peacock feather dusters?

Where do you intend to travel to next and what countries are on the top of your bucket list?

Making the most of my time over Christmas meant that I managed to book another two trips… My first of the year is going to be a quick day trip to Brussels and back again and my second is to Berlin.

As my 12 in 12 is coming to an end too, I am hoping to make my final two stops in Canada and The Bahamas. This is an ambitious one for me, but I am lucky enough to have an amazing friend that lives in Canada, who I will be stopping off to say hello to for a few days.

If you could give one piece of advice to someone about to travel for the first time what would it be?

The best piece of advice? It’s probably the advice that I was given a long time ago… “If your dreams don’t scare you, then they aren’t big enough”. I always take that with me when I am going travelling or booking something new. Travelling can be scary, but the rewards that come with it far outweigh the risks.

How do you fit travelling in with home life and work?

It can be hard to do, but if you really want to carry on travelling you will be able to find a way around it. I always look for long bank holiday weekends, make sure I am looking for cheap flights and using my holiday wisely. I managed to book an entire month off of work last Christmas, as my office shuts down for two weeks in December, so by using two weeks holiday on top of that meant I was able to get to Australia for the entire month.

What do you have planned for the rest of 2015?

At the moment, 2015 has a huge question mark over it for me. I know I would like to go back to Australia this year, but whether that is for a holiday or to live I still haven’t decided yet. I would also like to get back to Asia, possibly Burma?