Hi! I'm Paul, and I grew up in Glasgow Scotland. Since the age of 17, I have been travelling and climbing mountains all around Scotland. However after living in Scotland through my 20s and early 30s, I decided to travel / live overseas and explore new countries to live and call home. I spent 2.5 years living on the West Coast of Canada (Vancouver Island) sailing, sea kayaking and hiking in my spare time. And after that I took a short trip to New Zealand in Dec 2019, which (due to covid) turned into living there for 2.5 years. I was both lucky and unlucky to find myself there but I really enjoyed my time living in NZ with the incredible landscapes / mountains and coastline.

In a former life, I studied Medicine, but at the age of 23, I decided it wasnt for me. After which I went back to university and got a Masters in Environmental Science and that's the area I've mostly been working in for the past 10 years....fighting Climate change and...you know...saving the world...no big deal!

On top of that, I've always been a big film fan and set up a couple of film festivals in Scotland- one environmental film festival (that I ran for 6 years) and an outdoor (Banff type) mountain film festival that I ran for 3 years. Both festivals were amazing to run / be involved in- but running a festival is one of the toughest / craziest jobs you can do!

My main hobby revolve around outdoor sports: I love to do is being outdoors- travelling around, going on road trips, hiking, rock climbing, swimming, camping, sailing and sea kayaking. I'm a big believer in nature therapy and how it can help us be more present and I often find myself happiest outside doing those activities.

Some of my bucket list adventures involve sailing and next year (2023), I'm hoping to buy a sail boat and sail up the Inside passage, from Seattle, all the way north to Alaska.

Couchsurfing is a great way to meet people from all around the world and I've made some amazing friends from staying / surfing with hosts. I am always happy to share a coffee, tea or ice-cream and exchange travel stories and have a good chinwag about life, the universe and everything!

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

It's always cool to meet people from all around the world. I've hosted a few people back home in Scotland. I'm mostly travelling at the moment but whenever I am next staying somewhere for a while, I will definitely open my doors to fellow surfers. I've stayed with a couple of hosts when I've been travelling and its been great each time!

I also love Coffee, Tea and Ice-cream. Buy me one of those and its a sure way to forming a lasting friendship!

Interests

Films, Music, Travelling, Scottish History, Travelling/Road-trips/Hitchhiking/Adventures, Outdoor Sports- canoeing, sailing, kayaking, skiing.

Music, Movies, and Books

Music: Will listen to everything! Currently have a weird taste of both Bluegrass / Country & Folk Music and Electronic Music- weird right?!?

Favourite artists atm include: Old Man Canyon, The Weeknd, La Roue, Clean Bandit, Røyskopp, Blazzin' Fiddlers.

Books: Into the Wild (Jon Krakeur), Yes Man (Danny Wallace), Blink (Malcolm Gladwell), The Man who cycled the World (Mark Beaumont).

Films: Where do I begin? SO many...I'm a bit of a film buff and also critic....Cant begin to make a list of my all time favourites, but some of my favourite films I have seen recently are:
Hunt for the Wilderpeople
Into The Wild
Boyhood

And some classics:
12 Angry Men
It's A Wonderful Life
Once upon a time in the west

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Me and a friend wanted to do a famous 10 day hike in Peru called the Cordillera Huayhuash back in 2008. It is in a very remote mountain range in Peru...we had a map, but needed a guide and a donkey to carry our food. We turned up at the local "town" (if you can call it that) with no idea how to find either, but trusting intuition, we found both within an hour and the next day we were off! 10 days hiking round beautiful mountains and had the trail completely to ourselves (normally there is 300 hikers per day during the summer season) so it was pretty magical to experience the wilderness to ourselves.

Me and a friend went to a very remote beautiful beach on the very NW edge of Scotland called Sandwood bay- in Summer 2009. We spent all day rock climbing, , swimming in the sea, running along the beach and making a bonfire and watching the sunset over the atlantic! It was one of my most favourite days ever!

Teach, Learn, Share

I used to be an outdoor instructor so can teach you how to Sail, Rock Climb, Kayak, Canoe. Also have academic interest in the environment, climate change, medicine, alternative medicine and philosophy.

Countries I’ve Visited

Argentina, Belgium, Bolivia, Canada, Chile, France, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Malaysia, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

New Zealand, Norway, United Kingdom

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