Introduction

This has been a long time coming.

My name is Matt Underhill, and in 2021, I was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia, a type of blood cancer. For the next three years, I underwent various rounds of intensive and maintenance chemotherapy, a full cycle of total-body radiotherapy, and finally a stem cell transplant in 2023.

In short, the last few years have been, at best, sub-optimal.

The good news is I have been cancer-free since my transplant and have slowly been inching my way back to being a normal 30-something year old man, albeit one who shouldn’t enjoy video games as much as he does and one who really should be more on top of paying his road tax.

The even better news is that I am now also well enough to do what I have always wanted to do - travel the world. My wife and I first wanted to travel back in 2019 and were all set to start our adventures in 2020. But as we all know, Lady Fortune had other things in mind for the human race back in 2020, and our grand plans to venture to the farthest-flung corners of the world were reduced to sheepishly sneaking away to Tenerife just before lockdown.

Nothing beats a JET2 holiday, and this Spring, when you catch Covid on your flight to Tenerife, your kids get it for free! That’s an absolute nightmare for a family of four!

Then, as above, in 2021 I started to become very weak, my skin went a strange colour due to severe anaemia, and I was eventually diagnosed with leukaemia. As you may imagine, leukaemia is not conducive to international travel, and I was grounded both physically and metaphorically for the duration of my treatment and recovery.

My wanderlust lurked behind a veil of chemotherapy-induced exhaustion and post-treatment anxiety for a good while, but as I started to claw back some normality it started to peak behind the curtain again. The itch came back, and all I could do was scratch, despite being mildly terrified of getting ill again.

A tentative first holiday to Scotland was managed well, despite a dreaded dodgy Oyster in Oban. A long, long overdue wedding was followed by an incredible trip island-hopping around the Aegean. And a first, wavering step out of Europe was taken to Mexico, which was easily the biggest leap into the unknown waters of life (or rather a fully-lived life) after cancer.

Despite my anxiety, all trips were successful. No major illnesses, no major complications (other than going to the wrong airport for our honeymoon but that’s another story), and a feeling of intense satisfaction after each.

It was time.

And so, finally, after years of hospital beds, medication, endless hand sanitisation and having a head so shiny you could do your makeup in it, I am now going on the trip of a lifetime.

We will be going to:

• South Africa
• Australia
• New Zealand
• Fiji
• Hong Kong
• Japan
• South Korea
• Malaysia
• And Indonesia.

I appreciate that this is quite a list. I also appreciate and want to make extremely clear that I recognise how unbelievably privileged I am to be in a position to be able to do this - illness aside, I know that most people can only dream of this kind of adventure, and I am profoundly lucky to be able to do so.

But while I’m away, I want to take the opportunity to document my travels from the perspective of someone whose health is not guaranteed. The threat of relapsing is now, thankfully, limited - but the fact that it could happen still hangs over me like the Sword of Damocles. I do still tire a little easily, I am prone to getting viruses and illnesses, and I have to wear Factor 50 sun cream in a downpour.

But I had to do this. It’s been my ambition to see more of the world since I was a teenager, and it was now or never. And so here we are, at the start of the journey, and I do hope you’ll follow along with me.

We start soon with the first leg of our journey - South Africa, and the major city of Cape Town. See you there.