So, who is the person behind ‘The Flyaway Girl‘?
Hi! That would be me. I’m Penelope, the travel writer, photographer, and storyteller behind The Flyaway Girl.
If you’ve ever flipped through travel guides or scrolled on social media and thought, “I’ve seen these exact same five places a hundred times,” you’re in the right place.
I created The Flyaway Girl to share something different: the hidden gems, the lesser-known destinations, and the underrated cities that deserve far more love than they get.
As Seen In ⬎
Don’t want to read all about me? That’s fine too 🤭
Click here to read why I chose to share about ‘hidden gems’.
The Backstory
The Beginning:
I started this blog back in 2016 while working as an intern in Austria. It began as a place to share my travels with friends and family, and I never would have imagined it would one day become my full-time job!
After graduating from the University of Bath in 2018 (where I studied German and International Management, hence the internship in Austria), I had a decision to make. Did I go the usual route and get a graduate job? Or did I go the risky route… and try and turn my blog into a full-time income?
Going full-time:
Well… I’ve never been one to take the standard route. So at the end of 2018, I began my journey of trying to be a full-time travel creator and blogger. Back then, my blog was very much focused on ‘beautiful places’ around the world, and it would take a few years before it became what it is today.
Most of my content until then had focused on ‘Instagrammable places‘, as I grew my Instagram to 100k during my final year of university. However, I’d always loved travelling to wherever had the cheapest flights (student, remember?), which usually meant it wasn’t the best-known places around the world I was heading to!
I realised that I much preferred the lesser-known places to the iconic hotspots, but it wasn’t until a few years later that I would really find my niche.
Girl Meets Boy:
It’s the usual story.
Girl goes on a trip to the Balkans with her parents, girl decides to stay a week longer to explore more of Bosnia, and on her way back through Mostar she decides to go back to the restaurant she went with her parents because she knows they can cater for her lactose intolerance.
Boy is on a trip through the Balkans with his brother and a friend, and girl meets boy in that restaurant in Mostar.
Oh, no, that’s not usually how the story goes…
But ours did!
Visiting Gibraltar for the first time:
That was in October 2019. We stayed in touch and spoke every single day. In November 2019, I needed a plus one for a trip to Agadir, and I thought, “Would it be crazy if I asked the guy I met in Mostar to join me?”
Well, maybe it was crazy, but I asked and he said yes, so he joined me for 5 days on an amazing trip to Robinson Agadir. By the time I went back home to the UK, we were officially boyfriend and girlfriend (Facebook official and everything 😂).
I visited him in Gibraltar (where he’s from and was living at the time) just two weeks later. I visited again in December. And again, in January.
Then, in February 2020, I came to stay with Rob in Gibraltar. The original plan was to stay for about a month, since I could work from anywhere, whereas he couldn’t.
Well, we all know what happened in 2020.
‘Trapped’ in Gibraltar:
I had to make a big decision: do I fly home on one of the repatriation flights to live with my parents, not knowing when I’d be able to see my boyfriend again?
…or do I take a risk on this three-month-long relationship and hunker down together in his tiny studio apartment, not really meant for two grown adults and a cat?
You’ve probably guessed by now what my answer was. Honestly, I’m pretty sure my parents were fairly pleased about that too. Lockdown with your 25-year-old daughter, for who KNOWS how long? Yeesh.
Well, dear reader, we survived lockdown. Given that I still live in Gibraltar, you can probably extrapolate how the relationship went. (Yes, it went very well, thanks for asking).
I also ended up getting a full-time job here in Gibraltar, working for a local company doing CRM. Travel blog plus global lockdown didn’t really go so well. 1 for the relationship, 0 for the career as a travel blogger.
Becoming Gibraltarian:
My passport now says ‘Gibraltar‘ on it (still British, just with flair), and we took our first trip to Japan together in 2023, where Rob proposed to me. I (of course) said yes!
Quick career interlude: in August 2024, I returned to being a travel creator full-time, after deciding I’d had quite enough of being an employee. Consistent salary and paid sick leave? Pffft. Can’t be having that!
In February 2025, we tied the knot here in Gibraltar. Then, in April 2025, we tied the knot again at our larger ceremony with friends and family at the beautiful San Roque Club in Spain. (And yes, I do enjoy telling people that I got married twice in one year… it just happened to be to the same person).
The Here & Now
I credit living in Gibraltar with being the reason behind my pivot towards content all about lesser-known destinations and ‘hidden gems’.
Gibraltar, if you don’t know, is a small British Overseas Territory that juts out from the south of Spain (specifically the Spanish comunidad autónoma of Andalucía) into the Strait of Gibraltar. With a total area of just 6.8 km2 (2.6 sq miles in freedom units) and a population of around 32,000, it’s not exactly the largest place in the world.
However, Gibraltar gets a LOT of tourists. The majority of tourists will visit Gibraltar as part of a guided day trip (multiple tour buses a day arrive from along the Costa del Sol, as well as further afield like Seville and Jerez), or as a shore excursion from a cruise ship.
There are days when Gibraltar gets 5,000+ tourists from a visiting cruise ship, PLUS more than 30 coaches full of daytrippers from Spain. That is a lot for a territory with around 38,000 people living here.
In terms of tourists per km2 (which is a measurement that I find very useful in looking at overtourism through tourist concentration around the world), that is an incredibly high number.
Gibraltar also has a limited number of main attractions, and these will often get overwhelmed when there’s a large cruise ship (or two) visiting.
I saw the effect that overtourism has first-hand.
Seeing just how overtourism affects a community first-hand really made me think a lot more about our impact on the places we visit.
I’ve always loved the lesser-known places. The places you go and people ask you “…but what’s there to do there?”
I realised that my lived experience of overtourism could be combined with my love of underrated destinations around the world. I’ve always been a data and spreadsheets kinda girl, so analysing data around overtourism (and ‘undertourism’, so to speak) helped me really see exactly the effect tourism has on places.
Tourism has so many positive effects on communities around the world, but it also has its dark sides. From locals being priced out of the neighbourhoods their families have lived in for decades, to independently owned shops, cafés and restaurants being replaced by big international chains, tourism can have its negatives (and a lot of them).
So, what can we do to help?
As a single person, it can feel like your actions don’t make a difference. What can I, as just one person, do to change this?
Well, if you were to make the decision to avoid an overtouristed destination and visit a lesser-known destination instead makes a direct impact on the businesses in the alternative destinations. It puts money in their pockets that would not have been there had you not visited.
I’m also not saying that you should never visit a destination that has overtourism. And I’m definitely not saying don’t come to Gibraltar! (Please visit, we’re great).
Places with overtourism are usually popular for a reason, and you’re not going to see the Sagrada Familia if you don’t go to Barcelona.
What I am saying is that to help to combat overtourism, we need to be conscious of how we travel, especially to places already struggling with overtourism.
💡 Instead of visiting Santorini on a cruise ship, consider going Greek island hopping and stay for a few days (bonus points for visiting in shoulder season!).
💡 Instead of visiting Barcelona and staying in an Airbnb (I haven’t stayed in an Airbnb for many years due to their negatives effects on housing availability for locals), book a room in a locally owned hotel, or at least book with a Spanish-owned hotel chain to ensure more money is kept in the local economy.
The more people who speak out about overtourism and educate others on its impact, the better.
The more people who make conscious, sustainable decisions in their travel choices, the better.
80% of people travel to the same 10% of the world’s destinations.
Strictly looking at the numbers, overtourism is really an overconcentration problem.
Too many people in the same place, at the same time.
of international tourists in the EU can be found in just FOUR countries. The other 42% of tourists are spread across the remaining 23 countries.
visitors arrived in Santorini in 2023, despite a local population of just 15,000 people.
tourists descend on Hallstatt, Austria each day during peak season. Hallstatt is home to just 800 permanent residents.
tourists per square kilometre. Yup, that’s the tourism density for Gibraltar, just for cruise and coach arrivals alone.
Have a question?
Got a question, or just want to leave me some feedback? Contact me directly below!