I was fortunate enough to obtain a travel grant to attend the 2024 IWA World Water Congress & Exhibition in Toronto, Canada, due to my position of Chair of the IWA YWP UK and the voluntary efforts I have put into IWA over the last 6 years (you can read more about my work with IWA here).
Rather than using the grant to book direct flights from the UK to Toronto and a hotel while at the conference, I decided to make the trip an adventure and, fingers crossed, reduce my emissions at the same time. I used that same amount of money (and actually, quite a bit less) to go on a little overland East Canada road trip.
In the end, I travelled Manchester to Dublin to Halifax to Québec City to Montréal to Ottawa to Toronto to Niagara Falls to Halifax to London for a grand total of <£800. I travelled over 2500 km overland using 3 trains, 3 coaches, countless underground trains and a replacement bus service from 3 to 20 August 2024. I slept in University Halls, 3 x 6 bed hostel dorms, 1 x 10 bed hostel dorm, 1 x 12 bed hostel dorm, one >20 hour sleeper train, an old prison and had more than one nap on a Megabus!
My efforts were greatly rewarded! During my adventure I got to have a pint of Guinness at Temple Bar, ate my own body weight in poutine, hiked waterfalls even bigger than Niagara, enjoyed a solo rooftop spa, had a sleepover in an old prison (after just doing a ghost walk around it), shot a puck (badly) at the Hockey Hall of Fame, rolled my own maple taffy on ice and caught a rainbow at Niagara Falls.
When I finally arrived in Toronto, my colleagues were bemused at me walking into the welcome ceremony on Day One of the conference with my giant hiking backpack. But I had a smile on my face, bigger even than my backpack!
This opportunity would not have been possible, had it not been for the kindness and generosity of the IWA UK and for my efforts working with the IWA YWP UK. I cannot thank the IWA UK enough and I strongly recommend volunteering with them! I am going to do all I can to ensure that similar opportunities are provided to other young water professionals.
If you are nosey and want to check out my other blog posts, I have one of the whole trip here and then separate posts for each location I visited, including: Halifax, Québec City, Montréal, Ottawa and Toronto.
