I’m Kieran Proctor and I write & manage ‘In Lovely Blue’. I was born and raised in Brisbane, Australia. I moved to the beautiful Gold Coast for my undergraduate university studies. Before finally moving to Canberra, the capital of Australia, to finish my studies and work in the Australian Public Service.
I’m a graduate of four of the Australian National University’s (ANU) top masters programs, rated in the World Top 10. And I’m the only person to have ever completed all four. I hold university degrees in Philosophy, Sociology, International Affairs, National Security Policy, Diplomacy and Strategic Studies. I completed my studies while working full-time in the Australian Public Service (APS).
I’ve worked for Australia’s Department of Home Affairs and in the Australian Border Force (ABF) as a sworn Border Force Officer. I’ve also worked for Australia’s medicines and medical devices regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA). And in the former Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP).
During the time I spent working in the Australian Public Service, I was a contractor assigned to difficult projects. Basically, in its simplest terms, when something was broken I was contracted to different teams throughout the APS, to help fix the issue or problem. It wasn’t the fulfilling career that I’d first dreamed of when pursuing my studies. But it was very well paid work. And I did collect quite a few awards and accolades during my time in the APS.
For those of you interested in my professional work history, you can visit my personal LinkedIn profile. Or if you’re more interested in my TripAdvisor reviews, you can also check out my TripAdvisor profile.
What Am I Doing Now?
Since January 2020, I’ve traveled through and lived in 14 countries on 3 continents. I’ve spent a considerable amount of time in Argentina, Colombia, Cuba, Germany and Peru. And for those interested in my Google guide reviews, you can also read my Google Guide Reviews.
These days, I’m traveling the globe from my home base in Pueblo Libre, Lima Peru . I started my own company in Australia, a month before the world went into lockdown. My long-term relationship ended at about the same time and so, I decided it was time to take a new path in life.
But when I decided to leave Australia, I never thought it would lead to me living in Peru. And I would have never guessed it would lead to me owning property in Peru and working towards Peruvian citizenship!
When the world began locking down, I simply pivoted my company towards remote work. And it was that decision that allowed me to explore the globe. Through my company, I own and operate this website, my tattoo website and a few others.
Why Did I Get Into Blogging And Build A Travel Blog?
Honestly, I should have known the 2020’s were going to be turbulent when the day after New Years I walked into Ramsar airport in Iran, only to be greeted by news of US airstrikes on Iranian targets in Iraq (read about it here). And, with the way the world went shortly after, the next few years became for me at least, one big adventure.
While all the other travel bloggers were sitting at home in lockdown, trying to sell things online, I was out exploring the globe. I got to experience cities that were in more normal times, tourist meccas, completely devoid of tourists. And on more than one occasion, I was the only passenger on long haul international flights.
Now, traveling at a time when there weren’t any other tourists was fun. But it also came with its own set of problems and pitfalls. Chief among these problems was the complete lack of any other tourists to ask for advice. In more normal times, I would just ask somebody on a flight or in my accommodation, how I might get a SIM card or which mobile apps were best for transport. But that wasn’t possible at the time.
So, for the first time in my 15+ years of traveling abroad, I found myself reading travel blogs for advice. And what I continually found, was that these blogs gave really bad advice. I was finding that they’d all just parrot what someone else had previously said or written. And that quite frequently, they were absolute junk targeted toward selling useless products to a female audience.
I kept Googling for information and was being told that certain apps worked, only to find out that they’d not only stopped working, but that their replacement app had even been replaced. Or, I’d find a bunch of articles that told me that I couldn’t do things like get a mobile SIM card in Cuba as a tourist, only to get one in under 10 minutes when I walked into a store in Havana and asked the attendant.
I found myself booking accommodations in what the travel blogs said were ‘the best’ or ‘safest’ suburbs, only to find out that the authors knew absolutely nothing about the city. Or about safety and security.
On one such occasion, I booked an Airbnb in the ‘best’ and ‘safest’ neighborhood recommended by a travel blog. Only to wander out onto my front steps on my first night and be greeted by the smell of sewage and a running gang battle.
On a different occasion, in a different country, I found myself dealing with a knife wielding attacker and I got stabbed. Thanks to some bad advice, that I’d found on a travel blog.
Yet, luckily, I wasn’t a ‘solo female traveler’. Even though it’d been a solo female travel blog, that had told me the area was safe. So, as a larger male, I was able to overpower my attacker.
My Aim As A Travel Blogger
Now, the purpose of this travel blog is twofold for me. It’s first and foremost a catalogue of my own adventures across the world. And when I write about my own adventures, nothing is taboo or hidden. From narrowly avoiding becoming an unwilling participant in hostage diplomacy, through to getting stabbed by a drug affected individual in an attempted armed robbery, dating Che Guevara’s granddaughter or being drugged by a diplomat, you’ll find that it’s all on the blog.
The second purpose of this travel blog, is to do to travel blogging what I used to do to Government programs. And what I was highly awarded for. And that is to take something that’s broken, and fix it. How I’ll do that is by ensuring that when I give advice on this site, that I give accurate and up to date advice that’s based on my own long-term personal experience in a city.
I’m what the travel bloggers call a ‘slow traveler’. I don’t go somewhere for 2 days to 2 weeks and then write a bunch of ‘expert’ articles on a destination. I spend 6 months or more in a city and then I write about it. When I give advice on this website, it will be based on my own experience actually doing the thing for 6 months or more. And I will have repeatedly proven the advice to be accurate.
The best example of my advice being based on real world experience are my three favorite countries Argentina, Colombia and Peru. I’ve literally spent multiple years, in all 3 countries. And now, I live full time in Peru and I’m in Peru for more than 6 months of every year!
Another point to make and one that my longer term readers would have already noticed, is that I generally write for a male audience. There’s a lot of blogs out there that focus themselves around ‘solo female travel’ as a blonde, brunette or redhead. And there’s many blogs about traveling with children or as a ‘nomad’ or backpacker.
But there’s very few blogs that just give the sort of advice that a male traveler, who isn’t a nomad or backpacker, might want. Advice like where to get a burger, craft beer or which tour to take to see interesting natural or historical sites. And topics like where to meet locals and perhaps, date a local, are rarely covered in any form of depth.
So, because I’m a male traveler who isn’t a backpacker, has no children and I’m someone who doesn’t care about the best spots for Instagram selfies, I’ll be unapologetically focused on the topics that men want.
From reading my blog, you’ll get everything you need to go and spend months in a destination. You’ll know what the good tours and sites are from a males perspective. And, moreover, you’ll be able to get anywhere in the city on a dime, know where to take a local on a date, or where to go to just get a good local beer and relax.
Where Am I Now?
The map below is updated regularly to show where I am in the world. It won’t tell you the exact neighborhood. But it will tell you the city that I’m currently in. If you happen to be in the same city and you want to meet up for a beer, or if you need some advice, you can always reach out to me through the contact page. I usually respond within a few hours, but I will definitely get back to you within a day.
Recent Interviews
Here’s an interview I did with Melody Mendez for NBC about ‘tattoo tourism‘:
Why Did I Choose ‘In Lovely Blue’ For The Name Of The Blog?
The name of this travel blog comes from my favorite poem by Friedrich Hölderlin. And yes, as you could have guessed from all the university degrees and qualifications that I hold, I am a bit of a nerd. An extract from ‘In Lovely Blue‘ reads:
“May a man look up
Friedrich Hölderlin
From the utter hardship of his life
And say: Let me also be
Like these? Yes. As long as kindness lasts,
Pure, within his heart, he may gladly measure himself Against the divine.”
