2024: All work all travel

This post is the latest in the series of annual reviews. You can find 2023’s entry here.

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2024 was a year filled with both work and travel. Having landed a dream role as Founding Engineer at Lex late last year, the primary goal of this year was to really get my feet under the table and contribute to building a company I hope to be a part of for many years to come.

Having also gotten married late last year my wife and I were keen to see some of the world whilst still a family of two, so the goal was always to work whilst moving around for a while. So much so I even warned Nathan before he hired me, to make sure the role was a fit all round.

Thankfully that work/travel balance has worked out really well, with there being a couple of natural pinch points of stress and tiredness but overall achieving a lot whilst seeing a lot too.

So this is my annual overview, as ever written mostly for myself but shared for transparency and anyone so inclined. The travel section is especially long and feels a little like a Year 8 school report, so naturally feel free to just skip to the pictures if it drags on.

👨🏻‍💻 1 year into Lex

In late 2023 I joined Lex, an early stage startup with some early traction as Founding Engineer. Our goal is answer the question "what does writing look like in the age of AI?". Microsoft Word brought writing to the computer, Google Docs to the internet, but what now we have access to an ever smarter, never tired AI collaborator? Writing is undergoing it's biggest revolution since the printing press, and we want to help shape it for the best, whilst bringing the level of craft we see in other creative tools like Figma, VS Code and GitHub to the word processing world.

One of the early highlights was a rebuild of our editor from the ground up, which has since been name checked by Hiten Shah as his favourite recent example of high craft in software.

Beyond that we shipped a bunch of new features, my favourite being the recently launched Rewind History, which enables you to seamlessly scrub back through the timeline of your doc, showing how it evolved and allowing you to jump off at any stage should you want to create a competing version.

https://x.com/nbashaw/status/1861174360352190604

Rather importantly as a business, we launched a paid plan in late 2023, and have seen healthy, steady growth through this year. Our aim moving forwards is to get to profitability, which will buy us the opportunity to stick around and hopefully fulfil the vision of elevating the writing experience, at a time when the act of writing itself is under threat from being automated away.

We’ve got some big features in the works for 2025 and are genuinely excited about what the year ahead can bring. Looking back in a years time we should see both the product and business in a very different place if we execute on these as we should.

🌏 Travels

2024 has been the fullest year of travel of my life so far. It started out a little closer to home, with trips to St Austell in Cornwall for a funeral and Bristol for a friends birthday.

We then headed off with a couple friends to the Isle of Skye for a week surrounded by some of the best nature the UK has to offer. Visits to the North West of Scotland never disappoint.

Beyond that we had our regular trips to Edinburgh to see the wife’s family, as well as a trip to Florence for her birthday.

In the summer we went to Paris for our company bi-annual retreat, and after lots of chats, walks and wonderful Parisian cuisine we jumped on a train over to Cologne to take in some of the Euro 2024 atmosphere.

We hadn’t planned on going to any games, but England’s performances in the group stage was so underwhelming that the ticket prices for the Round of 16 actually ended up sliding in price. Once I saw two tickets go up at a price I was happy with I jumped on them, and we ended up having a great day out, despite the team doing their best to bring a dampener on things before Bellingham’s last minute acrobatic heroics, which will live long in the memory.

[PHOTO OF OVERHEAD KICK]

After that we jetted back to London, catching the rest of the tournament in pubs, before watching the semi final against my brother-in-laws beloved Netherlands at home. That last minute win sparked joyous scenes and led to days of scouring ticket prices and travel sites seeing if a route to Berlin was possible.

Two tickets finally popped up at a slightly below nosebleed price, and with the heart beating on overdrive I dropped a little more money than sensible picking them up.

With tickets secured we checked the latest route, settling on the least worst option of a 4 hour early morning flight the next day to Turkey, before a few hours on a Turkish airport floor and then back 3 hours north to Berlin.

Arriving in the German capital bleary eyed but with hearts unreasonably hopeful we wandered the streets taking in the atmosphere. An hour in we realised our folly having not booked a hotel for that night, planning instead on staying out until the early hours before sleeping on the train journey 6h south before a flight from South West Germany home. A quick scour online led to a last minute room booking, and 90 minutes kip later we were good to go.

The final went how my head expected, with the superior Spanish coming out on top, despite the brief joy and hope of the ever nonchalant Cole Palmer’s stroked equaliser and my subsequently sprained thumb from the goal celebrations.

Despite coming away with nothing more than a limp thumb and yet another story of so near yet so far, I have no regrets heading out there. It was great to be a part of one of the biggest days in my country’s footballing history, but hopefully next time the outcome might be a little more favourable.

After the adventure in Berlin a few mates and I jetted off to Prague for a quick weekend in the Czech capital. The beer was cheap and the food was good. It was a bit of a whirlwind after Berlin and just before we were setting off for longer term travel, but good to see a new city and spend time with friends.

The big trip

Summer came and went, and as August rolled around we finally packed up our stuff and headed off on a round the world tour. We started off in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, seeing friends who grew up there and enjoying the falls that gave the area its name.

They gave us a great African welcome, arriving late to pick us up whilst surprising us by booking us into a nearby boutique hotel which was beautiful, the perfect African welcome. The Zambezi Boutique was superb and we really enjoyed staying with [NAME] and [NAME] who run an excellent little hotel there. They’ve got a big heart for the area, and had shut the hotel down whilst we were there for an event launching the new Victoria Falls Football Team, of which we somehow became honorary guests.

It was dry season so the falls themselves weren’t their full roaring selves, but were still beautiful and impressive.

We then took a day trip over the border into Botswana for a safari in Chobe National Park, where lions and leopards patrolled up close. The ride along the river was beautiful, with crocodiles eating on the shore and elephants coming down to the waters to bathe and drink.

Riding on the river was also a treat back in Zimbabwe, where we took in the sunset along the Zambezi. We didn’t see much wildlife but the cocktails made up for it, with a stunning African sunset as the backdrop, a worthy way to spend a few hours one evening.

After Zimbabwe we set off for South Africa, the land of my wife’s birth. En route we managed to have some cables and (ironically) an AirTag stolen by the baggage crew at Vic Falls Airport, so beware if you travel through the area.

That thievery led to my work laptop limping along on a USB-C charger until a replacement cable arrived a few days later.

We started up this leg of the trip in Kruger National Park, balancing some guided game drives, both early morning and late at night, with a few self drives. Both were great, the game drives leading to more sightings, including hyena’s hunting an injured buffalo, and a lion’s feasting on a kill before nonchalantly wandering right in front of our open sided car on its way to the watering hole.

Self drives were my favourite though, driving around hunting to spot animals in the wild was pretty hard to top.

We stayed in a great spot on the river along the southern edge of the park, where all sorts of wild animals came to drink, making for one of the most remarkable backdrops for a days work I’ve had to date.

After Kruger we drove down through Eswatini into Ballito to stay with an old family friend of Lorna’s. We really enjoyed the area and can see its attraction for the locals, with a great beach and a good community vibe.

Onwards we went down the coast, staying with another family friend before heading back on the road towards Cape Town.

But before we headed for the cape we diverted up inland, aiming to take in the windy, treacherous road of Sani Pass and head up into Lesotho. The weather put paid to those plans though, with the heaviest snowfall the area had seen in over twenty years, over twenty centimetres deep. Not an experience I was expecting in my first time in Africa!

Having briefly gotten our tiny, cheap rental stuck in the snow we finally hit the road again. The trip was long, beautiful and eventful, including a KFC related driving incident that left us thankful for the sturdiness of the metal barriers running alongside the motorway.

Further along the coast our stay at La Sosta was a highlight. The welcome we had there and the attention to detail was top notch, they really made us feel at home, and the restaurant (the whole place is run by two chefs) was excellent.

It was at La Sosta that Jo (a friend from London) joined us, as we headed into the final stint in South Africa: Cape Town.

Hermanus was our last stop en route, and is famed for whale watching. Whilst we didn’t see many whales in our overnight stay we resonated with the artistic vibe of the town and could see ourselves returning one day.

From there it was half a days drive to Cape Town, which was just as beautiful as expected. We hiked up Lions Head and down Table Mountain, drove around the area including one of the most stunning views I’ve ever seen from Chapmans Peak down to Hout Bay.

At the end of the 10 days in Cape Town we said our goodbyes to Jo and headed off to Kerala, India. We’ve got a friend who grew up there and gave us some tips. We had a great time wandering around Fort Kochi, enjoyed lazing around in Munnar and the overnight boat trip in Allepey was a highlight.

From Kerala we took a short hop over to Sri Lanka, landing in the capital, Colombo. We really enjoyed the city, with lots of greenery and water, being relatively easily walkable with lots of cute cafes. On the final day a local duo attempted to scam us which left a sour taste, but it’s still a city we’d be keen on going back to.

From there we headed inland to Kandy, before getting the famous train with great views through to Ella. Ella has changed a lot in the last 10 years, becoming a very touristy town, but it’s still small and charming, and we enjoyed our time there in the tea-laden hills.

From Sri Lanka we headed to Bangkok as it was the cheapest direct flight, enabling an easy 6h bus ride down into Cambodia. Similarly to Ella, Siem Reap has changed a lot in recent years due to its rich history and being so close to the ancient city of Angkor Wat. Exploring the historic ruins was a real highlight despite a decent crowd, and is well worth a visit if you end up in that part of the world.

From there we jumped on another bus down to Phnom Penh, which we managed to accidentally time with [THE NAME OF THEIR FESTIVAL], their biggest annual festival. It was fun to see the festivities and we had a decent time there, with our cheap hotel having a roof top pool which made for ideal viewing for the firework shows but overall we enjoyed our time in our next stop in Vietnam a little more.

Ho Chi Minh City was decent, with day trips to the [NATURE PLACE] and to see the tunnels from the America/Vietnam war.

The highlights from Vietnam though were in the north, with Hanoi proving to be a lovely, character-filled and walkable city, with their famous egg coffees proving a highlight, along with the super fresh cuisine, mostly Banh Mi and [OTHER DISH]

In between Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi we spent a few days in Ha Long Bay, and enjoyed the beauty of the bay on an overnight boat. It’s fair to say that the area is no longer a hidden gem and the crowds at the most touristy spots (a big cave and a nearby beach) weren’t our cup of tea, but there’s so many [NAME OF THE BIG ROCK FORMATIONS] that it’s worth at least an overnighter from Hanoi. We didn’t catch any squids whilst fishing but the sunrise Tai Chi was pretty epic.

From Vietnam we flew to Hong Kong, with a few days eating all the food and exploring the grungy urban vibe alongside the beautiful nature.

After that we jetted over to Fukuoka Japan, spending a few days in a pleasant, slightly less touristy city before heading to the old capital, Kyoto.

I’d been before so spent most of my time working, but it’s still one of my favourite cities to visit. The combo of the old and new, along with top tier cuisine makes it a hard one to beat.

The surprising highlight of our time in Japan though came next in Zao Onsen, a small town in the North East of Japan’s main island named after its hot springs. surrounded by mountains. The snow there was thick yet surprisingly not too cold or wet, partly thanks to a merino underlayer and partly due to regular trips to the outdoor onsen, bathing in the naturally hot water whilst snow floated down above was one of the most beautiful experiences I’ve had in nature.

From Zao we headed back to Tokyo, our final stop in Japan. As with all our travels I was working a fair amount of it, so didn’t see as much as my last visit back in 2017, but we enjoyed wandering the city and eating good food. The highlight of this stint was a train ride south of the city to [NAME OF CAFE], a beautiful little cafe overlooking Mount Fuji. We had to get a taxi the final leg, but it was well worth it, and highly recommend spending at least half a day relaxing in the shadow of Japan’s most famous mountain.

As we left Japan ready for Christmas in Australia, we took the cheaper route of flying via Singapore, having a longer overnight layover so we could wander the city, and the combo of its top tier modern architecture and old style charm going down well.

The final stop of the year was in Sydney, spending Christmas with my sister and her family. I'm writing this from Barangaroo Reserve as we camp out through the afternoon on the sun-kissed lawns, ready for the New Years Eve fireworks. Relaxing here with family has been a welcome break from the more frantic combo of endless travel and work.

🏡 Holiday Let

In 2023 we went through a long, drawn out process to buy a small plot of land on the south coast of England, with the goal of building a small holiday let by the sea to rent out on AirBnb.

We did a lot of research on the feasibility of the project that year, from electric, water and gas connections and submitted a pre-app that finally came back positively after much chasing.

We then went ahead and bought the land, which itself was a drawn out process, having to get the contracts amended to allow right of access.

In 2024 our goal was to find an architect and begin the proper design phase, leading to a full planning application.

We found Tom from Arboreal Architects and we’re really happy with both the process we’ve been through with him and the end result.

Unfortunately, after submitting the full application the council made an about face and went from being very positive on the pre-app to very negative on the full application, despite us going above and beyond on all the advice and coming up with a truly bespoke, minimal design that seamlessly blends into its surroundings, framing the killer views of the coast’s white cliffs.

Eventually the application was rejected, and so we duly appealed. We’re cautiously optimistic as planning law is on our side, with the local council plan specifically encouraging rural tourism, which our project would be a top quality example of.

We should hear back on the appeal result in the first few months of 2025, so if positive news comes back we’ll be ready to move into the next phase. If not then we can rest easy knowing we gave it everything we had and have still got a great plot of land to build on later or pass to our future children should that be the case.

[PICTURES OF DESIGN]

👨‍🎤 Gigs

Keane

As a teenager I had two main CD’s on repeat, one being Hot Fuss by The Killers and the other being Hopes and Fears by Keane (it seems I was weirdly into albums beginning in H by artists beginning with K).

The first gig I ever went to was Keane’s Hopes and Fears tour at [THE PLACE IT WAS AT] in London with my dad. This year Keane returned for their 20th anniversary tour, swinging by East London, so obviously I had to go.

I took the wife, and realised there’s nothing quite like one of your favourite bands doing a 20th anniversary tour, grey haired and all, to remind you you’re starting to get old.

Sleeping at Last

The second gig of the year was seeing Sleeping at Last, a beautiful, relaxed concert in [VENUE]. Everything about it was ace, except the fact we arrived an hour late expecting there to be the normal warm up act setup, only to arrive just as the first half was coming to a close.

Clearly we’re not that cultured or used to a concert instead of gig setup. But the half we aught was beautiful.

Passenger

The final gig of the year was seeing Passenger for the second time, it being our first time visiting Kew Gardens. It’s pretty far from where we are in East London to get to Kew in the West, and it was made longer by rail cancellations leading to a meandering 2 hour journey across the capital.

Despite that the gig was a vibe, with picnic blankets and hampers strewn across a beautiful surrounding. The music wasn’t half bad too, worth the trip.

🔨 DIY

A few years ago I bought a flat in London, after almost a decade of working in the city. That decision is one I have no regrets over, as having a home in the city you love is an unbeatable experience.

Naturally though with being a homeowner it comes with maintenance you didn’t want to perform, and improvements you chose to add. The past year has seen a bit of both, with our front door mechanism totally breaking leading to a night where jumping the neighbours balcony being our only means of escape should a fire have broken out. We ordered the large replacement piece and fitted it ourselves, which was just another reminder of what can be done with a little effort, despite the naivety.

Similarly our toilet stopped flushing properly, leading to a very high water bill. Our handyman wasn’t sure what the issue was, but we managed to fix it by taking it all apart, replacing a piece and WD40’ing the rest. Another vote in the “you can do it even if you don’t know what you’re doing” camp.

The final project of the year was doing some bedroom panelling in our master bedroom. We’d wanted to do this for a while, buying the paint 18 months earlier, but finally got around to it as we knew we’d be moving out and letting the room whilst we travelled. This was another project that we weren’t experienced in, designing the arrangement, buying the wood, cutting it to size, assembling, sanding and painting it. We’re really pleased with the outcome though, as it changes the feel of the room pretty dramatically.

🎯 2024 goals recap

As always I set some goals for the year, here’s how I got on in 2024:

✅ Fix my elbow

Last year I tweaked my elbow at the gym, leading me to spend a little too long resting it out of an abundance of precaution and quite a lot of ignorance. At the start of this year I set myself the goal of getting to the bottom of the issue so I could resume proper workouts without the fear of doing more damage.

Not knowing a lot about elbow injuries I booked in at a private clinic and saw a specialist, who spent a good amount of time diagnosing the issue. In the end he said ironically the primary issue was a lack of use, having rested it too long, so that the muscle itself had withered away.

He gave me a workout plan to build back up slowly, and I got back to full range of motion and exercise within a couple of months.

I still feel it a little every now and then, but supposedly that’s a combo of leftover psychosomatic brain over body thoughts and maybe a little weakness still there. Overall this definitely feels like goal achieved and I’m glad I spent the time and money investing in getting back into a place where workouts aren’t limited by elbow movements.

📈 Get back into shape

Having gotten into the best shape of my physically average life in late 2022/early 2023, I let it slip in the second half of the year, with the build up to the wedding, honeymoon and Christmas combining with a lack of gym activity due to the aforementioned elbow injury.

I wanted to get back into shape in 2024, and pretty much hit my goal, getting pretty close to my relatively modest peak by the summer.

Unfortunately with a lot of travel the last third of the year my usual workout and eating schedule has been thrown off, so I’ve definitely lost some muscle and gained some flubber since then.

This was semi intentional, as we wanted to eat all the things whilst in South Africa and Asia, but with our travels this year now leading to New Zealand, before South and North America, it feels a bit less foreign and so there’s less need to consume all the weird and wonderful things, so eating less but more intentionally should be doable.

On the exercise front the goal this year will be to build back a minimal, consistent workout habit, doing 10-20 minutes a day.

We plan to be back in London by the summer, so my old eating and gym routines can pick back up then too, which should make it easier, but I aim to be in better shape than my Christmas 2024 bod by then.

❌ Rebuild the running habit

One goal for 2024 was to rebuild the running habit, and whilst it started out ok (as these things normally do), it ended with only 17 runs for the year, falling way short of my target of one per week.

Realistically this just wasn’t prioritised in what became a pretty busy year, with gym workouts taking priority, and travel interrupting any semblance of routine.

❌ Improve flexibility

This was another one of those “want to want” habits, and as such no progress was made. It’s still in that category, I’m hoping by lowering the bar to doing 10 minute workouts each day and mixing in a couple flexibility routines into that that I can at least keep myself moving in 2025.

✅ Submit planning application

As mentioned above this one was a success, though the application itself was rejected. Hopefully the appeal lands in our favour in the year ahead.

✅ Long distance travel

This definitely goes down as a big tick, having balanced a new marriage, a new job at a fledgling startup and the most travel I’ve packed into one year of my life so far.

❌ Write again

I made some initial headway on this, joining Foster for weekly writing calls early in the year. I enjoyed the accountability and community there, but ended up dropping out when we started a weekly writing hour as a team at Lex. This meant I wrote a decent amount early on, but it never really clicked and so I didn’t end up publishing anything. Hopefully I can publish a little more this year.

⏳ Continue reading

Having read 14 books in 2023 I aimed for 24 in 2024, but fell way short, only getting through 9, 3 that I read and 6 I listened to.

The highlights were Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary which was excellently narrated and drew me in from the start, Eliot Brown’s The Cult of We which charted the crazy journey a simple real estate company took to convince the worlds smartest investors that it was a tech play, and Range by David Epstein, which updated my mental model on how expertise is built and the paths we should take to get there.

❌ Iterate on Blocks

This was a definite fail, the app is blocked (no pun intended) by an upgrade process that caused other issues, and I’ve given all my creative time to Lex, which satisfied my creative side project itch.

📈 Finding peace

It wasn’t an explicit goal for 2024, but I’ve been on a journey with my faith and worldview the past decade, and 2024 felt the most at peace I’ve been for a long time.

There’s still progress to make, but I feel like I’m taking steps and in a better place than 12 months ago. Hopefully that can continue onwards.

👀 Looking ahead to 2025

🌎 More travel

2025 will be another year of two halves, with our plan being to continue travelling in the first half of the year, spending time in New Zealand, South America and North America before…

🏡 Finding home for the next few years

We plan to be back home in London by the summer this year, and look forward to bedding back in as we work out what the short to medium term future looks like for us.

We both have an itch to live abroad at some point in our lives, and are aware that the longer life goes on the more obstacles stack up, so despite our love of our home in London we’re considering whether making the move sooner than later makes sense.

It’s very unlikely that will come this year though, but hopefully by this time next year we’ll have a much better idea of what we want the next few years to look like.

💪🏼 Healthy habits

Having lost the weekday gym routine with travel, and eaten all the food in Asia, it’s time to get back on the wagon. Both healthier eating and routine exercise are obviously important, so I’m setting small incremental goals for both.

I started tracking body measurements in the last couple years and will take the latest round in the next few days. I should definitely be up on muscle mass and down on body fat by this time next year, with the focus being on the smaller steps I can take each day with 10 minute workouts and eating enough protein whilst minimising calorie intake.

I’m also starting to track my flexibility, so hope to see some progress on that front.

👨🏻‍💻 Nail the year at Lex

I’m really happy how the first year at Lex has gone, but all this has done is provide us with a foundation to build upon. It’s a pivotal year for us and a big goal of mine is to make as much of a positive impact I can in getting us to profitability and beyond.

📚 1 book per month

It was a goal last year to read 2 a month, but 1 feels more achievable with everything else going on and my naturally slow reading pace. Hopefuly a good balance can be achieved with reading and listening.

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Overall, the year has been great on many fronts. That said, it's true that externalities are not what brings happiness, and whilst these things are nice every journey has its challenges on the inside.

I’m really thankful for the blessings from the latest lap around the sun, and look forward to what the year ahead will bring!

See you folks back here in a year.