Who is Adventures and Naps? | Answering your questions!

I’m Alanna, originally from Ontario, Canada, and I moved to southeast England in 2015. My partner is English and from Kent, which is why I came to this particular part of the country. In the Q&A I shared in March 2021, Kent felt homey, but Adventures and Naps was still very much a virtual journal: the things I’d discovered, the things I was going through, and the pros and cons of being a foreigner here.

Some new subscribers had joined us, and I hadn’t done a Q&A in a long time. Your questions covered everything from my camera to where I wanted to live. They also brought me back to something awkward about keeping a video journal. I like recording these snapshots of my life. Sitting down to watch them afterwards is another matter.

Please don’t make me watch my old videos

I edit all my own videos, but editing feels methodical. I’m working through the material rather than sitting back and watching myself. Doing that makes me uncomfortable and embarrassed. By then I’d been posting on Tuesdays for at least three years, and some of the older videos could make me cringe just thinking about them.

That didn’t mean I hated everything I’d made. Each video was something I’d created, spent time on and posted in that moment. There were certainly subjects I could revisit, though. My experiences had changed as I’d lived in the UK longer, grown older and learned more about British life. An account from two years into living here could look different after more than five. That was part of having a virtual journal in the first place.

I was also careful about what I watched elsewhere on YouTube. I made a point of avoiding other foreigners-in-the-UK videos because I didn’t want to take somebody’s idea subconsciously and use it myself. Having spent years coming up with topics, I knew it could be hard. My own viewing was much less useful: meme compilations and lots of dog videos, please.

The days out I wanted to film

A good day out for me could be as simple as finding a village I’d never visited and trying its pub. I loved exploring new towns, walking around and seeing what was there. A castle? Yes, let’s go in. A cathedral or a museum would also get my attention, and so would a new restaurant. I didn’t need somewhere famous to make that sound like a wonderful day.

When someone asked how I kept my camera steady while moving, I showed the little handheld DJI camera I’d bought. I loved its stabilisation, and Patreon pledges had made it possible for me to get it. At the time, I hoped to do more tours of villages and towns when places reopened and it was safe to go out, including some less well-known places. Those were plans I was looking forward to.

Kent had become somewhere I really liked living. I wouldn’t rule out moving elsewhere in the UK, and I could imagine moving around Kent for a change. London was a different answer. I loved visiting because there was always something to see, eat or experience, but I found it overstimulating. Short visits suited me. Living there didn’t.

What I couldn’t bring with me

Asked what I’d bring from Canada to the UK, my obvious answer was my friends and family. They were in Ontario, and I couldn’t replace them. Plenty of things after a move can have an alternative, or even turn out better than what you left behind. Friends and family were the part where I felt stuck.

In the other direction, I wanted to take England’s history and architecture back to Ontario. I loved walking along a tiny winding village street with old homes all around me. I had recently been to Faversham and thought its church was unbelievable. That kind of building was simply there, part of a place you could walk around, and I loved how much there was to see.

That was one of the things I loved most about living here. Kent felt like home, there were still places I wanted to explore, and the journal could keep changing as I did. I just wasn’t volunteering to sit down and watch the old episodes with you.

Watch my original video about Adventures and Naps and my life in Kent.