For those who have not followed @Paddington_bear_travels on Instagram you are greatly missing out! But most people that follow my account don’t realize the story behind the silly bear pictures. In fall of 2019 I was studying in London and as Christmas approached my Mum requested a bear of some sort because she loves bears, so I thought what bear is more iconic to London than Paddington. So I stopped by Hamleys with a friend and found the perfect Paddington in his iconic felt hat, duffle coat, and wellies. We then headed down Carnaby Street which always has the cutest decorations and I decided to take a picture of the bear to send to my Mum (I wasn’t going to be home till February anyway so the Christmas surprise wasn’t a priority). She responded back with something along the lines of “is that your new travel buddy” since she knew I would be doing a lot of traveling alone through the winter and that’s when I got the idea. I hate having to take photos of myself traveling while I’m alone; it is awkward to ask strangers and I really dislike selfies but I feel obligated to have pictures for my family to see where I am and what I’m doing. That’s where the bear came in, I decided I could take him with me and take pictures of him as a proxy for me. Plus since the bear was for my Mum it was almost like a little piece of her with me as well. After the first 2 days with the bear my mom commented that she loved showing her friends the pictures and I decided to start the account to make it easier for family and friends to follow my travels. Although occasionally I got some strange looks in the street – of which my boyfriend documented with sneaky pictures of me taking pictures of the bear with all the onlookers confused faces, it was well worth it for the entertainment of my family. It was also thoroughly entertaining going through security for sites while traveling and having them just look in my bag see the bear laugh and move on. From a personal side it allowed me to document my travels a bit easier and get less standard travel photos. The only hindsight on my part was that the original bear was not meant to be travel size and became sort of awkward to take everywhere. So upon my return back to London after a month of backpacking I stopped back by Hamelys and picked up the little baby Paddington who we now refer to as Paddy. Luckily I have friends who are great sports because the bear comes everywhere and I find it so entertaining to take fun pictures with him. All my friends have also taken to suggesting photo ideas and funny captions. In the end something that started out as a fun little family joke has turned into a little ray of sunshine through this pandemic.
Val's Travels 