An autistic travel writer has reportedly scrapped her plans to explore the world after unilaterally declaring the outside to be “just awful”. 

Emma Bernard, 32, sought adventure in the big wide world in an attempt to achieve her lifelong ambition of joining the fictional organisation Starfleet.

“I always thought that travel would be like Star Trek: strange new worlds, new civilisations; I really wanted to boldly go where no-one had gone before,” said Bernard. “Also, I hoped if I wrote about it, people would pay me.”

“Unfortunately, there was a real lack of places that ‘no one had gone before’. My first few trips were all terrible: I had so many meltdowns that all I wrote in Paris was ‘I miss my sofa’. I’ll be honest, it was hard to stretch that out to a 500-word review.”

“Eventually I found places I liked, but I didn’t want to recommend them in case it encouraged other people to show up,” Bernard continued. “Look at this review, for this remote field in Yorkshire I nicknamed ‘The Isolated Zone of Blissful Quiet’ – I gave that zero stars.”

“The real problem is, the outside is bollocks.”

“It’s bright, it’s noisy, it’s unpredictable, there’s weather all over the place, and worst of all: it’s full of people. The entire globe! Just rammed with people wandering around, getting in the way, existing, and generally being insufferable. At least in Starfleet you could beam up at a second’s notice!”

Bernard has not abandoned her dreams, though, and still hopes to explore the universe in her own way. She was last seen decorating her living room like the Star Trek holodeck.


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