The backpacking granny from Granada who's been to 86 countries and is still travelling

For twelve years the business ran smoothly, but the climate in the north of Spain eventually led the family to look for a sunnier spot. They headed south, to the Carchuna on the Granada province coast, where at that time there were very few houses and kilometres of empty sandy beach. It was love at first sight; the crystal-clear waters seemed to them the perfect paradise for a new campsite. Before long, Kandy married and studied law in Granada.

From a very young age, seeing holidaymakers from all over the world arrive at the campsite, Kandy got the travel bug. After a long career as a lawyer, Kandy retired when she was 66 and as soon as she left her office, the first thing she did was buy a plane ticket that would change her life: a round-the-world ticket. With a five-kilo rucksack containing very few clothes, she left Spain for Argentina and didn’t stop until she returned nine months later, having travelled through South America, headed north, crossed China, Australia and New Zealand and ended her journey in India.

Kandy spent her nights in youth hostels and it was in one of these, surrounded by very young backpackers from all over Europe, that her nickname was born. An young Italian, upon seeing her arrive with her rucksack, exclaimed in disbelief: ‘My nonna!’ Laughing, she explained that wasn’t her name and he clarified that ‘nonna’ means granny in Italian. The word spread among the young people at the hostel and so ‘la abuelita mochilera’ was born.

Kandy says that on those early trips there were no mobile phones yet, nor was there Google and there was no way of letting anyone know that she was ok. her son then gave her a badge on a lanyard on which a telephone number and the words "please call" had been engraved, in case anything ever happened. Kandi says that the first thing she would do when she arrived in a city was to go to a bookshop to have a look at the postcards: "That way I knew what I had to visit in that place. Then I’d get on a bus and do the whole route so I could get a rough idea of where the places were."

 A passion for India 

Of the 86 countries Kandy has visited since retiring, there is one that holds a special place in her heart: India. She says she is fascinated by the happiness she sees on the faces of those who have "very little", that joy that "shines from their eyes" even in the children who have been working on the streets since they were very young, in temperatures of 40 degrees.

Kandy has returned to India more than thirty times and she doesn’t mind going back to the same place time and time again, because for her it’s never the same trip: "Do I ever get tired of seeing the sea every day? No, because every day is different." Her thing, she insists, has never been to collect sights, but to live among the local people: eating at the markets, boarding local buses among chickens and pigs, sitting down to chat with strangers.

The 'abuelita mochilera' says she’s had some wonderful experiences and has been to beautiful places such as Varanasi, in northern India. "It’s absolutely breathtaking." It’s a very different way of viewing death to how it’s viewed in the rest of the world. Seeing the dead being carried past, wrapped in crumpled blankets, on their way to the crematoria… “But you even see the family looking happy, because perhaps their father is ill and they know that, in this way, he’ll go straight to Nirvana – he won’t be reincarnated again,” she explains.

At the age of 91, Kandy has a schedule that would astonish any twenty-something. Every month of the year – except July and August, which she sets aside to spend with her family and her granddaughter – she packs her bags and sets off for some corner of the world.

This summer, at the end of August, she’s travelling to Sri Lanka, in October she’ll be flying to Vietnam, in November to Malaysia and in December, of course, back to India, this time to the south. All the destinations still ahead of her, she admits with a laugh, are places she’s been to before because she’s seen it all.

Kandy has incredible energy and says she just can’t sit still. When someone tells her she’s too old to travel, the 'abuela mochilera' can’t help but be surprised: she didn’t start travelling the world until she stopped working at the age of 66, and today, at 91, she says she feels younger than many people in their thirties. “I’ve already lived through my 91 years; they’re behind me now. I’ve still got the years left to live, and that’s enough for me to feel young,” she concludes.