This week on Travel Tales is Sam and Zab from IndefiniteAdventure.com. They are a British couple with insatiable wanderlust. Since January 2013, they’ve been travelling as a couple through South America and Europe.
Read on to find out more…..
Tell us where you’re from, and a little about your blog?
I’m originally from London, but I haven’t lived there full time for over five years. My husband, Zab, was born in Scotland but grew up in southern England. Our blog is about our travels, and aims to help people find good vegan food, give practical advice about specific locations, and inspire you to explore interesting places.
You’ve been travelling for quite some time now, where did you start your journey, and where are you currently?
I guess I started long-term travel along with my first English teaching job almost five years ago, but we started our travels together in January 2013 after seven and a half years of being together when we flew to Buenos Aires on one-way tickets. We ended up spending just over 10 months in South America, and have been back in Europe since then. Right now, we’re setting up a home base in Berlin, Germany from where we’ll continue to travel.
You’ve stayed in some cool spots along your travels – which one stands out the most for you?
One of the best places we stayed wasn’t a five star hotel or luxury resort, but a simple eco hotel in rural Ecuador called Black Sheep Inn. I’m passionate about caring for the environment but I’m also not really someone who likes to rough it. This place catered to both of these parts of my personality, but was also run by really friendly people and was in a stunning setting. Even though it was over a year ago that we stayed there, we still often think about our few days there!
What’s your country count at the moment?
I loose count, but I think mine’s about 45. Zab’s is a bit lower (he’s not been to Asia yet), maybe around 30.
Is there any country you’ve not yet visited that’s a must see destination for you?
I have three: Sri Lanka, Ethiopia and Mexico. Technically, I have been to Mexico, but I just stayed in a resort in Cancun with my family when I was a teenager, so I don’t think that counts! For all three of these countries, one of the main reasons I want to visit is for the food and its apparent vegan-friendliness. We’re hoping to visit Sri Lanka in early 2015, but nothing’s fixed yet, so watch this space!
If you had to choose your favourite destination so far, what would it be and why?
In South America, our joint favourite place was absolutely without question Buenos Aires. We loved that city so much, and even though we spent over six weeks there last year, we felt we could easily have stayed six months and still found new and interesting things to do and see there. It just had such an amazing vibe, awesome street art, great vegetarian food (surprisingly!) and wonderful people. In a way, we could almost have imagined living there.
Is there one post on your blog that you prefer over all the rest? If so, then why?
Before Zab and I started travelling together (and before we started blogging), I travelled on my own in the Middle East. I haven’t written much about my experiences there, but I did recently post something about this obscure ruin in northwest Jordan called Umm Qais that I visited. That place has really stuck with me, and even though it was over four years ago that I visited, I was quite pleased with the amount of detail I was able to recall.
What motivates you to keep travelling, and do you have days where you think a more settled life back home is more attractive?
Certainly we have days like that, but then we think about all the places we still haven’t seen, and realise that there’s no way we could stop travelling! Really, we want to have our cake and eat it too, as we like having a base, but still love travelling. That’s our hope for what basing ourselves in Berlin will achieve: the ability to come home to somewhere that feels familiar, but to still be able to leave and explore all those places we haven’t seen yet.
Is there any one country that you’ve been to that you didn’t like, and would make you not want to return?
Unfortunately, yes. We spent just 10 days in Uruguay last year and apart from a wonderful Couchsurfing experience we had in the capital, Montevideo, we didn’t really like the country overall. We found the food to be overpriced and not very interesting, there wasn’t much in terms of culture or art to experience and the weather was too cold and rainy to properly appreciate the beaches, which are the country’s main attraction. Of course, this was partly our own fault for a lack of planning ahead and visiting at the wrong time of year (we were there in March, which is autumn), but I’m still not really inclined to go back there.
In order to sustain a life of travel, you need to have some sort of income stream. How have you funded your travels?
I teach English as I travel, plus I run our blog and do some freelance writing. The money isn’t amazing, but plus some savings, it’s just about enough! Zab is lucky since he’s able to do his database development work from his laptop and earns his share too.
What are your travel plans for the future?
As I mentioned above, we’re planning to visit Sri Lanka in early 2015. All being well, this will be part of a longer trip to also visit Malaysia and Thailand. We’ll then be back in Europe for summer (the best time to be here!) spending most of our time Berlin, definitely with side trips to Stockholm and London but perhaps also to a few other places. After that, we’re hoping to escape the European winter of 2015 to Mexico and central America!
Website URL: http://www.indefiniteadventure.com/
Facebook page: http://facebook.com/indefinteadventure
Twitter name: @indefiniteadven
Hey, thanks for featuring us on your site guys! Much appreciated.