Travel Philosophy

Opening a hostel seems easy, right? You just put a bunch of bunk beds in a room, some bean bags and a TV in a common room and start charging backpackers for their stay. Well, no. Hostel management is a little bit more complicated than that. As a full time traveler for the last 8 years I’ve stayed in many …

Travel blogs are a great way to help plan a trip. From information to inspiration, nearly every destination has many bloggers like ourselves writing about their adventures in amazing places. You may follow your favourite bloggers on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter. There is nothing wrong with this (please don’t unfollow us) but take a moment and keep reading so you …

A while ago I did an “Ask Me Anything” on Reddit about Global Goose, long term travel and my unconventional digital nomad lifestyle. There were a lot of interesting and well thought out questions (as well as some trolling of course – it is Reddit after all). One of the common questions was about formal education. “What kind of education …

The old saying states that travelling makes the world feel smaller. That makes sense. Travel shows us that we are not so different after all and highlights how connected we are. But travel also makes the world feel bigger. Exponentially. The more you see, the more you realize there is to see. Before I left Canada for the first time, I …

The more I think about the term “gap year” the more I don’t like it. I get the concept. You take a year “off”, either between studies, or after graduating before you go into the workforce. It’s just not the best way to describe a year of travelling the world. A gap is an empty space. It’s nothing. When you …

In a large, dark room in an orphanage in Vietnam, I sat beside a child who couldn’t have been older than 5. He appeared to have limited mobility in his legs, but he twisted his torso to look at the strangers in the room. His eyes were bright and he called to other children around him. I was a month …

Lee and I met while working abroad in New Zealand and we have spent the last five years working as digital nomads and travelling to over 40 countries, which means that we have spent the majority of our 20s on the road. "Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, …

“The world is a book and those who don’t travel only read one page” What?!?!? I see this shared all over social media and I cringe every time I read it. This isn’t inspiration, this is gloating. gloat ɡlōt/ verb gerund or present participle: gloating contemplate or dwell on one’s own success or another’s misfortune with smugness or malignant pleasure …

In a hostel in Quito, Ecuador I met a friendly young Canadian traveller on his first big backpacking trip. He had a typed itinerary containing all of his travel notes and ideas for where he wanted to go. He excitedly listed all of the countries he wanted to cover – Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil – pretty …

Going backpacking is an experience that will change you in a lot of ways, teaching you about yourself as well as exposing you to other cultures, ideas and experiences. After you have been travelling for a while, you might find yourself developing some of these backpacking superpowers. The Ability to Sleep Anywhere It doesn’t matter if I am on a …

I spend a little time on travel forums, groups and blogs, and I notice a propensity for self-proclaimed “travelers” vs “tourists,” which seems to have become a pejorative term – to have a genuine phobia of “looking like a tourist.” They give advice to others to always blend in, act like a local, never do anything that might give away …

Five years ago when I went on a working holiday to New Zealand I never thought I would fall in love with a charming and irreverent Englishman and end up following him back to deepest darkest Lancashire. Even after we met, while working as tour guides in a creepy old prison, I never thought that our backpacker fling would evolve …

It was nearing 1pm and I couldn’t ignore the grumbling emptiness in my stomach anymore. It was time to stop working on the travel writing for a while and have some lunch, so I closed my laptop and headed to the kitchen of our hostel in Buenos Aires. The florescent lights flickered as I pulled open the fridge door and …

It is hard to remember a time before TripAdvisor. It was only in the year 2000 that it was established, but somehow, as the result of the impact of this web-based travel community, the world these days seems to be a different place. It is the travellers, the holiday-makers, the consumers that set the agenda. At its most basic, TripAdvisor …

Somewhere, right now, a young person in their 20s really wants to go travelling. However, you can be certain that there is at least one adult in their life who is trying to talk them out of it (maybe more). There are so many things that adults say that scare young people away from going travelling – which are simply …

Do you find the place that you live in boring and uninspiring? Do you wish you lived somewhere else? Do you constantly dream of other locations? When you go on holiday, do you dread coming back home? A month ago, Lee and I were visiting family in his hometown – a small working class Lancashire town in the North of …

There is a lot of misinformation out there about travelling and unfortunately, it stops many people from following their dreams and seeing the world. Here are three of the biggest myths that are holding people back from travelling – and why they are simply not true. Travel is Expensive If you want to go on a luxury cruise or stay …

If you have just returned from a massive travel adventure you are probably excited to tell your friends and family about all the amazing experiences you have just had. Whether you were volunteering at an orphanage in Cambodia, working at a surfing school in Australia or teaching skiing in the mountains of Canada – you’ve probably had the time of …

I can’t tell you how many people have told me that I am “so brave” for travelling on my own as a young woman in my early 20s. Many people I have spoken to have visibly shivered with fear when thinking about the idea of travelling to a foreign land alone. So many friends have told me that they would …