A new series in which I interview bloggers about their travel and their aspirations. I hope you enjoy reading what my fellow nomads are up to!
this week’s blogger is nic, from the roaming renegades!
tell us about yourself! how did you get started traveling?
Hey! I’m Nic and I am one half of the Roaming Renegades. Travel for me really took off when I visited Paris back in 2006 when I was 18! It was a total eye opener to what travel could be about and having that freedom to run around this amazing city and not care if I got lost was such a refreshing change to the boring family holidays around the pool I had been used to growing up. Since that trip all we wanted to do was explore as much of this fascinating world as possible!
what is your favourite destination, and why?
It is always so hard to choose one place because we do tend to fall in love with destinations very easily!! But for us it is a toss-up between New York – The place we got married and ultimately feel is where our hearts belong and Tokyo – where we had our honeymoon and a dream destination of ours for so many years! Both are crazy cities full of energy and life but also with their unique quiet places whether than be the shrines and temples of Tokyo or the parks and outer boroughs of New York.
what is your ultimate travel destination? have you been there, or do you have plans to go there anytime soon?
We stumbled upon our ultimate destination just last year in fact! Having always wanted to visit Switzerland we had put it off for so long but when we did do it we did it properly! We headed to a place called Interlaken in the middle of the Swiss Alps, this place and the surrounding towns are just picture perfect! With views of the impressive Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau and as many action packed adventure sports as we could try out hands at this was the ultimate destination for us!
what is the craziest travel-related thing you have ever done?
Well, I guess we would have to go back to Interlaken for that one! We had an absolutely crazy trip and took full advantage of this beautiful place being “The adventure capital of the world!” We paraglided off a 4000ft high mountain whilst watching the sun rise over the Eiger, White water rafted down the grade 4 glacial melt waters of Jungfrau, leapt over 30ft down waterfalls and rappelled over 50ft slippery cliffs whilst canyoning and hiked over the extreme Via Ferrata with 2000ft sheer drops below only thin wires keeping us on the walls…one of which we dangled off over a Nepalese bridge!
do you prefer to travel solo, or with someone? why?
This year I actually took my first solo trip which coincidentally was earlier in the year to Basel in Switzerland (before our trip back over to Interlaken). We usually travel as a couple and work really well together in never really having to compromise too much for each other. I decided I wanted to see what solo travel was like and it was quite an eye opening experience. For me the whole trip was a lot more of an emotional rollercoaster than I had imagined and at times I both loved it and hated it! It did teach me a lot about myself and also gave me a confidence boost too. I think everyone should at least give it a go!
if you travel with friends, do you think your friendship is stronger for that reason?
I have travelled only a little bit with friends before but some of the most important and I would say almost life changing trips which lead us to this path of further travel have been with friends whilst I was at university. These trips were ones which really allowed us to spread our wings a lot more and I think that growth we all felt is something we all share. However I have been with my husband since we were kids and so I have been lucky to share so many amazing travel experiences with him over the years. I think that our travels have definitely brought us closer over the years, sometimes making a dream come true together is really what partnerships are all about!
what’s on your travel agenda for this year?
Well this year is going to be a pretty epic one for us! It is finally time for us to quit our jobs and begin travelling full time! It has been a long road of saving up and organizing our house to be rented out but in early April we finally take the plunge. We are started off on a mammoth journey across Europe, Trans-Mongolia, Asia, Australia and NZ…after that we plan on exploring South America, then central and North America and generally working towards a nomadic lifestyle!
You can follow Nic (and Paul) on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest. Thanks for sharing, Nic!