Random Traveller #11

Posted on 18. Jun, 2010 by Kirsty in Meet A Random Traveller

Welcome to round 11 of ‘Meet a Random Traveller’. I can’t believe we have hit double figures!!! Once we hit the road this section will be dedicated to the people we meet along the way but, until then, we shall meet some of the guys and gals who have beat us to it and are already out their doing their thing.

Random Traveller #11

Nathan & Sofia

Who are you?
We are Nathan and Sofia, the couple who run www.AsWeTravel.com – Nathan, 27 comes from New Zealand, Sofia, 21 comes from Sweden. We met while Nathan was in Sweden a few years ago.

In late 2008 we decided to do our first RTW trip together – an 8 month trip from Sweden, New Zealand, Vanuatu, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia & finally back to Sweden on a budget of only 6,000US each – some might call us crazy, we dunno what it’s called :p all we know is that during this first trip together we had the best time of our lives – it was worth every penny – and it fueled us to continue doing more and more traveling – AsWeTravel.com was born

Don’t you have a home to go to?
Yeah – even though Nathan is from New Zealand, he feels very much at home in Europe – and since Sofia is Swedish we decided to base ourselves in Sweden for the next few months, work on our blog and enjoy a bit of certainty – also Swedish summer is the best!

Where have you been?
around 30 countries together…

Malaysia

Where are you heading to?
Right now we are in the process of planning a MASSIVE trip which will include all the Americas, Pacific Islands, all of Asia, Africa & then back to Europe – don’t tell Sofia’s family but we are planning on been away for at least 1-2 years – just living one day at a time and funded by aswetravel.com – that is our dream trip so it would be sooo amazing to start this year! one place at a time, no time limits, no rules – we can just do what we want to do at our own speed – pure travel freedom!

What’s your favorite place so far?
Nathan: Vanuatu – these people were voted as the happiest people in the world, and WOW I have never been treated with such respect, love and honesty – I can’t wait to go back there again and visit more of the islands – only downside, its DAMN expensive!
Sofia: Bali – there is so much of everything there, great swimming, amazing culture, the people were so nice, so easy to talk with, and they all had such a connection with Life – festivals and celebrations nearly everyday!

Sunset in Bali

What’s in your bag that you are yet to touch?
What we haven’t used we throw out – that’s the rule – nothing we carry now is extra weight. We wish we had known that before we left, because it would have saved loads of money buying stupid sh*t. Nathan carries a 40L backpack (about 6kgs) which fits on the plane, and Sofia is about to buy one the same size. It is really ridiculous when you see backpackers walking around with 90L packs, thinking they need EVERYTHING they have – one of the biggest lessons we learnt while on the road was that you really don’t need most of what you think you need. Let go of your material items, keep the practical stuff and life becomes so much easier…

A big thanks to Nathan and Sofia for agreeing to take part in this. Check them out on Twitter at @AsWeTravel

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Tags: Meet a Random Traveller