Happy Anniversary

Finding Our Adventure

Three years ago today we left on a 6 month trip that would change our lives. A couple of weeks before leaving England we set up a very simple website called Finding our Adventure. The plan was to simply share stories with our family and friends from our travels. We were also using Instagram to share our photos.

We loved the freedom as we backpacked around Asia for 6 months. Those bags were so heavy though!

We had shared moments from our previous adventures on our wedding photography website and personal Instagram accounts, this time though we decided we wanted a place we could call home for our travel photography and stories.

Having arrived in Bali we felt incredibly free knowing that we had 6 months to explore Asia. It was incredible and we felt a massive amount of stress lifted from our shoulders. We also had our first hotel collaborations in Bali which taught us so much about how we could potentially turn our travel photography into a business.

Those first few weeks in Bali were an opportunity to reset, and focus on what we really wanted to do.

We didn’t know it would become something that thousands of people would follow, read, comment and share at the time and we are blown away by the love and support we have received from an incredible travel community over the last three years.

2020 has been an incredibly tough year on the travel industry and any support shown to travel content creators through liking, sharing, and commenting is a massive help.

We are currently making plans for 2021 and looking back over the last three years and where it all began fills us with nostalgia and gratitude.

So happy anniversary (or travelversary) to Finding our Adventure that has changed our lives and hopefully brings entertainment and travel inspiration to all of you who follow our adventures.

We also hope you all have a fantastic Christmas!

Christmas Day in a Bali infinity pool? Yes please!

Take a chance On me

“12 days before our 6 month adventure we didn’t have any shoes for our outdoor adventures, cue On Running to the rescue”

In 2014, we spent two months travelling around South Africa. This trip had been a dream come true and set a burning fire within us of a desire to travel.

We had always talked about a longer trip and our love for travelling, in fact the first thing we ever spoke about was where we’d travelled and where we would love to go. However, life got in the way and our desire to go on a longer trip seemed like a faint, long-lost memory.

Then in 2016, I (Jonny) was made redundant. It wasn’t as scary experience as I’d imagined it to be. We were running a wedding photography business at the same time as having full-time jobs and I had always wanted to do photography full time. In the few weeks after being let go (due to the business closing down) I brought up the subject of a long-term trip. We were currently saving hard to buy our first home, the idea of travelling seemed too complicated and buying our home was more of a priority at the time. This is when we realised that we couldn’t let our desire to travel long-term be suppressed any longer.

We floated the idea of us leaving the country for a multi month trip for 6 months wiith several family members which was met with various reactions. We felt slightly deflated that some did not share the same excitement as us. Whilst the concerns were valid they were also based on the fear of the unknown (related post here). We didn’t let it stop us and if anything it made us more determined. We decided to continue with our plan to buy our first home and rent it out while we were out of the country and then move back into it when we got home. We’ll fill you in how much of a disaster that turned out to be…but at the time we were pretty chuffed that we were able to save for a home and for our travels.

At the beginning of 2017 I changed my personal account on Instagram from a random mess of photos to a more travel focused account. I was posting about previous trips and slowly people started taking an interest in our photography and following us. Originally, I called it Live What You Love Travel. A nod in the direction of following your dreams.

By the time we set off to Bali in December 2017 we had almost 20,000 followers. We never thought this would happen and we never set out to build a community. The 6 months of travel quickly grew our account as we posted often and shared daily stories of our adventures throughout Asia.

Rewind to November 2017. We had been planning for over a year and and had less than a month until we set off. Mount Agung was almost erupting in Bali and threatening our trip before we had even started. My main concern though was our lack of suitable footwear. Our main problem was keeping bags light weight and the different environments we would be travelling through. We were going to be on beautiful tropical Islands to rainforests and even the highest mountains in the world, the Himalayas. We knew that we would need sturdy footwear but didn’t want to take trainers and boots. It also didn’t seem sensible to take a pair of boots that would only be used for a couple of weeks out of the 6 months.

We were ready, but still couldn’t decide on what footwear we should take. We started searching for a shoe that had the right mix between lightweight and sturdy enough to take on the jungle and mountain environment. Thats when I thought of trail running shoes. I thought they would be perfect. Trail running shoes are very expensive though and the main brands are massive and the chances of them replying to me was very slim. This is when I decided to have a look at a fairly new company I had heard about. On Running are a Swiss running shoes company, after 30 seconds of looking on their website I knew that their trail running shoe the Cloud Venture was the shoe for us. If they said no I would have still gone and purchased them. They had just over 50,000 followers when I reached out on the 23rd November 2017, 12 days before our flight was due to leave. I didn’t expect them to reply and if they did how could we negotiate a deal in only 12 days?

I decided to message them explaining who we were and what we would be doing and where we would be going. The next day I received a reply saying “Hi Jonny, Hi Hannah, Thanks for reaching out. Your trip sounds interesting. Please email us”. They hadn’t even said yes yet but I replied saying “thanks guys we can’t wait to work with you.”

I sent an email and 2 hours later I decided to call the On head office. I knew time was short and I wanted to know if it was a yes or no so that I could then figure out our next steps. On said that They were “very excited about the trip” and within a couple of days we were introduced to our first pair of On Cloud Ventures and we couldn’t have been happier. It felt like the perfect shoe for our Asian adventure.

We were amazed that On were willing to take a chance on us and believe in our dreams with us. Since that initial phone call we have developed a friendship with On and they have supported us through many trips and adventures. They are my go to brand now and I would happily recommend them.

Since then On have exploded and I believe they are the fasted growing running shoe brand in the world. They now have more than 350,000 followers on Instagram and that just says it all about them. They are seriously good, and they have fantastic people in their organisation who deserve a lot of praise.

I now wear On shoes for almost everything, from photographing weddings in all black On Clouds to city trips in the all day Cloud Beams, running and workouts in the Cloud X. My personal favourites (to be honest I love them all) are the Cloud Swifts for sheer comfort all day, I move quickly when working and having a shoe that is fast but comfortable is amazing.

So heres to On for taking a chance on two young travellers needing a pair of shoes each.

Keep killing it.

(p.s this was not a sponsored post)

Here are a couple of links to joint articles we’ve written together with On

Our warm weather winter escape

Our epic adventure hiking to Annapurna base camp in Nepal