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