About Us

‘Sup! [Cue overenthusiastic geeky wave followed by a rather awkward laugh]
We’re Justine & Scott, your friendly neighbourhood travelling couple*
who like to keep it real and tell you what travel is really like…

*Bonus smug points if you can tell us what inspired that description

Our love for travel started without each other at first but only continued to grow when we met over five years ago. It probably makes sense to tell you about our individual backgrounds first before moving onto how we met and how all this travel malarkey got completely out of hand…

If you’re new here then the following ‘About Us’ page might make you laugh (or cry, who knows?!) but won’t be all that helpful when it comes to planning trips.
So you might also want to check out our ‘Start Here’ page…

Meet Justine: The Original Wanderer

I was born into an army family in Germany but we chose to move back to England when I was a toddler. Since then, England has (and always will be) home for me. There have been plenty of cities along the way involved in that – from my original roots in a tiny little town called Andover in Hampshire through to my attempts at “big city living” in Plymouth and now Bristol.

Although there were a lot of family camping trips throughout my childhood, mammoth road trips to Luxembourg, Venice and Florence, as well as multiple trips to my mum’s timeshare in Madeira, it wasn’t until I was 23 that I was seriously hit by the travel bug.

Tired of my mundane day job and almost non-existent social life at the time; one day I woke up and thought “I want to go to Italy!” I’d always loved the food and also enjoyed studying the language in college.

So I booked a solo trip to Italy before I could change my mind. This ended up being an epic rail adventure to see eight cities in seven days. I was intent on seeing as much as I could because I didn’t know if I would want to travel solo again.

But… upon coming home, albeit a little exhausted, I had caught the bug!

I wanted to see more places even if it meant going on my own. My new year’s resolution of that coming year was to see three new places abroad every year.

I did that for a couple of years before meeting my husband Scott, which saw me:

Escape to Paris in winter for a long weekend
Celebrate my birthday with a luxury trip to Lake Garda in Italy
Gallivant around Oslo in Norway for a work trip
Spend two weeks in San Francisco (also for a work trip)
And even check out the sights in Berlin with my brother

But then it all changed when I met Scott in November 2014… I didn’t have to travel on my own anymore!

A quick look inside Justine’s brain:

A few of Justine’s favourite blogs on Wanderers of the World:

Meet Scott: The Adrenaline Junkie Wanderer

I grew up in the UK (East London) but have been fortunate enough to have parents that were able to whisk me and my brothers off on adventures abroad as kids, which inherently led me to my love of travel.

We went to so many far flung destinations that it’s hard to remember them all but trips to Hong Kong, Mexico, USA and most of Europe especially stand out for me.

It is also through travelling where my love of skiing, snorkelling and other adrenaline-fuelled passions came from.

Actually, when I met Justine, I was in the middle of planning (yet another) ski trip to Val Thorens in France with some friends – and it wasn’t long before I was convincing her to try skiing too!

A quick look inside Scott’s brain:

A few of Scott’s favourite blogs on Wanderers of the World:

Our Couples Travel Story

Justine & Scott with the sunset behind them

After finding each other online, we met for the first time at a National Trust site (at Woodchester Park) when it was absolutely pouring it down with rain.

Scott was nearly fifteen minutes earlier than our agreed time and there was only one other car in the car park. Scott assumed, being so early, that I hadn’t turned up yet so he just sat waiting in his car looking for someone else to arrive… but little did he know, I was in the other car!

So we were both sat there like melons waiting for each other, no phone signal and both of us thinking that we had been stood up.

Luckily, I had the common sense to tap on his window. Besides the heavy rain, an awkward hug (due to our oversized umbrellas getting in the way) and some of the comments Scott made, which made him come across as a ‘stupid city boy’, we actually had a good date.

Within just a few short months of that first eventful meeting, Scott and I were taking our first trip overseas together (to Vienna).

Throughout those early years, we kept up my dream of visiting three new places abroad each year, which saw us:

Trying skiing and husky sledding in Finland (where I totally showed off my prime set of clumsiness skills)
Relaxing on the beaches in Sardinia (where we had to walk on the road everywhere we went!)
Escaping to Amsterdam for a long weekend (where we may or may not have taken part in some mischievous activities whilst there; when in Rome and all that…)
Road-tripping around Cyprus for a week (where actually nothing went wrong)
And getting engaged in Iceland (where my first words were: “Are you joking?!”)

In early 2018, we chose to welcome our Rough Collie, Kai into our home. Although this meant slowing down our travelling days to begin with, it wasn’t long before we were back to our old ways…

Justine and Kai looking at Rhossili Beach

We travel as a couple around the UK and Europe and sometimes further afield, such as Asia and the US, while Kai currently joins us on all of our UK trips.

Many of our weekends are taken up with day trips and overnight stays around the UK, while we still make time for several longer trips each year without Kai, which has allowed us to spend Christmas in Brussels and have a rather greedy honeymoon in Singapore, Bali, Gili Meno and Dubai (yes, all during one trip!) Psst! We got married in Clevedon, England in case you’re wondering!

Did you know that Kai means “sea” in Hawaiian?
It’s safe to say that travel influences every single part of our lives…

Our Couples Travel Blog: Wanderers of the World

Justine and Scott kissing on the Bali Swing beds

Are you new around here? You might wanna check out our ‘Start Here’ page for all our top blogs and resources that totally deserve to be in your list of bookmarks…

So how did all of this collide to create Wanderers of the World?

It was actually Scott that first got the idea of travel blogging into our heads. He had been talking about it and how we should try it given how many places we’ve been to together. I just laughed off what he was saying. What did WE know about blogging?

But it was our trip to Hawaii that finally did it… all we wanted to do when we came home was tell everyone all about it and persuade others to go. And so without any knowledge of blogging or websites, we launched Wanderers of the World in late 2016 and have never once regretted that decision.

Wondering about the name? It’s simple really.
Justine’s mum called her ‘Wanderer’ after her solo trip to Paris and the name just kinda stuck… and is now forever immortalised on the interwebs.

We wanted to create a travel blog to show other full-time workers how they can travel outside of the 9-5… just like us!

We know all about how to make the most of day trips, weekend getaways and 1-2 week holidays despite the concerns and limitations that come with numbered annual leave days, work contracts and other life commitments.

With limited time to travel, it can take a lot of planning and research to ensure you’re getting the chance to see everything you want to and the best of a new place each time as you don’t necessarily know when you’ll be back again.

We do this planning and share it with you so you don’t have to. For each and every trip we take, we come back here and share top tips, detailed itineraries and oodles of inspiration with you – either to help you plan a trip you’ve always been meaning to take or that will entice you to visit somewhere you might never have thought of before.

We’re personally fans of mid-range travel. Hostels and backpacking aren’t really for us, and we rarely like to splurge on luxury hotels, which is mainly how we afford to travel as much as we do.

This means often staying in 3-star hotels (unless we’re travelling somewhere cheap like Bali!) and we’re never worried to rent somewhere a little further out of town in order to save on costs.

Justine and Scott at Taman Ayun Temple, Bali

Where we feel comfortable driving, we often embark on road trips so that we don’t have to splurge on expensive tours; while in cities, we rely on public transport like the metro, buses and trains, as well as our own two feet.

We’re also big fans of using travel hacks where we can. From using flight aggregators to find great deals, to changing our preferred destination based on flight and hotel costs, to even taking our own food to expensive countries, we’re always trying to find ways to make our mid-range budget go that little bit further.

We’ve learned a lot during our blogging journey, and it’s safe to say that if you’ve been with us since day one, then you would have noticed our blog change a lot over the years.

What began as a hobby has since evolved into a business. What once began as a way of remembering Justine’s solo adventures has evolved into a couples travel blog. And later to include some dog travel too.

Our blog has grown with us and our lives.

We hope you will be able to read and learn from our blog now, next year, ten years in the future and beyond. We’re on a journey and we can’t wait to meet you along the way on yours. To inspire you, to impart some of our wisdom and to laugh with you about the many travel fails and misadventures we make along the way… so you don’t have to.

So if you love the idea of reading travel blogs and seeing photos from just an average everyday couple (we’re hardly Instagram superstars!), who like to pack a lot into short trips and tell you how it really is, then we’re so blessed to have you here!

And thanks for reading until the end… you deserve some kind of medal. Or maybe you just really like us and want to be Instagram buddies? Yay friends!