About Us

Long before it became a travel blog, BOLD TRAVELLERS was a pipe dream. Our aspirations were simple, to explore beautiful, wild, and exotic places wherever, whenever and however we could.

Fuelled by a thirst for adventure and a passion for diverse cultures and exciting wildlife, we were keen for sure, but dreaming is free whereas travelling the globe jolly well isn’t!

So we both became PADI certified and took up jobs as recreational scuba diving instructors, a career choice openly advertised as “living the dream”.

At the risk of sounding cliché, “live the dream” we did! Work enabled us to visit exclusive destinations and to experience first hand what others typically pay good coin for. It exposed us to the exciting world of seriously cool diving gear, exhilarating marine wildlife encounters and epic underwater adventures such as shipwreck diving.

As an added bonus, scuba diving was highly compatible with one of our other great passions, photography. Not only did it open a fascinating avenue to explore newfound possibilities in photography, but we were actually encouraged to promote underwater photography as an option to our students.

Another significant benefit of working in the adventure tourism sector was how it introduced us to a huge community of avid travellers. These are the kind of folk to whom the open road is common ground. Individuals who share a passion for wanderlust and a fundamental appreciation of the great outdoors.

On a personal level, teaching scuba diving was its own reward. Helping people overcome their inhibitions by guiding them towards achieving their diving goals is an extremely gratifying journey. Sharing your experience can be perceived as valuable by others and allows you to connect with them more meaningfully. You never forget the first time you hand a proud student their PADI diving licence and in doing so, open up a doorway to exciting new possibilities.

Educating students about environmental awareness goes hand in glove with teaching diving and, altogether, this gave an even deeper sense of purpose to our work. To be an ambassador of the aquatic world and to effect positive change in people’s hearts and minds was a real privilege as much as it was our responsibility.

So why is any of this even relevant? And how does it all relate back to travel blogging?

Well, it turns out that a travel blog has a lot in common with what we valued in our work:

For sure, SCUBA diving also brought us closer to our dream, but the world is huge and infinitely beautiful. We owe it to ourselves to see as much of it as we possibly can, and diving could only take us so far. To go further, we needed a new vehicle, one that was able to accommodate all of our previous experiences, one that would make room for new adventures and enable us to share these with our community.

That’s how BOLD TRAVELLERS blog was born, and essentially that’s what we’re about.

Now, if you’ll allow one small digression? There’s another really important reason why SCUBA diving is so special to us! It’s how we first met each other!

With that said, it’s time for you to meet the Bold Travellers team 🙂

Ever since family vacations introduced me to travelling, I’ve been hooked. Cruising down the mighty Nile river to be awed by the great pyramids, struck a chord that my conventional life never could. Not just the aesthetic beauty I saw abroad, but also the cultural diversity inspired me beyond anything that was taught at school.

Participation in student exchange programs quickly made it clear that languages were the key to unlocking a more international lifestyle, and so I developed a passion for them. By the time I turned eighteen, I had English and Italian firmly under my belt, and was champing at the bit to get out there and explore.

Becoming a SCUBA instructor was a fairly natural progression. My brother and I had been introduced to diving at an early age, a profound experience that was destined to change my life. Years later, on a live-aboard safari in the Maldives, the notion that SCUBA diving would be my ticket to adventure, became firmly cemented in my mind.

My first gig as a SCUBA instructor took me halfway around the world and within two short years of moving to South America, I was able to speak Spanish.

In the process I visited a heap of exciting new places, got to dive with incredible marine wildlife, met a host of interesting people, explored underwater caves and immersed myself in the Mexican culture and cuisine. I was ecstatic and truly felt I had made it!

In reality, it was just the start 🙂

Today I can count German amongst the languages I’ve learned, and I now have my sights firmly set on learning French. As for all those amazing places and adventures that life has taken me… keep reading our BOLD TRAVELLERS blog to experience them with us!

I’ve never quite managed to arrange my life according to some popular notion of social security. The 9 to 5 job, the house, the car, the wide screen TV… My free spirit just never seemed to want to fit inside that particular box. Don’t get me wrong, I did try very hard to conform, but the harder I tried, the less happy I felt about it.

I grew up in South Africa, on the east coast, and as a kid I was never to be found indoors. I loved the ocean, the bush and practically any wild space that wasn’t a classroom 🙂

Growing older, I also turned to books as a form of escapism. They opened up a window to a world of exciting travels, and exploration. Tales of exotic destinations drew me in like a moth to a flame and left me longing to someday live my own adventures.

Just two days after writing my final exams, I moved to Europe, where I spent eight years trying to figure out a relatively “normal” life for myself. It was a half-hearted effort at best, and I always felt that something fundamental was missing. In hindsight, I understand that what I had lost was my connection to the natural world and the freedom to explore the wild places.

What finally convinced me to step out of my bubble and pursue my dream, was a blog article, much like the one you’re reading now. I stumbled across it whilst browsing through the blog section of a dive center website. It was a simple testimonial, written by a college student who had earned his diving instructor license during a gap year and who now travelled the world teaching diving.

Now THAT was a notion that I could definitely subscribe to!

Six months later, I had quit my 9 to 5 job and was chilling on a boat in Thailand… and I’ve never looked back since! My diving career has taken me to places that I only ever dreamed of visiting and, it enabled me to explore one of the last truly wild frontiers on earth, the oceans.

It really humbles me to think that, by sharing their story, someone helped me find the beginning to my own.

Now, as my journey continues in this new direction, I sincerely hope that our BOLD TRAVELLERS Blog, will help others to find inspiration and encouragement. Keep reading to see if that person is you!