Talking Travel with Inspiring Travellers (JohnAndrea)
21.07.2011
In July's Talking Travel we chat to Andrea and John Spirov of InspiringTravellers.com (JohnAndrea), a self-described "couple of nomadic thirtysomethings currently travelling the world full-time".
John and Andrea Spirov in Torres del Paine in Chile
How did you guys meet?
John was at the very end of two years of work and travel in Europe and had returned to a tiny little town at the bottom of Crete called Plakias. Andrea was visiting the same hostel with some friends from New York and we ended up in the same dorm room. We still find it incredible that we found each other there because the place is so remote.
We've been drooling over your mapped trip on Travellerspoint – what does your itinerary look like for the rest of 2011?
We've added Colombia to our itinerary and are looking forward to a couple of weeks there before we head to Europe. We're planning 10 days in Portugal, three weeks in Ireland, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, a month in Croatia and almost three months in Central and Eastern Europe. In December we'll head to Japan.
How do you stay connected so you can blog on the road - especially in remote and developing locations?
We travel with a netbook and have found wireless internet to be pretty universal. We were able to stay connected even in some of the smaller towns in Bolivia. It's interesting how internet is a priority in developing countries - we see more internet cafes in South America than in Australia and parts of the US.
What advice would you give to someone wanting to travel around the world for a year?
If it's something you've been wanting to do, just plan it and go. Many people get weighed down with concerns about what friends and family will think or whether their career will be affected. Many employers today are sabbatical-friendly and travel can provide knowledge and skills that are invaluable in the workplace. We also recommend that you stay flexible. You may plan to visit several specific places but then discover that you love one part of the world so much that you want to spend most of your time there.
We meet you at the Travel Massive (formerly Travel Tribe) Christmas meetup in Melbourne. What did you think of the event and how important is connecting to a community while travelling?
We really enjoyed the event. It's always great to catch up with fellow travellers and having such a nice mix of bloggers, industry professionals and travel enthusiasts made for some very interesting conversations. We feel very connected to the travel community through our blog and have been fortunate enough to catch up with heaps of incredible people that we already felt like we "knew" from online. It's so fantastic to arrive in a city and meet up with someone to show us around the city or get together for a drink. We're always happy to do the same for fellow travellers when we're living in one place.
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If you'd like to check out more of John and Andrea's inspiring content, visit their site or find them on Twitter and Facebook.
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Check out these recent interviews in the Talking Travel series:
Talking Travel with Andre Frieden
Talking Travel with Vagamos
Talking Travel with Tracey (TTG)
Talking Travel with Zero Dean
Talking Travel with Vicki Hatfield
Posted by katekendall 10:05 Tagged people photography talking talkingtravel interviews Comments (4)
