Welcome to our first ever blog 🎉
We're so happy you stumbled upon here. As a travel first brand, we felt that starting a travel blog was the perfect avenue to showcase unique stories along with travel tips and tricks! We wanted to share experiences told by fellow travellers from around the globe, so that they can inspire our community to experience new adventures, connect with people, and discover unique places.
First up are Chris and Nicole (@chrisandnicole__). Based in Ontario, Canada, Chris and Nicole are currently in the process of converting a sprinter van into a camper! They plan to hit the road to explore the country this summer with their husky, Keno.
What inspired you to start travelling?
We have both travelled growing up with our families so it has always been something we both loved and valued prior to meeting. When we met 8 years ago, two of the big things that connected us was travelling both locally and abroad as well as photography.
Being able to explore different places both similar and very different from Canada intrigued us. We really try to connect with locals to see the beauty of each place from a local perspective, from eating the local food and seeing local landmarks. This has lead us to being able to experience some of the most incredible things on our adventures.
What's your dream travel destination?
We have a few dream destinations we cannot wait to explore someday soon! They are New Zealand, Norway, Antarctica + Greenland!
What are your travel essentials that you absolutely need to bring with you?
Our travel essentials that join us on every trip are:
- Our camera gear!
- Lifestraw water bottles for safe drinking water everywhere
- Snapdri towels for both us and Keno as someone is always wet or muddy on our adventures!
- Hiking Boots
- Headlamps for exploring early in the morning + late at night
What's one of your most memorable travel stories?
We were travelling to Banff and it was one of those days apparently nothing was going to go the way we planned. We hit traffic on the way driving to the airport, we missed the train to take us to the terminal and by the time we got to the bag drop area, the baggage drop for our flight had closed 2 minutes prior. So we were trying to see if we could get an acceptance to get the bags on the flight or get shifted onto the flight an hour later.
While we were waiting in line to speak to an agent Chris’ iPad disappeared. It was sitting on the top of his bag and he had just used it! We had find my phone turned on so Chris immediately began pinging it and we could hear it go towards the security line. Chris immediately began running towards the security gate to go through security and try to find it while Nicole dealt with the flight timing + bag drop. We were not successful in finding the iPad anywhere in Pearson Airport and Chris was truly heartbroken but determined to figure out what to do. As we were sitting at the gate waiting to board our flight, the person that had taken Chris’ iPad had never turned it off so we could see its location. However it looked like it had already boarded a plane. We watched the iPad taxi down the runway and then the service cut off once the plane took off.
We were more just interested at that point on where the iPad would land if the person kept it on. Once we landed in Calgary, Alberta we turned back on our phones to see the iPad had landed in Halifax, Nova Scotia and was travelling down the highway!! We called our friend who is a police officer in Ontario and asked if they would be able to help. They connected us with a local RCMP officer in the Halifax area and they were ready to help us once the iPad stopped moving.
We followed the iPad on an hour journey to the outskirts of Halifax, watched it stop at a Subway likely for the person to get lunch and then to their home. Find my phone is so accurate we could see the house, looked it up on Google Maps and then gave the RCMP officer the address and they were off. Within an hour we had a call that they had the person hand over the iPad and it was on its way back to the police station to be shipped home to us!! When we got home from our vacation in Banff, Chris’ iPad was waiting for him at his office (so it wouldn’t sit on our front doorstep and possibly get stolen again!). We were overjoyed and truly cannot believe we got the iPad back!
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