About Us
Who Are We?
Windji is a chiropractor and a teacher from Toronto, Canada who decided to put their lives on hold for a year to see the world!
Currently, we have travelled to 39 countries together (in alpha order: Antarctica, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Dominican Republic, England, Falkland Islands, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Namibia, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Rwanda, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, United States and Uruguay) and hope to continue growing this number!
Our Travel Style
What is our priority?
When deciding on where to travel and what to see, we often have to ask ourselves the question: What is our greatest priority? Is it to see as much of the great outdoors as we can or to navigate big cities, getting to know them inside and out?
With us, it is a combination of both, to a degree. Neither of us are big “outdoorsy” people, but we still enjoy hiking, seeing beautiful landscapes, and being outdoors. We prefer “glamping” over camping, but would camp if the situation required us to. Spending a few hours or a day outside with good weather and bathroom facilities is how we like to do it! We only take organized tours if it makes financial sense or is somewhere we can not access otherwise.
Exploring cities on foot
We love exploring cities by foot and local transit and visiting different neighbourhoods. We try to blend in as much as we can so we can experience a city as the locals would.
Our love affair with food
Although we are far from being “foodies”, one of our favourite things to do while travelling is sampling local cuisine. To us, grocery shopping in different countries is exciting, as we navigate the shelves finding unique items. Depending on the country, we like to cook at home with local ingredients, but will enjoy occasional meals, drinks and coffee out as well.
Spending money
We are sensible with our money, but not so frugal that we would miss out on good experiences.
We like to have flights and hotels booked in advance, primarily for financial reasons (it’s often much cheaper to book months in advance!) and also for planning purposes. We search for good prices and book our travel around that accordingly. We maintain a fairly mid-range budget compared to travellers overall.
Our preferred accommodations
Our year abroad will mostly be enjoyed in AirBnBs, with occasional hostels and luxury hotels thrown in the mix.
Planning long trips
One of Shaleen’s passions is researching travel and is always five steps ahead of Corey in that regard. However, we easily come to a consensus and spend very little (if any) time arguing about itineraries. We are a great travel (and life) team, and complement each other’s strengths well! At any given time Shaleen has five itineraries for five different countries that she has never been to!
How we can afford to travel for so long
We can afford to travel the way we do by prioritizing, being smart and working hard. We both worked two jobs for many years and invested as much of our disposable income as possible in high interest earning accounts. We limit the amount of money we spend on physical items, and rather spend our hard-earned money on experiences and travel.
Our blog
Our blog was created mostly to reflect on our own travels, to keep in touch with family and friends and to provide guidance for others based on things we have learned in each place. We do not subscribe to a “thou must do everything that we do” philosophy. With that said, we do hope that some information will be useful for others to use during their own travels!
Conclusion
They say that you do not totally know if someone is right for you until you travel with them. Since 2007, we have complimented each other perfectly and grown together as a couple. Although we are far from perfect travellers, we feel that we travel sensibly and affordably (for the most part). We try to learn from our mistakes and read a lot of blogs for inspiration before we visit a new place.
We are lucky to say that we have never lost our passports (or important travel documents), never been robbed and never had any major medical issues in our 10+ years of traveling together!
Knock on wood.