Travel Inspiration: a Chat with Goats on the Road

Can you look back and say when you first made the decision to travel more? Who or what was your major travel inspiration to pack your bags and head off?

We don’t have to think about it for too long to say that the Canadian couple Nick and Dariece were our big travel inspiration.

When we made the big decision to leave London behind way back in 2015, we searched for information on the cost of living in SE Asia. This is when we came across the superb Goats on the Road travel blog.

We soon got into the habit of watching their GoatLifeTV videos while eating dinner and still do that till this day! It was their approach to travel and work lifestyle and the fact that they actually made it happen that inspired us to get going.

After more than a year of following the Goats on the Road online, we were presented with the opportunity to work with the Goats! We won’t lie, we did a happy dance in our apartment in Bangkok!

For us, this has been an incredible experience and a massive learning curve in the world of travel blogging. The opportunity to see behind the scenes of their top 50 travel blog was absolutely invaluable.

So, with all that travel inspiration in mind, we came up with a few quirky questions that would be interesting for the Goats to answer and for your (and us) to read!

Travel Inspiration: A Chat with the Goats

Your map of the world is pretty well filled in but what’s the one destination you’ve always wanted to visit, but haven’t yet?

This question is really easy actually. For me, I want to visit Madagascar and for Nick, it’s Japan. Hoping to check out Japan later on this year, but not sure about when we’ll get back to Africa.

You’ve spent a lot of time on the Caribbean island of Grenada in the past few years. Is there a place you have visited which you could easily call home?

Ah, Grenada. A country that I think about often. You’re right, in total we’ve spent 1.5 years there as house-sitters and pet-sitters for two different sets of homes/dogs. Living and travelling in Grenada was an incredible time for us and although we’re not returning this year, we might be heading that way next year.

Grenada is the place that we could easily call home.

We could also see ourselves living in Mexico or Greece…but we don’t have plans to put down any permanent roots.

Now you are fully fledged Digital Nomad superstars, what’s your next big goal in life?

Well, we’ve never really thought of ourselves as Digital Nomad superstars! Haha, thanks guys! Our goal is always to continue to live a freedom filled lifestyle and we’re so grateful that we’ve been able to turn our passion for travel into a career.

We’re constantly looking for ways to excel as travel bloggers / destination marketers, and will continue to do so. We’ll be focusing more on our YouTube videos in the coming months – we’ve just purchased another drone! We also want to make sure that we always have a good travel – work balance in our lives, something that got a bit out of whack recently (too much travel, not enough work!)

We can see from your GoatLifeTV videos that you enjoy a drink or two! So, which famous folks, dead or alive, would you love to share a drink or two with?

LOL, it’s true, we do love a drink or two…

We’d love to have a beer with the guys from Departures. This is a Canadian travel show that started back in 2008. I think there are three seasons of it. Basically, Scott, Justin and Andre quit their jobs for a year to travel the world and document it. This was a HUGE reason why Nick and I also quit our jobs in 2008 to travel the world for a year…which ultimately turned into a lifestyle.

With your life of continual travel and blogging what inspires you to keep on going?

Our love for being totally free from the norm is what keeps us going. We live an unconventional lifestyle, but it works for us and we wouldn’t have it any other way. We cannot see ourselves going back to a 9-5, we have no plans for kids and we don’t see ourselves having a home (again).

Plus, we love learning about new cultures and seeing new destinations. Travel has been our life since 2008 and nothing about that has changed. So, wanting to be totally free from routine and the “norm” keeps us going. Plus, we just love travelling!

When thinking about your next trip, what are your top tools for travel planning?

For us, when trying to decide where to go, we just think about what we feel like doing. Do we want the mountains? City life? Beaches? More of a western feel? More third world / developing? etc.

Last year, having spent 2 years in tropical countries, we were craving city life, western lifestyle and cooler climate. So, we set off to Central and Eastern Europe. This year, we figured it was time we finally set foot on South American soil and were feeling like trekking and the mountains, which is why we spent 5 months in South America.

Sometimes trips come to us, like the recent trip we did where we marked a new trekking route around the Village of Jyrgalan in Kyrgyzstan.

Our planning and decisions about where we go are totally random and more often than not, last minute.

Once we’ve figured out where to go, we consult travel blogs for details and advice, we book rooms with Booking.com, and search for flights on Kayak.com and Google Flights.

Imagine that you’ve hired a pedalo, got a little tipsy and gone way too far! You’ve become stranded on a remote desert island, what’s the one piece of travel kit you couldn’t live without?

Knife! That way, Nick could spearfish and we could easily crack into coconuts to keep hydrated.

Being so active in the online travel community, are there any other travel blogs you’d recommend checking out?

Besides yours? 😉

Yes, we always consult travel blogs and there are many great ones out there. Some faves that I read quite often are:

Be My Travel Muse – adventure, solo female
Neverending Voyage – digital nomad lifestyle
NOMADasaurus – adventure travel, couple

…there are so many more, but I can’t think of them right now!