Hello and welcome!!

We don't really know what we're doing

Well... We have to start somewhere I suppose. 

We've talked about starting a blog a few times - mostly for our parent's sanity (so hello to any family reading this - hello and thank you, and apologies in advance because this is unlikely to stay so completely up to date, if you are worried about our safety we are more than likely fine so please relax). Not only for this but also for somewhere that we can record all of the things that we see, do and experience while we are in South America. Because as the saying goes, if a tree falls in the forest and nobody saw it, does it actually make a sound? Or in our case - if we travel around the planet and don't describe it somewhere, did we actually do anything at all? 

I know that people have travelled plenty before without the need or desire to write about it or share it with the world, and when I have travelled previously I have always thought that I was far too cool to write a travel blog. But now that it's both of us (and Nick is developing his photography skills) we think it's a good enough opportunity to mix and match both to create some sort of blog, or at least some sort of space where we can let our thoughts out about each destination, post some of the best photographs (which will inevitably be mostly of me because Nick doesn't like getting in front of the camera, only behind it), and create some sort of story for us to look back on. 

Venturing off auto

The name was Nick's idea. He's been interested in photography for the last few years but it's only in the last 6-12 months where the passion has taken off. He's done some photography classes and is mostly self-taught, but primarily his focus and desire is about learning the functionality of the camera so as not to always (or ever) be using the 'automatic' settings whereby the camera is doing everything. So he's learned all about ISO and XXXX and XXXX and while I don't know anything about it I'm delighted that he has something that he is so invested and interested in. Plus, the photos are great and additionally it means that our once-in-a-lifetime trip around the world will at least be photographed incredibly. I don't think our phone cameras are up to it personally. 

Plus, I like that "venturing off auto" doesn't have to just be the automatic feature of a camera. When he initially suggested the idea I thought he meant venturing off autopilot. In that, while we've been living our lives in London we've been going through the motions. Wake up, get dressed, work, cook dinner, see friends, go to bed, wake up... An ongoing repetition that is daily life. Autopilot. By embarking on our overseas experience we are turning off autopilot and have to be committed to seizing each day as it comes, because what's the point of being away if we are still going through the motions? 

So here we are. Venturing off auto. 

Here's to the rest of our lives.