Hey There!
We're Geoff and Katie Matthews, two Canadians in our thirties who quit our jobs, sold our stuff, and set out to see the world. Now we live nomadically, travelling the world and making travel videos & travel-themed coloring books for grown-ups, but it wasn't always that way...Let's Start at the Beginning, Shall We?
We met in 2005 at The Lighthouse, a Canadian bar in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, where we lived teaching English (Geoff) and studying Chinese (Katie). Save for a one week break-up over Chinese New Year, we quickly became inseparable, and when Katie was offered a dream job in Calgary, Canada — the same city Geoff happened to be from — it seemed like a sign: we traded our expat ways for corporate life in Canada. We lived in Calgary from 2006 until 2009, living pretty normal lives that included a destination wedding in Mexico’s Mayan Riviera in 2008, completing a graduate degree, getting promotions and buying a house. Although the times were good financially, and we more or less enjoyed our jobs, Calgary never really felt like our forever home, and we talked frequently about becoming expats or travellers again, one day.
Read: Why We Quit Our Jobs to Travel
In 2009, We Took The Plunge...
We sold our house in the suburbs, 2 cars, and most of our stuff, before packing up our Taiwanese street cat Hong Bao to go live with Grandma (aka: Katie's Mom)
And We Took Off to South America...With No Plan As To How Long We'd Be Gone
Starting in Bogota, Colombia, we traveled south through Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay, blogging about our experiences on our first blog, Tales from the Hao Life (‘hao’ means good in Mandarin Chinese).
Highlights of that trip included seeing Lonesome George on the Galapagos Islands, cruising on Lake Titicaca, and crossing the Bolivian Salt Flats. Geoff fulfilled his dream of seeing a football (soccer) match live in Latin American, and Katie tried to conquer her fear of heights by paragliding off the cliffs of Miraflores in Lima, Peru.
After we were finished with South America, and running low on money, we went back to the tropical island on which we’d met, and still loved: Taiwan.
Read: That Time Geoff Got Deported from Taiwan
In 2012, We Started Wandertooth to Chronicle Our Travels...
Wandertooth is a noun – you know, like a person, place, or thing. In this case, it’s a thing. Like a sweet tooth, only with travely goodness instead of sugary goodness. It’s a fondness or desire for wandering or travel; an unquenchable desire; a craving that — once satisfied — only leaves you salivating and depressed and desperate for more.We Didn't Realize it At the Time, But...
This blog has changed our lives. We’ve met some of the most amazing people through blogging, gaining new friends from around the world. We’ve also realized the incredible power of travel to open minds, create connections, and build a less fragmented and segregated world. We know it’s a privilege to live as we do.
We’ve also built it into a full-time business, combining freelance writing, this blog, our travel videos, and travel-themed coloring books (yes – you read that right).
Now, we travel the world and make adult coloring books created from our travel experiences, having out best photographs hand-traced, to create colorables from real life scenes across the planet!
Shop: Get Our Coloring Books Here
If you want to get to know us better...
some of our favourite posts are a good place to start:Why We Quit Our Jobs to Travel
A little on our life of Voluntary Homelessness, and the places we’ve hung our hats over the years
Katie’s thoughts about getting older when she turned Thirty-Five
What we really think about travelling the world, working as freelancers
10 Awesome Lessons After 2 Years of Full-Time Travel
Why we think travel matters for the world