Who are we?

We are John and Clare, based in Northumberland, England and we both love to travel, or at least we did until the pandemic hit and everyone became home based.

Clare writes the blog. John provides creative consultancy. 😀

This blog was started not only from an optimistic point of view and also to highlight that there are many routes to happiness – travel and visiting other countries just happens to makes us happy!

About the site:

Places and Spaces – blog posts about places we have visited or are planning to.

When in doubt, walk – as we enjoy walking holidays, this is all about walking and hiking.

Routology – blog posts about experiences on archaeological and palaeontological related places including the occasional digs

There is a bit of something for everyone who is curious about the world – hikers, regular city breakers, amateur palaeontologists / archaeologists or just anyone who wants a travel experience through our eyes (which by the way can be very amusing sometimes!)

We hope that you will find a route of happiness by being inspired by some of our travels!

For some background, I was born and raised in South Africa. Before moving to the UK in 2007, I worked in the hotel industry in Port Elizabeth for a couple of years which eventually led to 7 fantastic years working at Shamwari Game Reserve – a 5 star game reserve in the Eastern Cape region – doing a bit of everything: day visitor and lodge management, reservations and finance. I learnt a lot not only about animals, birds and plants from the game rangers but also how the travel industry works. Besides, it was a good place to have a bad day!

I was also once a registered tour guide for the Eastern Cape and the city of Port Elizabeth. (but I haven’t paid my registration fees to the South African Tourism Board (SATOUR) for over 10 years so probably no longer legal LOL).

And to top it off, I also have a Bachelor of Arts degree in Archaeology 🙂

Hope you enjoy reading our blog 🙂