We are the Curly Explorers. Gareth (me), Nadia and our two sons Laith and Aden.
OK, so I’m not curly, but the democratic vote from the family decided on the name!
We’re a family of four from the UK with a passion for travel, adventure and exploration.
We’ve travelled in various ways over the years; budget, luxury, short term, long term, family, couple and solo! With our biggest adventure being our attempted 2 Year Family Round-The-World Trip!
We say attempted, as we had to cut this short when the Coronavirus Pandemic took hold of the world. So we headed back to the UK, took stock for a while and now travel in a slightly different way.
We decided to add a fifth member to the Curly Explorers… our Toyota Hiace Campervan ‘Shredder’ (named by the kids!).
During the pandemic we did a lot of self-contained, domestic travel. Enjoying all the beautiful offerings the UK has hidden away.
Since the pandemic calmed down, we’ve got back into international travel again. But we now tend to spend longer durations in each country we hit. Really trying to submerge ourselves in the culture and experiences a country can offer.
We still head back to the UK regularly to take more adventures in Shredder. Whilst also spending time in our home (and one of the best!) city Liverpool.
Our travel addiction goes a long way back, even before our Round-The-World Trip and our adventures in the Shredder, we had been on many adventures both collectively and separately.
Nadia is by far the most experienced traveller, having been on many solo trips and having a variety of experiences.
Travelling overland and camping through East Africa for three weeks, nursing in Sri Lanka for a month and teaching in India for three weeks are just a few. She spent around two years living in Yemen as a child, before returning to the UK. So has experienced deep cultural shifts from a very early age.
She’s also been on a number of trips with just herself and our eldest. They travelled around Morocco for two weeks together when Laith was 3 and also Thailand for two weeks (before I joined them later).
So it’s safe to say not much phases Nadia and her travel philosophy would be one of throwing caution to the wind and just going with it!
Laith is our second most experienced, having travelled with his mum and with both of us on many adventures.
He loves nature and animals so his ideal travel style is heading to remote areas and enjoying what the natural world can offer us and trying to spot animals on safari in their natural habitat.
This is why he especially loved our five weeks around New Zealand in a campervan, due to the freedom it gave us to explore the remote areas that are not so possible when travelling via public transport and staying in static accommodation.
Aden then came into our travel gang a little later, but at a very young age he already has a vast experience in travel with over 20 countries and 5 continents under his belt.
He’s certainly a lot different to his older brother and has an energy that keeps us on our toes. He also has the ability to adapt incredibly quickly to our ever moving life style (as most kids do).
The simple things please him and he loves a good playground and has certainly had a good sample set from around the world now, he was blown away by the playgrounds in Malaysia!
Finally there’s me, I’m definitely the most cautious traveller of the group.
I like a plan and some organisation as we go. But since travelling with Nadia I’ve managed to relax my outlook a lot (even though the rest of the family still say I overthink things) and the balance we have works quite well (most of the time!).
So as individuals we’re all very different, but one thing we all share is our love for travelling.
For us, it’s not just exploring the world, but also the adventure of our family development.
This is both one of the best, but also hardest things we’ve found in travelling.
Being together almost constantly, often in small pokie accommodation certainly takes it’s toll and can be challenging.
But we also feel incredibly privileged to have been able to sculpt our life into a way that has meant we’ve been able to spend so much quality time together whilst experiencing so many amazing adventures as a family.
So we decided that as we had created so many memories and stories that we wanted to document it on this website.
This is a great way for us to be able to look back on these times and remember how lucky we were.
It also gives us the chance to give advice and help to anyone who is thinking of going on similar adventures, even if it is what not to do!
Where to Next?