About the Bakers

A Kiwi & Canadian married couple who love travel
 

We’re Matt & Dayna, a married couple who love travel and would really like to find a way to do it permanently. We share stories of our travels and what’s going on in our daily lives with our latest adventure being our first child due in late 2016.

We share ALL aspects of our travels – from the amazing pictures and stories that make you want to book flights yourself to all the mishaps and misadventures like getting lost or sitting in poop. We prefer to be honest and when we are underwhelmed with a place, we say it. So far we’ve just been a travelling duo but we’re excited to try out this new world of family travel some day soon! (even if it means a big change in pace from before)

Want to know who we are, how we met or our story so far? Read on below…

If you’re more interested in our posts and what you can find on this site, check out our Start Here page.

Who We Are

Originally from New Zealand.

Loves: dogs, watching sunsets and Dayna’s crazy chicken laugh.

Hates: long haul travel, airplane food & dealing with pointless rules and bureaucracy

His top 3 trips: Honeymoon in the Maldives, a Trek America trip across the USA and our 2 month trip around Southeast Asia in 2012

Dream trip: Hanging out with Penguins in Antarctica

Originally from Canada.

Loves: sharks, eggnog lattes, and the way Matt sings when he sneezes.

Hates: Walking through tourist filled areas, mornings, and April from Grey’s Anatomy.

Her top 3 trips: Our Road Trip around Iceland, Honeymoon in the Maldives, and seeing the Northern Lights in Norway.

Dream trip: Cage Diving with Great White sharks in Cape Town, South Africa

How We Met

15124029237_6f32b9b955_oWe met in Wellington late one evening in November 2006 when Dayna was backpacking around New Zealand and came into the bar that Matt was working at as a bartender (Dayna was one of those annoying customers who complained about the cost of a round of drinks!).

Not knowing where things would lead, we kept in touch via email and eventually facebook for about a year (can’t believe we met back BEFORE we had facebook!) and got to know each other enough for Dayna to make a trip to San Diego to visit Matt who was spending his last semester of university abroad at UCSD.

Matt then had a month long stay with Dayna in Canada (where, as a broke recent graduate, he proceeded to live off Dayna’s boxes of Kraft dinner).

It was there we decided to try make it work and 8 months later Dayna moved to Wellington in 2008 to live with Matt.

A Bit of History…

Matt and Dayna Eating Chimney CakesTogether, we moved to London in June 2012 after spending two months travelling around Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand.

After getting set up with a flat and jobs, we immediately started booking trips around Europe. It was during our trip to Reims, France that year that we got engaged!

Unsurprisingly given our love of our travel, we used our wedding as an excuse to travel around for a month starting in Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon, then a road trip from Calgary to Vancouver, and finally got hitched at the beautiful Merridale Cider Estate in Cobble Hill, BC on August 21, 2014.

It was a beautiful day surrounded by our family and friends from all over the globe. We then continued to Niagara Falls and New York for our ‘honeymoon’ before returning to London. We also got in a second delayed “proper” honeymoon in the Maldives in June 2015.

Deciding to Travel the World Full Time

After 3 years of living and working in London whilst travelling as much as we could, we had a bit of an epiphany. We realised life is short and we would regret it if we never tried to make our dream life of freedom, doing work we love and long term travel a reality.

“One day you will wake up and there won’t be any more time to do the things you’ve always wanted. Do it now.”
– Paulo Coelho

We are happiest when travelling, discovering new places, working hard at things we’re passionate about, and being creative. The internet means we can work from anywhere now so why not try figure out a way to just keep going?

So that’s exactly what we’re doing we tried to do until Dayna got pregnant.

You can read all about our decision to quit our jobs and head off travelling around the world in our Big Announcement post here. Or how everything changed when Dayna got pregnant straight away.

After finding out Dayna was pregnant our plans took a bit of a detour and are still evolving today. We kept on travelling right up until we were having awkward conversations with airline staff to get Dayna on to planes. After a month of housesitting in Russell (in NZ), we’ve arrived back in our old home in Wellington to settle down for a bit to have a baby and then see where life takes us. We can’t wait to go on some adventures eventually but after spending 9 months living out of a suitcase, we’re really enjoying having a home base again.

So please leave comments, ask questions, and give us tips or just say Hi!