We are a English/Australian couple travelling together for …erm um well…its complicated. We initially met in Vietnam in 2012 and travelled together for 3 weeks before I (Ruth) had to return home to the normality of my life in England. After 6 months of sporadic contact we decided we had still had enough interest in each other to travel together. During that 6 months Matt continued to travel through Asia, The middle East and then ended up in England. So it is now February and that was June. Our trip started with a £50 flight to Amsterdam and no plan whatsover, not even a bed for the night. That was pretty much how things went for the next 3 months. When in The Netherlands we hitched a ride and realised we had just travelled 100kms FOR FREE, so over the next few months we developed a mutual love for being tight arses through hitching lifts, couchsurfing, camping and cooking on what was little more than a trangia and living on a budget that averaged about €13 a day. Before we realised, we had made it all the way to Istanbul completing our 5000km hitch hiking journey.
The next leg of our trip took us back to the start where we met, Asia. This brought us to December and after 15 months of Matt travelling (with 2 short breaks in between ) it was time for him to ‘pop’ home to see the family and friends for Christmas before we started our road trip of the east coast of Australia. During the road trip we stumbled upon a video made by a guy named Casey Neistat, an American film director, producer and youtube sensation. Casey was approached by 20th Century Fox to make a promotional video for one of their movies, instead he asked if he could take the entire budget to the philippines and use it for the relief efforts (check the vid here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jU7rhVub0rU ). It was after watching this video that we decided we should do something more then just simply travel.
Fast forward a few weeks and on Sunday 16th February we’re heading to the Philippines to volunteer with the relief efforts. We will be arriving in Manilla on Monday morning then come Wednesday we fly to the devastated city of Tacloban where we will be spending the next 6 weeks. We have also started an online fundraising drive to raise money for the organisation who we will be volunteering with, which will be posted on this blog shortly.
Hopefully we can find the time to keep this blog updated with our journey in the Philippines. If you would like more information on anything we’re doing, including how to donate to the cause don’t hesitate.
Philippines Typhoon Relief 