We are Francis and Frances.
Believe it or not, our real names are Francis Anthony and Frances Nicola. We often get asked by airport crew whenever we travel if we are brothers and sisters, or cousins. Nope, we kiss! :) We are husband and wife, who share the same passion for traveling, and coincidentally have almost the same first names!
We met in Wellington, New Zealand in 2009, started traveling together in 2010 and have since lived together in 4 countries and traveled to 26 different countries. We have our day jobs and have actually only recently started blogging (9 years later in 2019) to share our travel experiences and tips we learned along the way. We hope to inspire family and friends to also explore the world themselves.
Hello, I'm Francis.
I was born in Bontoc, Philippines and have pursued a career in Structural Engineering. I left the Philippines when I was 22, a few months after graduating university to work and live in the Middle East for the next 3 years, moving from Saudi Arabia to Qatar and finally to Abu Dhabi.
I then moved back to the Asia Pacific, to live in Wellington, New Zealand when I was 25 where I would eventually meet Frances (whom I call Nicola) who would later be my wife. After living in New Zealand for about 7 years, I moved back with Frances to the Middle East to live in Dubai, UAE for a couple of years. Yes, I not only have the travel bug, I just can't seem to stay put and settle in one country for a long time!
I am now currently based in Sydney, Australia and enjoying it. I'm still in the same industry of Structures and high-rise buildings. I also still have the travel bug and find time to escape the country for a holiday twice or so a year!
Photo taken at the Stonehenge, United Kingdom during a trip with Trafalgar back in 2017
And, I'm Frances...
Photo taken at Mykonos, Greece during our group with AFC Holidays back in 2015
Everyone in my family and about 99% of my friends call me by my second name, Nicola. I have two first names but I grew up not using my real first name for a reason I can't remember. I grew up in Leyte, Philippines and have always been fond of programming, thanks to my mum who also has a Software Developer background.
I moved to Wellington, New Zealand with family when I was 17, where I finished a degree of Computer Science a couple of years later. I met Francis in my last year of university, whom I dated for about 5 years. We got married and decided to start a life together in Dubai in 2015, which made it easy for us to frequently travel to Europe with it being a travel hub.
I have developed this website for us to be able to document our travels, and Francis has diligently put together the content as well as the photos of our previous travels. I hope you find the website useful and inspiring!
4
Continents
26
Countries
75
Cities
10