Hello friends, Lowri here! And welcome again to our travel and food blog. This is where you can learn a bit more about us.
We are Lowri & Rhys, aka the ‘Jacks‘.
Why Jacks? The term pays homage to our Welsh roots and amazingly stems from a local hero dog. Jack, a black lab, recused 20 people from drowning in Swansea docks in the 1930s! Literally, the people of Swansea are nicknamed after a dog. Awesome, right!?
Anyway, a bit more about us…
Early days
Rhys and I grew up barely a few miles apart, both lucky and privileged to call Wales’ Gower Peninsular home. Surrounded by fields, woods, valleys and some of the best beaches in the world, it was easy to develop a love for the great outdoors.
Despite going to the same school and sharing numerous mutual friends, Rhys and I didn’t ‘find’ each other, so to speak, until our early 20s. Rhys had begun a potentially prosperous career as an electrical engineer while I was entering my final year at university studying Marine Biology.
The thought of further education or finding a job and starting a career filled me with dread. Rhys, though fortunate enough to enjoy his job, still couldn’t fathom the standard ’40-40-40′ path that he found himself beginning.
What we really wanted, was adventure. That, and a frivolous lifestyle where we continue to shirk responsibility, ha!
The travelling begins
In the early months we did day trips quad biking, paint-balling or climbing tree-top assault courses. Then came our first trip together to France. Here we discovered each others love for food a whole lot more!
Only a week back from France (barely a month after graduating), Rhys and I found ourselves on board a plane jetting off for the sun-drenched shores of the Cayman Islands.
Why Cayman? Rhys’s dad was living there at the time so we seized our opportunity to join, sights set on becoming SCUBA diving instructors. We were both already certified; Rhys on a previous trip to Cayman and myself from a gap-year in Australia. It seemed perfect for us!
Within two weeks of arriving we landed an internship with a local dive operator, joining the team at Sunset Divers.
Several months, and a hundred+ dives, later successfully completed our IDC and were pumped to finally become PADI instructors!!
Our intended six months in Cayman suddenly became five years! The island way of life definitely suits us. Maybe a minor failure in terms of globetrotting but we wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Rhys became a Boat Captain and ran his own boat with Deep Blue Divers. I meanwhile ventured off into admin-based roles which included working for Cayman’s largest watersports company, Red Sail Sports.
In addition to friends, the food, the weather and the lifestyle, what also kept us in Cayman, was the dogs. If I didn’t already mention, we LOVE dogs!
We assisted the local Humane Society in fostering, rehabilitating and rehoming three dogs (Nikki, Rolo + Duke) during our time on the island.
Living in the Caribbean, we were spoiled with lots of good holiday/vacation spots making trips to Jamaica, Cuba, Utila (Honduras), Tampa, Orlando as well as both Little Cayman and Cayman Brac (the other 2 islands that make up the Cayman Islands).
In 2017 we made the tough decision to leave, knowing it was ‘now or never’.
After months of planning, we finally embarked on a 6-month journey, backpacking through South America!
Six months along the Gringo Trail
Arriving first in Colombia we then made our way through Ecuador (and the Galapagos!), Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil.
I could honestly go wild and post a TON of photos here but I shall resist and instead recommend you go check out our blogs via the links above for more info.
The end of our South American adventure led straight into the next as we few to Canada on our two-year working holiday visas.
West-coast bound
We spent eight months in Vancouver: working, saving and – excitedly – converted our very own campervan!
Not content to visit Canada without a ski season under his belt, Rhys convinced me to a winter working and snowboarding at Big White Ski Resort. As a sun-seeker who typically hates the cold, I’m luckily easily convinced. It was honestly so much fun!
While we shredded the slopes, our snow-covered camper waited patiently for us until Spring, ready for our 9-month North American road trip!
After an initial hiccup (our camper and belongings all got stolen before luckily being recovered – what a time that was I tell you) we officially began our campervan adventure in May 2019.
Vanlife
We crossed the majority of the continent; heading north to the Arctic Circle, east to Prince Edward Island, south to Florida, back west to California and Mexico before finally returning up the pacific coast to Vancouver.
Those 9 months flew by. We still almost can’t believe we made it! And I only drove us into one ditch, although I’ll admit it was of drive-shaft-breaking proportions –eek! – BUT even positives came from that thanks to some seriously wonderful people.
In total we travelled 45,916 km / 28,531 miles over 284 days, ending in March 2020.
Then: Covid.
Our six months back home extended to a colossal three years! Like so many others, we both struggled with our mental health with so many uncertainties but we acknowledge we are still very fortunate and have a lot of positives to take away from this time.
When travel was restricted, we found food to be a huge saviour for us. We learned that even if we can’t physically travel somewhere, we can use our taste buds and our minds to take us there!
Over the last decade we have learned that we do food and travel well. So the natural progression was to expand this travel blog to a food blog!
Then we bought a house, and spent a year renovating that house. The blog goes back on hold…
Skip to April 2023…
We somehow finished our house reno, somehow squeezed in a short stint in India first, and are somehow back in Vancouver! Honestly, we can’t keep up either.
While things rarely go as planned, our number one priority is to finally adopt a dog (cue squeals of excitement) and then re-visit the scores of recipes I still have to share, plus more travel tips!
Thank you for taking the time to read about us – we hope to be back soon. ‘Til then, happy reading!!
Lowri & Rhys, the ‘Jacks‘
P.S. Be sure to follow our Instagram stories for more regular updates and photos!
