How We Met Before Adventure In You Was Started

written by local expert Anna Faustino

Anna is a co-founder of Adventure in You and has been traveling the world for the last 9 years. She has spent time living in Thailand, Mexico, Indonesia, and Spain and is our local expert in these areas. Her expertise on travel, gear, and building businesses have been featured on Foundr, Business Insider, Yahoo Travel, and more.

If you ask any traveler what one of the best parts about traveling is, high up on that list will be meeting other people. Now don’t get me wrong, you meet all sorts of people when traveling but sometimes, you happen to be at the right place at the right time, and you meet someone that you instantly hit it off with. This is how we met before Adventure In You. Tom and I met in the oddest of places, right smack in the middle of the sand dunes in Mui Ne, Vietnam. I was taking a go pro video of myself sand sledding down a hill and as soon as I reached the bottom, I saw Tom, rolling down the hill. No sand sled, no nothing, just going for it and having a great time. I started filming him while laughing, half thinking to myself, “who is this idiot rolling down the hill?” Afterwards he came over to borrow my sled, and the rest was history.A couple sitting on a bent palm tree

How We Met While Traveling

We ended up meeting in most of the stops in Vietnam as we were both traveling from Ho Chi Minh to Hanoi. I was taking my time riding buses while he was riding up on a motorbike with some friends. Both of us being naturally drawn to excitement and adventure, we hit it off and had a blast traveling all throughout Vietnam together. I even hopped on the back of his bike on some parts of the trip. I then headed off to Laos by myself while Tom rode on heading up Northern Vietnam.

After three weeks in Laos, we decided to meet again in Thailand to spend a couple of days in Pai and the islands. Tom had already been traveling for 6 months before we met, and I was doing a last hurrah around Asia to end my yearlong backpacking trip. With our days consisting of motorbike rides exploring islands, endless conversations and laughs, we soon parted ways. I was heading back to the Philippines and he was heading towards Malaysia. The Philippines was next on his list, but being a traveler myself, I knew plans always changed and anything could happen.

Read: Things I Learned From Being a Solo Woman Traveler A couple laughing on the beach at sunset

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The Start of Adventure in You Blog

A year later,  we found ourselves still together, getting ready to set off for a new adventure with this new travel and adventure blog in tow. We figured that traveling has brought us together, so why not share that love and passion for it with others?

There are so many people out there who are scared to take that initial first leap, but trust me, once you do it, you won’t regret it. So with this in mind, Adventure In You was born. It is a brainchild of a drunken conversation, which we decided to pursue because we both believe that traveling, was one of the best things that we have done. With not much plan, we packed up our life, fit everything we owned into a backpack and set off. Since then, we have been to almost 25 countries together, writing, documenting, and growing our blog. We have traversed through unchartered jungles, gone skydiving over the Swiss Alps, gone paragliding over exploding volcanos in South America, and have gotten lost as we explore and eat our way through new countries and cities.

Although we were new to blogging, we were loving the fact that we could work from anywhere we wanted to. On a train in Europe, on a beach in Ecuador, or in the basement of my sister’s house in the US (true story). Although we weren’t earning a lot (we got used to eating a lot of noodles), we had the freedom to do what we want and go where we want. The best part about this nomadic lifestyle is the fact that we were able to make a living doing something that we love.
A couple with views of islands below them

Getting Serious: Turning Adventure in You to a Company

Somewhere in between surfing epic waves in Ecuador and planning our big year long travel to South America, our travel plans were halted. We suddenly had an exciting opportunity to turn our humble little blog into a full blown start up company. We had an investor who believed in the same things we did and loved what we were doing. Before we knew it, we were flying to Singapore to incorporate our company. A manic few days running around and getting everything sorted, we were suddenly the proud start up owners of Adventure in You PTE. LTD. Since then, we decided to move to Chiang Mai, Thailand temporarily to set up base. Apart from growing this blog, we also started developing a lifestyle app called Get Stoked. Our company mission? To Inspire and Encourage People to DO MORE and live their lives to the fullest. Now, we’re a team of four (joined by our good friend Jon who me also met while traveling) and Tom’s sister Becky. Brought together by our love for travel and adventure, together, we’re all hustling and working hard to get things off the ground. The biggest lesson that we learned throughout this whirlwind of events? Is that life always throws you curve balls. Things always don’t go according to plan but just like in anything, you have to be flexible, willing to roll with the punches as you pursue the things that you love. If you want to learn more about our journey, read about how starting a blog changed our lives to see how we went from full on nomadic wanderers to suddenly start up owners. Travel quotes - the biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams

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