The latest in my world travellers series comes from Kach and Jonathan who run the website, Two Monkeys Travel. They are a cool couple who have so far been to places far and wide like India, Bolivia and Scotland as they prepare for their next adventure to Antarctica.
World Travellers: Kach and Jonathan, Two Monkeys Travel at the Taj Mahal in India
Who are you?
Kach Medina and Jonathan Howe, the travel bloggers behind Two Monkeys Travel Group. We met in Laos, became a couple in Vietnam and got engaged in San Blas Islands, Panama after traveling the world since 2013.
Where are you from?
Kach is from the Philippines while Jonathan is from the UK.
Where have you been?
Before traveling together in 2013, Kach had traveled to more than 15 countries in the Middle East and other countries in South East Asia while Jonathan traveled around the world with his family when he was young, growing up and living in Africa for 10 years.
World Travellers: Kach and Jonathan, Two Monkeys Travel at Stonehenge in England
As a couple, we’ve traveled to mostly Southeast Asian countries, India, The Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and also a few parts of the United Kingdom (Scotland, England and Wales) before we began our Latin America journey – Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica and Nicaragua. We’ve also had some shorter trips to Croatia and Turkey.
Where are you now?
We are currently based in Bogota, Colombia while preparing for our trip to Argentina and Antarctica.
What are the top 3 places you’ve visited?
Patagonia, Chile
North Vietnam
Capadoccia, Turkey
World Travellers: Kach and Jonathan, Two Monkeys Travel at Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia
What is the best travel experience you’ve had?
This is quite hard but top of our list is still our 1 month hitchhiking adventure in Patagonia de Chile! We hitched down the Caraterra Austral all the way to Villa O’Higgins, quite literally the end of the road!
What is the worst travel experience you’ve had?
Not really worst as every experience gives you something, but the time our train from Bodh Gaya to Kolkata, India, got delayed for 14 hours and we ended up sleeping at the train station because we didn’t know when it will arrive. Then the train arrived, we had to talk to the train officer to try pay him as our tickets hadn’t gone through. He saw an opportunity and tried his hand at a little tourist extortion but we held our ground. It was just one of those days when everything piles up on you when you’re at your most exhausted, but you always get a story to tell at the end!
World Travellers: Kach and Jonathan, Two Monkeys Travel kayaking
What is the funniest travel experience you’ve had?
There’s a lot but maybe can we just talk about happiest? We’ve done a lot of extreme activities from skydiving, paragliding, parasailing and even bungee jumping among others, but the time I was most happy being in the air was when we flew with a hot air balloon in Cappadocia, Turkey.
What is the scariest travel experience you’ve had?
Maybe the Death Road biking in Bolivia, really not scary on the bike but when we were driving back to the city in a big bus and the very narrow road, you suddenly realise where the name comes from!
World Travellers: Kach and Jonathan, Two Monkeys Travel Hitchhiking in Patagonia, Chile
What is the most random job you have had on your travels?
While waiting for our Yoga Teacher’s training to begin in India, we went to a restaurant by the beach in Goa for dinner then asked the waiter if we could work there in exchange for foodl – we worked every night for 4 hours as waiters in exchange for lunch and dinner!
How do you fund your travels?
We started with our savings from our old jobs then we taught English in Vietnam. We left the Hanoi with $12k USD between the two of us. We started volunteering while investing in our Tantra Yoga certification and Ayurveda massage therapy. After getting certified, we practiced and made a living out of it. After all of those experiences, we decided to have our own travel blog which is now just over a year old and our main source of income.
Next year, we plan to get back doing more Ayurveda Massage, organizing Yoga retreats and publishing e-books.
What 3 tips would you give a new traveller before they set off on their adventure?
PREPARE – Save enough money to last 6 months without working and some emergency cash.
Invest in your skill.
Lastly, plan your initial route but be prepared to break them and grab opportunities as they arise!
What are your future travel plans?
Aside from our Argentina and Antarctica plans, we’re also planning to travel to Venezuela, Suriname, Guyana, Uruguay and Paraguay before we do some island hopping in The Caribbean and a big trip from Central America to North America.
Biography
Kach and Jonathan Howe are the travelling entrepreneur couple behind Two Monkeys Travel Group and the founders of the Project Backpacker Teacher NGO in the Philippines. They have been travelling together for more than 2 years and their dream is to build their own yoga retreat and sustainability education centre on a little slice of paradise.
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/twomonkeystravel
Facebook Forum with over 4K Mostly Filipino members: facebook.com/groups/filipinobackpackeraroundtheworld
Twitter: https://twitter.com/2monkeystravel
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/2monkeystravel
Instagram: https://instagram.com/kach2monkeys
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyACzbpysFKzOd-vluoHU8A
Thanks to Kach and Jonathan for being the latest in my series of World Travellers! If you travel the world and run a travel blog or are a travel writer, please get in touch, you can be featured (there’s NO waiting list at present), either e-mail jonny (at) dontstopliving (dot) net or head to my contacts page and get connected! You can also subscribe to Don’t Stop Living by filling in the form below! Safe travels!