World Travellers: Dave and Vicky From A Couple Travelers

Today on world travellers it’s the turn for yet another couple! Dave and Vicky from A Couple Travelers!

Who are you?

We’re Dave and Vicky from acoupletravelers! We just recently graduated college, worked for two years, and are now setting off on a two year journey around Asia and Europe. We blog about our travels, including budget saving tips, restaurants and accommodation reviews, and overall travel reflections.

For two years Dave worked as a business analyst at a financial services company, while Vicky was an accountant in Washington DC. We’ve had a love of travel ever since we were young, and have been going on trips together since high school.

Where are you from?

Vicky is originally from Moscow Russia. Dave is from Ashland Massachusetts.

Where have you been?

Our about us page covers the list of countries we’ve been to before this trip. On this trip specifically, we’ve been to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam, Thailand, Burma, and Laos.

Where are you now?

Currently we’re in Vang Vieng, Laos

What are the top 3 places you’ve visited?

Tough one…

1.     Yangshuo, China

2.     Tokyo, Japan

3.     Bangkok, Thailand

What is the best travel experience you’ve had?

The most amazing experiences are always the kindness of others. We do a lot of couchsurfing so we see a lot of people extended their small homes or studio apartments to us, offering to show us around the city and to their favorite places. Once a 71 year old man take us in, cook for us, and show us around Kyoto, Japan – so hospitable, especially since couchsurfing is not really that popular in Japan.

What is the worst travel experience you’ve had?

Ending up without money in remote villages, which has happened to us twice, surprisingly. We tend to forget to pay attention to how much (or little) money we have in our wallets, despite the fact that ATMs are not always that common in rural Japan, for example. In South Korea this resulted in a rather embarrassing experience where we had to ask the monastery we were spending the night at for a small discount.

What is the funniest travel experience you’ve had?

I think the funniest may have been our Couchsurfing mix up in Seoul. We were staying with an English teacher and she asked us to leave the key in her dropbox on our way out for the day while she went to work. When we returned in the afternoon the key was gone. We rang the intercom and a strange man from her room answered and asked us who we were. He seemed pretty confused and thought we were intruders, so we had to convince him that we were staying in that room by describing what was in it. Once we did this, he let us inside, and we realized that he was also Couchsurfing in the same building but has mixed up the rooms and taken the key from the wrong dropbox. Quite the coincidence!

What is the scariest travel experience you’ve had?

Scariest was getting separated from our trekking group in Burma for about 45 minutes. There wasn’t really anyone around so we were just out in the fields alone, walking and looking for anyone. We both thought that we were on our own and would have to find our own way to Lake Inle from the country side – we were about two hours away walking. Luckily our guide found us eventually.

What 3 tips would you give a new traveller before they set off on their adventure?

1.     Be flexible with plans changing

2.     Don’t get stressed out, most things aren’t that big of a deal

3.     Be kind to others and respect their cultures

What are your future travel plans?

After Laos we’ll head to Cambodia and then to France to spend the summer in Europe. We have a pretty hefty line up and a lot of countries to cover!

Biography

Dave and Vicky are the authors of Travel and Food blogs A Couple Travelers and AvocadoPesto. Having spent 2 years in the working world, they exchanged their briefcases for backpacks, dress shoes for sandals, and beds for sleeping bags. In September 2012 they embarked on a 2 year journey across Asia and Europe.

Links (website, twitter, facebook)

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Thanks to Vicky and Dave from A Couple Travelers 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 a 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!