One day we were messaging each other at work, planning an upcoming trip we were super excited about. 

We couldn’t wait to escape from daily life to a remote beach, and stuff ourselves trying all of the street food in Thailand. The trip was a few months away but it was going to be the experience of a lifetime. 

Suddenly however, a depressing realisation hit us – after this trip, it would be back to the hamster wheel of life.

Our lives would revert to the cycle of  “go to work, come home, sleep”, with one or two chances a year to do what we really enjoyed. 

We suddenly realised that we were spending 90% of our lives looking forward to being happy. 

So we decided to start thinking about whether there was another way.

We have come to believe that everyone can influence their own happiness and positivity.

Many of our experiences have helped us think this way, but 3 realisations in particular were key:

• How we approached our lives and the present moment could change how happy we were daily.
• We could offer the learnings from our experiences and research to help other people like us to improve their wellbeing, have awesome trips and become happier individuals.
• We could refocus our lives on the values which were important to us, and not take any of our time for granted.

These are the values we now try to live by, and share with similar-minded people.

Mindful Wonderer allows us to work together on something which makes us happy, reminds us of what’s important, and allows us to have a positive impact on the world.

We really hope this website gives as much to you, the readers and community, as it does to us.

Is Wonderer even a word? Do you mean Wanderer? Should you choose a website name you sometimes have to explain?

All valid questions. Even spell-check thinks we’ve made a mistake here, but I promise it is a word – we checked.  

We wanted to capture the connection between wellbeing and travel, and how they are so closely linked. We also really love a good pun. 

“Wonderer” is a pun on the idea of “wandering” and “to wonder at”. 

It’s a word mostly associated with a traveler who loves exploring and discovering incredible places. This is also the best way to describe ourselves – at least it is before we start to work our way through the local dishes, and become a little less mobile. 

However, your mind can also “wander” and “wonder” during practises like meditation and mindfulness which cultivate positive mental health. 

We hope this website helps you to you discover new and exciting ways to wander and wonder, in all senses of the words.

With us both studying Spanish and Chinese at university, we shared a love of languages, travel, and had an aptitude for butchering Mandarin – it’s a really hard language, ok guys. 

After university, we shared the experience of learning how to become proper adults with jobs, bills and living together without killing each other. 

9 years later, and we’ve been fortunate enough to travel the world together, from living in Spain and China, and cruising through the Alaskan glaciers.

This website represents the next big step in our lives – creating something insanely cool and helpful… also without killing each other.