Since we’re both native speakers of French (which is also the language most of our family speak), we started building and writing our blog in French. Obviously, we’re aware this might be an impediment for our friends who don’t speak French – including most people we will meet while travelling.
This page in English makes up for that!
Below, we tell you a bit about who we are and what our travel project is about. We also started a category of articles in English.
Who are we?
We are Tim (Timotheus) & Clem (Clémence), a young enthusiastic and adventurous couple from Belgium, travelling to discover the world and ourselves. We’re looking to see amazing landscapes, meet extraordinary people, learn a bunch of stuff, recharge our batteries… and share our experience with our friends, families, and the world!
Clem
“Hello boys and girls, my name is Clémence! (I’ve been calling myself “Clemencia” in Latin America – which has been easier on the locals… 🙂 ) I’ll turn 25 when we’re in Columbia – in March 2019. I have a degree in psychomotor education (which I got in 2015) and I worked for 2 years in the non-profit sector in Belgium – for two different youth organizations. As a student, I always dreamed of travelling the world to see breathtaking landscapes, to meet people from all over the world… and to learn to know myself better! I never managed to leave on my own, but as soon as Tim and I started talking about travelling, I knew we were a perfect match! By the way, we have more than one big trip on our bucket list – I hope we get to share it all with you guys!”
Tim
“I was born in 1989 – I turned 30 while we were travelling in the Colca Canyon (in January 2019).
From an academic point of view, I am a linguist. I studied French and English at the [Dutch-speaking] University of Louvain (2006-2010), and I got my PhD in linguistics from Ghent University in 2014. I am passionate about learning and speaking foreign languages. I speak French, Dutch and English. I can handle myself in Swedish and in Spanish. Recently, I’ve been looking into Finnish, Turkish, Danish…
I’m also a trained “camp counselor”. I’ve been working as a volunteer at plenty of summer camps and day-camps ever since I was 16 years old (2005-2016). I’ve also trained aspiring counselors on various occasions between 2012 and 2018.
I play music, too. (https://soundcloud.com/timotheus-vermote)
I am passionate about travelling, which I see in the first place as a way to escape the rut of everyday life and get out of my comfort zone. My first real backpacking experience was in 2014-2015, when I traveled for 5 months with my friend Val around the Northern hemisphere (https://www.facebook.com/timvalwt). What I’m looking for most when travelling is meeting people, talking with strangers (in various languages!), discovering what differences… and similarities there are between people from different cultures. Travelling helps me realize that there are amazing human beings everywhere!”
Project #1 – the Americas
For our first big trip together, we chose to take on “the Americas”, and spend 6 months travelling (mostly) northwards, from the South of Peru to the US and Canada.
We left on January 10, 2019, and if we stick to our plans, we will be back in Belgium on July 3. (Clem’s mom will celebrate her 60th birthday on July 4, so we really want to make it back on time! 😉 )
This is how our itinerary looks (the list of stops in far from exhaustive):
- Peru (Arequipa, Puno, Cusco, Lima [this is where we are at the moment of writing this page], Huaraz, Màncora)
- Ecuador (Loja, Cuenca, Quito)
- Columbia (Medellín, Bogotá, San Gil, Santa Marta, Cartagena)
- “West Coast”, USA (Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle)
- British Columbia, Canada (Vancouver, Jasper, Banff)
- Quebec, Canada (Montreal, Quebec, Ottawa, Toronto)
- “Midwest”, USA (Detroit, Chicago, Indianapolis, Kansas City)
- “The South”, USA (New Orleans, Miami)
A certain number of flights (including our return ticket to Belgium) are already booked, which gives a certain structure to our trip. Other than that, we are open to improvisation and changes of plan, following our instinct and/or the suggestions of people we meet.
If anybody reading this page lives somewhere along our itinerary (or knows someone else who does), please get in touch through this blog, or hit us up on our facebook page ! We’d love to meet you! 😉
