Who are Hitched and Hiking?
We’re Jess & Tom, a couple of 20-somethings (just about) originally from Gloucester, UK, but we just can’t sit still. Our feet itch and our souls need feeding with new places and new experiences. We got together when we were just 19 years old, and the thing that binds us together more than our love for coffee, quizzes or spicy food is travel.
Travel has always been the epicentre of our relationship. When we were 21, we set off on the trip of a lifetime, where we ended up travelling for 2 years straight, visiting 4 continents and 14 countries. We don’t usually count the countries we travel, and we tend to deal more in the experiences we have, and the people we meet along the way. I couldn’t tell you much about the sights we saw in Manilla, but I can still remember the taste of the pumpkin curry at Gacayan, a cafe in Port Barton, Palawan, The Phillipines, and that it cost 60 pesos for that and a drink (approx. £1). I still have the drawing that the daughter of the homestay we were living in drew of Tom and I and still regularly think of the host and her families’ generosity whilst we lived there.
As you can tell by the blog name, not only are we married, but we absolutely love to hike, walk, roam, wander, explore, move. Every new place we go, we like to explore on foot as well as by other transport. We feel that walking around a place gives you a much better connection to the land; literally, physically and mentally. Walking also allows to you understand how the place flows, what roads lead to where and what footpaths there are. Plonk us down in any place and we are wandering around it before you can say “walking boots”. We also have a head for heights and constantly look up hills or mountains we can hike up. We will be posting about our favourite walks, hikes and jaunts on here as often as we can. Please feel free to share your favourite walks with us too - we’re always looking for new ideas.
In 2022 we took a big leap of faith and rented our house out long term, effectively making ourselves homeless. We now do housesitting which enables us to travel slower, explore places we would never have visited otherwise and look after people’s lovely homes and pets. We did housesitting in the UK for six months straight and now have various sits booked in overseas for the rest of the year, in between travelling to countries we’ve always wanted to spend more time in. I’ll be trying to keep the website as up to date as possible with guides to cities we have spent time in, housesits we’ve done and hikes we recommend. Alongside this I’m currently writing a travel book, and Tom is working full time as an accountant (someone’s gotta pay for our caffeine addiction!).
This is my blog to document our travel exploits, be that abroad or in the UK, hiking or flying, rainy or sunny. I hope you find it interesting enough to read on, and I hope I inspire you to do what makes you happy.
Be authentic, be the real you, and don’t apologise.