11. Chris Modell

As this is the last episode of Series One, I have an extra special guest for you guys. It's my dad, Chris Modell. The reason that I wanted to feature my dad on the last episode of this series is because he is kind of the reason that Storytime For Travellers came to be. When I was a child, instead of bedtime stories, I would always beg my dad to tell me stories of his adventures over and over again and I really believe that this is the reason that I love travelling so much.

My dad first started travelling when he was 21 and got a job as a photographer on cruise ships. He did that around the Caribbean for 7 years until he decided to buy a boat with his friend and set sail on the adventure of a lifetime. Having never sailed before they embarked on a one year journey from Mexico across the Pacific Ocean to New Zealand, stopping off on islands along the way. Once he arrived in New Zealand, he worked as a kayak instructor and met my mum who was backpacking - their story is actually pretty romantic. She was meant to fly to the US the next day but two hours before her flight she turned back and decided to stay in New Zealand with the man she had met only one day before. They then continued travelling together before coming back to the UK and have done lots of travelling since. My dad has now swapped boats for two wheels and has done motorbike adventures to places like Mexico, Vietnam, Iceland, India and more, writing articles for a magazine called Upshift Online.

In our conversation, we chat: being invited to a local feast on a tiny island in the Pacific, motorbiking the most dangerous road in the world in India and having dolphins lead his boat to land as he reached his first Pacific island - plus loads more... 

Chris's Instagram: @swaggrandad 

Chris's documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT-mV1_ao5c

Our Instagram: @StorytimeForTravellers

 

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