ABOUT US

So who are Out of the Office anyway?

Suzanne and SteveOut of the Office is Suzanne and Steve. We’re in our early 60s but like to travel like we’re in our 30s and we love to share that joy with others. Altohugh we both have full-time jobs, we our days plotting and planning to get out of the office, pack up our bags and head on out into the sunset (or sunrise). It doesn’t matter if it’s for the day or for a few weeks; 20 miles down the road or over to another continent; we don’t really care, we just like to pack up and go, laughing a lot on the way.
A long, long time ago, back in the mists of time, we both grew up in the same small village in North Wales, oddly we didn’t know each other until later. The small village was near a small town called Llangollen. Llangollen is the home to something called the International Eisteddfod. Every year at the beginning of July, choirs, dancers and poets from all corners of the globe descend on the area to sing, dance and do everything that people do at festivals and … here’s the magic part, the visitors all stay with local people! For the best part of a week we were not only surrounded by people who couldn’t speak out language, they actually lived with us – I swear we grew up thinking that there was an international word for ‘chicken’ and that it was ‘cluck cluck’.  We remember people staying with us from the USA, Sweden, Sardinia, Canada and Finland. Suzanne even managed to pass on my chicken pox to an Italian baritone once and one early visitor from the USA returned a couple of years later for a holiday with his new wife.
The  big world outside of our small Welsh village was a constant source of wonderment from childhood and we longed to see some of it first-hand. We’re lucky enough to be able to do that in small instalments. It’s still wonderful, and we’d love to share some of that wonder with you all.

How do we like to travel?

Camel ShadowsFirstly we enjoy doing our own holiday planning. For us, it’s an enjoyable way to turn a two week holiday into a much longer adventure. Deciding where to go, how long to spend there, how to get from place to place and where to stay beats watching the gogglebox any evening.

We’re reasonably fit but not adrenaline junkies, we enjoy walking but not hiking, we enjoy experiencing other cultures and seeing people how people live their everyday lives. Sitting in cafés or strolling down a village street watching life go by and wondering at the joy of it all. We’re true cultural magpies, interested in almost everything from ancient buildings & museums, local art & culture, local food & customs & have even occasionally been known to just lie on a beach (preferably on a Greek Island).

We’re not overly fond of large hotels or all-inclusive holidays, but we don’t like roughing it too much either. We’re more posh backpackers, liking homestays, small locally owned hotels and posh hostels with private rooms. For some odd reason , we adore public transport while away, we seem to gravitate to bus and train travel – even though, as our friends note, we seem to have at least one transport prat-fall every holiday.

On our travels we’ve found that most people are proud of where they live and if you show genuine interest, people are usually eager to tell you about or show you things that you’d never even dream about if you were just reading the latest guide book. We may not get round to seeing the ‘headline’ sites, but we always come away feeling that we’ve ben gifted with more than a little of the flavour of a place; not to mention some fabulous memories.

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