Interview With Adventurers – Conversant Traveller

• Please tell us a bit about yourself and your blog

We’re Heather and Pete, travellers from the UK who like to focus on quirky luxury places to stay, as well as exploring the great outdoors. You’re most likely to find us holed up in a remote castle in Scotland, a treehouse in the middle of the Amazon rainforest, or perhaps a fortress in deepest Morocco. We’re not full-time travellers – we both have day jobs – but still manage to travel a lot each year by making the most of our annual leave.

• What does adventure mean to you?

It doesn’t have to mean flinging yourself out of planes attached to a parachute, trekking for weeks through high altitude peaks or having a go at the Mongol Rally. Although we’d quite like to try the latter. For us, adventure is just something that is new, and a world away from the ‘norm’ of our daily lives. It might be wild camping up in the hills here in the Lake District, with nothing but the things we need to survive the night. Or it could be trying rice wine and climbing waterfalls in Laos with monks, or perhaps spending a week on a yacht in the Galapagos, snorkeling with baby sealions, exploring the islands and gawping at marine iguanas as they swim through the choppy seas. Adventure is about new experiences, pushing your personal boundaries a little, and coming away with a story to tell. Tick all those boxes and you have the ingredients for a fabulous time!

• What are your top tips for travelling to Morocco?

If you head over to Conversant Traveller you’ll soon discover that we have a bit of a thing for Morocco. We first visited back in 2010, fell in love with the culture, the scenery and the food, and now head back at least once a year to explore more of this fabulous country. Morocco is quite different to what many travellers are used to, so I’d suggest arriving there with an open mind, and just going with the flow. Marrakech is often somewhere that people either love or hate, and even for us it took a while to get used to haggling in the souks, finding our way around the labyrinthine medina streets, and dealing with unwanted attention in Djemaa el Fna, the main square. Yet once we got used to this new rhythm of life we learnt to accept it, then enjoy it. The best way to survive the souks is to engage in a bit of banter with the vendors. They love it, and respect people who are willing to barter hard. Don’t worry about getting lost. There will always be someone willing to show you the way back for a few dirhams, and this is just all part of the adventure. As for the square, just avoid taking photos of the performers (especially the snake charmers!) unless you’ve agreed a price beforehand. We love heading up to one of the roof terrace cafes where we can take photos of the square without being hassled. If it’s your first time in Morocco, we suggest you spend a few days in Marrakech, checking out the palaces and museums, perhaps doing a cooking class at La Maison Arabe, and of course staying in a gorgeous 1001 nights riad before heading out to the High Atlas Mountains for some trekking and some cooling breezes. Then drive south to the desert and spend the night camping with nomads and riding camels into the sunset. It doesn’t get much more romantic than that!

• What advice would you give to other couples who want to travel together?

Remember it’s you against the world, not you against each other. Travelling is one of the most stressful things you can do as a couple, simply because you’re in each other’s pockets the whole time. Indeed, we have some of our best arguments when we’re away, usually about something ridiculously trivial, but always take a step back and remind ourselves just why we’re arguing – because we’re hot and bothered, feeling unwell or things aren’t quite going to plan. It’s never the end of the world, so we just stop, grab a cold drink and work things out. If you’ve never travelled together before, it’s best to start with a weekend city break to ease yourselves into it, before plunging into month-long forays in remote jungles miles from anywhere.

• What has been your best adventure yet?

This is the bit where people normally say ‘oh there are just too many to choose from’ but we’re going to be decisive and pick just one. And that was tracking rhino on foot in Swaziland. We’d spent the night in a camp where the cottages were all open-sided, with just a mosquito net for protection, and I’d fallen asleep clutching a whistle just in case we had any night-time visitors. We did, but bush babies aren’t particularly scary so we survived unscathed. The next morning we went off with our ranger on a wilderness hike, tracking rhino through the bush until we finally came across not one, but several, including some young calves. It was incredible being so close, and feeling so vulnerable, in the presence of these mighty beasts. Yet they didn’t seem to notice us (their eyesight is very poor) and we spent at least 20 minutes watching them munch their breakfast. A pretty magical moment.

• Where in the world would you like to go on your next adventure?

Funnily enough, we’re off to Morocco again in a couple of weeks. But if we could pick anywhere in the world to jet off to tomorrow, it would be Bhutan. Anywhere with a government that follows a philosophy of Gross Domestic Happiness has got to be amazing, right?

• If you had to pick a country (other than your home country) to stay in for the rest of your life, which would it be and why?

Well, obviously that has to be Morocco. We’ve been so many times now that it already feels like our second home, and we have plans to one day to buy a riad in Marrakech for our retirement. It’s a place we just feel so welcome and comfortable, and the expat community is one of the best in the world. And we’d happily eat tagine and couscous every day, there’s no better grub in the world, apart from maybe the curries and noodles in Thailand. It perhaps wouldn’t be the obvious choice for most, but anyone who’s been will understand.

Conversant Traveller www.conversanttraveller.com