Two South African Travel Bloggers

“It’s not risking your life that makes it an adventure, It’s risking your comfortable, preconceived ideas about life. The essence of adventure is to stretch yourself. Maybe just a little bit. Maybe a lot. To go further, faster, higher, longer, deeper or wider than you ever thought you could. To see the world from a different perspective.”

– Unknown

TRAVEL BLOGGERS FROM SOUTH AFRICA

We are Vaughan and Lauren Manuel McShane, husband and wife travel bloggers from Cape Town, South Africa! Traipsing around the globe, our goal is to inspire as many people as possible to leave their homes (if only for a wee-little while) to explore the other corners of this beautiful blue planet.

We also, and this mostly it, want everyone to give themselves the chance to experience the feeling of setting foot on foreign soil, in a land where things don’t work like they do back home and that are altogether quite strange but lovely at the same time.

And, hopefully, in the process eliminate a great many of the prejudices, misconceptions and closed-mindedness that us humans seem so willing to wear.

South Africa, Thailand & Malaysia

We share and showcase our adventures through video, travel tales, photography and social media. The Travel Manuel.com also provides helpful tips for newbie traveller’s and hardcore trekkers alike as well as guidelines for expats in living in Asia. We can usually be found near the ocean, behind a lens, seeking out good coffee or frantically searching for wifi.

BRAG: We were honored to be named by Flipkey ( TripAdvisor) as one of “Top 25 Couple Travel Blogs to follow in 2014” as well as being selected as category winners at the first African Blogger Awards this year! 🙂

Lauren was one of the first ever independent South African Travel Bloggers and started her original blog way back in 2008 before many (in South Africa) had even heard of blogging. Back then I was writing for a small newspaper in Jeffrey’s Bay and we had just started dating. She was halfway around the planet in Hawaii at the time so technically our lives together started “on the road.”

The Early Days…

Boulders Beach, Cape Town

“It all started with my first overseas first trip to Buenos Aires where I fell head of heels in love with travel, tango and South America. I never imagined that any other country could be as sweet, but snorkeling in Thailand, surfing in Rio de Janeiro, witnessing a wedding in Sydney and living in Hawaii taught me otherwise.

Whilst teaching English in Seoul and dancing in the Greek slums were incredible experiences, I love exploring my own country, South Africa. There is still so much to see of it; dry “dorps”, rustic seaside towns, untouched coastline and safari bushveld, they are all just so unique and so beautiful.”

The Drakensberg

An endless journey…

Two weeks after getting married, we packed our bags and went on a mission to live and work around the world. We started by living on the tropical island of Koh Samui in Thailand for a year, spent time travelling around Taiwan and the Philippines and are now based in Malaysia where we both work full time as well as travel every opportunity we can.

Wedding Bells

In The Media

We’ve been featured in international and local print publications such as the in-flight magazines of Mango Juice ( Mango Airlines), Sawubona, ( South African Airways) and Grazia.

On radio, we’ve featured on Smile 90.4 fm and Power 98.7 fm. No stranger to the airwaves Lauren used to be a presenter on UCT and CCFM radio stations in South Africa.

Online, you’ll find us in:

Wild Junket Magazine
Getaway Magazine
SA Venues
Inspired Living SA
Becoming You
Travel Ground
Tango Diva
In the Know Traveler
Our Man on the Ground
Go Nomad
Travelmag- The Independent Spirit
BBC Travel

…to name but a few.

Coral Island, Malaysia

I once heard that travel is the only thing you can buy that will make you richer. Of this I have no doubt.

So journey with us as we traipse around the world to free the nomads inside of yourselves, to search for the unknown, the exhilarating and the adventure. We are available for hire as Travel/lifestyle writers and photographers.