About Us

Oh hey… thanks for stopping by.

What travel means to us

We are Dean and Pauline, and Reasons to Visit is about the way we choose to travel now that we are a part of the “over 50s” and “empty nester” crowds. We prefer to explore the World outside of the big cities and top tourist spots and do it by road trip wherever and whenever possible. With over 30,000 kilometres of road trips spread across more than a dozen countries, we consider ourselves seasoned veterans of this travel style, and we love to share this passion with you.

But just because we love to road trip doesn’t mean we aren’t open to something different like small group tours or basing ourselves in a single location and spending a few days or even a week or more just checking out the local area.

And our favourite way to experience these places is to slip on some comfy walking shoes and wander through the main streets and backroads, getting a feel for the true nature and local culture offered by each town.

You won’t find any guides on surviving on $5 a day here, and only the rare mention of anything 5 star (whenever we stumble upon a massive bargain). It’s not that we don’t like luxury, we just want to spend our limited travel budget on amazing experiences and getting value for money.

Value for money travel doesn’t mean only doing things if they are cheap, it means getting the most from the overall experience. We would rather stay in a decent but cheap hotel room and then splurge on a helicopter landing and hike on a glacier, than blow the budget by staying in a fancy resort and only getting as close as seeing the same glacier from our gold-plated, goose-down pillowed, four post, king sized bed.

Another thing you won’t find here are articles on travelling as a cruise tourist or as “old people on a luxury coach watching the world through a window”. No disrespect meant if that’s your thing but we want to be a lot more active and explore at our own pace. We like to describe it as “soft adventure”… no abseiling, bungy jumping, or cliff diving, but plenty of hiking, meeting locals, and truly experiencing different cultures.

Where we’ve travelled

Our travel style may have changed over the years but a few things have stayed the same… we prefer to get from place to place driving ourselves, and while we still love to see the great tourist sites, we feel most at home in smaller towns experiencing local traditions, food, and culture.

📌 Australia

Our home country which we have travelled quite extensively. From short visits to the big cities like Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide, to road trips hugging the NSW and Victoria coast, several driving vacations around Tasmania, and recently our first-ever camper road trip along the Queensland coast.

📌 New Zealand

Two weeks driving through some of the world’s most spectacular scenery on an iconic South Island road trip. And a bonus of a heli-hike tour of Franz Josef Glacier.

📌 Fiji

Some island hopping and a memorable family holiday on the Coral Coast when our daughter was quite young. The friendliest people on Earth and incredible scenery.

📌 Vanuatu

Another family vacation with great memories of people, the culture, standing on the edge of the active volcano Mt Yasur, and plenty of snorkelling.

📌 Singapore

A popular layover between Australia and Europe but also a lovely, albeit expensive, place to explore for a few days.

📌 Malaysia

Our favourite Asian food destination so far and a great place to mix beach resort relaxing stays, great natural wildlife experiences, relatively cheap prices, and culture.

📌 Thailand

We have experienced political riots in Bangkok, world-class snorkelling near the islands around Phuket, and are favourite Asian town stay in Chiang Mai (although it seems to be much more touristy now than it was when we visited.)

📌 Indonesia – Bali

Not our favourite destination by far but once you find a place away from the bogan Aussie tourists and the pushy Javanese stall operators, there are still parts of the island that are well worth another look.

📌 Hong Kong

Another popular layover stop for Aussies heading to Europe and also a place we have visited as a standalone destination. Good cheap food and an almost overwhelmingly huge street market scene.

📌 Vietnam (coming in 2024)

📌 Italy

For quite some time Florence was rated as our favourite city from our travels, and it still sits among the best places. We also spent time in Venice and Rome before a short road trip to the French border.

📌 France

We like Paris but can’t really see why people rate it so highly. The real gems of France we found during our two road trips which took us from Nice, along the south coast before heading north to Mont St Michel and on to Paris, and another from The Alsace wine region back to Paris.

📌 Germany

An unforgettable month-long Christmas Market road trip is always going to be a hard act to follow but not seeing any snow leaves room for another attempt in the future.

📌 Czech Republic

Prague is definitely a beautiful and historic city, but the little hamlet of Cesky Krumlov stole our hearts during the extension of our German road trip.

📌 Luxembourg

Just a single-day visit as we drove between Belgium and Germany.

📌 Belgium

The highlight of this leg of our Europe road trip has to be Bruges, with its quaint town square strung with Christmas lights, market stalls and the best chocolate we have ever tasted.

📌 Netherlands

Amsterdam may be a popular tourist destination but gloomy weather throughout our visit did nothing to push it high on our list of favourites. The windmills at Kinderdijk made for a nice day trip though.

📌 Austria

When it comes to stunning scenery this country knows what to do. We spent Christmas in Salzburg, which was a dream come true. The only downside was our horse-drawn sleigh ride through the Alps on Christmas Day happened to be during one of the hottest Winters on record and there was no snow to be found.

📌 Spain (coming in 2024)

📌 Portugal (coming in 2024)

📌 England

Pauline grew up in Liverpool and so it should come as no surprise to learn we have been there a few times. London, like Paris, is a city that doesn’t live up to the hype for us, but a road trip around Cornwall more than made up for it.

📌 Wales

One of the most spectacular road trips we have driven. Gorgeous countryside, cute little towns like Betws-y-Coed, and unbelievable historic castle ruins are things that go a long way towards our perfect getaway.

📌 USA

We have done a few drives in what is widely regarded as the home of road tripping, seen some jaw-dropping scenery in the National Parks, eaten some stupidly oversized meals, done the obligatory theme park days and loved it. But our time in any of the larger sites has generally been disappointing.

📌 Mexico

Our home away from home. Even though it is a difficult and lengthy operation to get to Mexico from Australia, we have been at least six times, including an epic 5000km, 3-month road trip from Queretaro to Cancun. Mexico has everything we could ever want in a travel destination; friendly people, delicious food, colourful small towns, deep and diverse history, and a culture that makes you want to be involved.

📌 Argentina

The first country we visited in South America, and it is a great place to start. We only went to Buenos Aires but it has an interesting history, a chill vibe, and some of the best steaks we have ever eaten.

📌 Peru

WOW! We travelled through Peru on our first ever small-group tour and it exceeded our expectations at every place. From stays in the Peruvian Amazon lodges to standing at the edge of the bucket-list Machu Picchu, from the strange experience of walking on a floating island at Lake Titicaca to watching a street parade in the fantastic town that is Cusco. Not to mention eating Llamas and Cuy (guinea pigs).

📌 Chile

We spent a few days wandering around the streets of Santiago, enjoying the markets, the food, and the galleries. Plus a highly recommended day trip to the street-art covered Valparaiso made the trip even better.

📌 Bolivia

A few days to wander the streets of La Paz at the end of our Peru tour. And what a great addition it turned out to be. Tasty cheap food served at plastic tables at little restaurants, the unusual experiences of walking through the Witch’s Market and the lunar-type landscape of Valle de la Luna, and the magnificent views from the cable cars.

Do everything you want to do while you still can

We have travelled as often as time and money allowed over the past 30+ years together and experienced several different travel styles. Small Group touring in South America, rail in Europe, and flying from city to city in Asia; and we have ticked off dozens of the top tourist bucket list items.

But now we realise that the best memories from all of that travel are those that happened away from tourist hubs. The small towns, local cultural experiences that are traditional and not just performances for the crowds, regional recipes that have not been altered to suit foreigners, and stunning scenery you will only witness when you get off the Highways.

We also know that while we still think we are in our 20s our bodies tend to disagree, and like to remind us at the most inopportune moments. With this in mind, we take every opportunity to travel that we can, and to go as far from home as we need to, because we realise that one day, long flights and lugging suitcases might be more trouble than it’s worth.

But who are we?

We are Dean and Pauline, an Aussie couple obsessed with getting the best value out of every travel dollar and every vacation day we can find. A little over 10 years ago we started a travel blog called La Vida Global, which was an obvious thing to do when it came to wanting to share our adventures with family and friends, and ultimately the world.

Married for over 30 years and travelling together almost from day one, we now have more than 25 countries stamped into our passports and have no intention of stopping there. Until recently we were family travellers, with our daughter Dana rounding out the group, until she decided we were slowing her down and cramping her style and now travels her own path around the world. Now it’s just the two of us, so it’s good that we like the same things… and each other!

In 2020 we felt it was time change our name for a fresh start. Plus Dean forgot to renew the La Vida Global name which meant our decision was sped up a little. And so we have become Reasons to Visit, and we now focus on helping people just like us…

Young at heart 50+ travellers who have seen plenty of the tourist hotspots and are now looking at something with a bit more authenticity. Sure we all like to see the most famous tourist sights in the world, they are usually popular for very good reason. But give us the choice of spending an few days in the big city or getting out and seeing the smaller towns and we will be asking where to rent a car before the words have finished coming out of your mouth.

We seek out places with character, usually filled with history or an old-world charm. We hunt for local food rather than eat at a worldwide fast food brand restaurant. And we love learning about the local people and watching them go about their day (but not in a creepy way). If there is an “Old Town” area to visit then you will probably find us there.

We are also people who search for spectacular scenery, we are particularly drawn to a good waterfall but we are in our element with anything from seascapes to sweeping plains and through to rugged mountains and unusual rock formations.

It may just be the way we see things but add a touch of snow and it makes everything even better. We don’t get to see snow very often so a snow-covered landscape to us is the bacon of landscape scenes, it makes them all seem better.

Hi friends… we are Dean and Pauline

Dean

The driving force behind Reasons to Visit. (see what I did there?) Photography, web design, marketing, vacation planning, road trip driving, humourous writing… these are all things I try with varying levels of success.

I have been in the travel industry since 2012 in various roles, retail travel agent, tour designer, tour director, wholesale reservation consultant and tour operations support.

Take me back to Mexico and I am in my happy place. But a road trip in the USA or Australia, or a chance to visit the old medieval towns of Europe will also keep me amused for weeks… or months.

Pauline

Chief Financial Officer of the Reasons to Visit lifestyle and the only thing standing between me and a life of permanent travel. Well, Pauline and the lack of an unlimited source of money.

Pauline has a very stressful government job in the Health industry so when she has time off she wants the maximum escape from work that she can possibly get her hands on.

Any destination is OK as long as there is a bit of time built in for relaxation and a healthy supply of “happy hour” priced cocktails.

Make sure there is a beach, a waterfall, or a pool nearby and Pauline is good to go! And she is working hard on her photography game as well.

Contact us

Email : [email protected]