Welcome To Where Are Those Morgans! We’re Mark and Kristen Morgan, and baby Maya joined us in November 2024 as the latest Morgan traveler. We spent 6 years traveling the world from 2018 to 2024, exploring more than 40 countries in Europe, Asia and South America, along with over 30 US states. And it was the adventure of a lifetime.
Hold on, you only made it to 40 countries in 6 years? Yes, but there’s a perfectly good explanation. We don’t just spend a day or two in a new country and put a tick in the box to get a higher number, we go to places for weeks or months because (by nature and nurture) we love to see and do everything each destination has to offer. We have a serious case of travel FOMO!
Since 2018, we’ve done just about every type of travel there is: broke backpacking, comfortable mid-budget vacations, luxury trips, cities, national parks, road trips, hiking, photography trips, weekend breaks, one week vacations and of course where it all began – our 18 month honeymoon around the world. We know how overwhelming and challenging travel planning can be, but we’re here to make it easy for you with our scientific, analytical approach. We really can help you plan your next trip with our vast experiences and all the important things we’ve learned over the years.
Right now, we’re based in North Carolina raising our newborn daughter. We haven’t stopped traveling and we take Maya on as many trips as we can fit in, but it’s the first time since we got married in 2018 that we’ve been in one place for this long. It definitely feels strange to us … so who knows how long our perpetual battle against the travel bug will last. There’s a very real chance that Maya will have seen more places by the time she turns 1 than we both saw before we turned 25!
Why We Write About Travel
We started our travel business in 2018 when we set off for Paris (our very first destination) because we wanted to help other serious planners like us who have travel FOMO take DIY trips to the same places we were visiting, without having to pay a fortune to travel agencies. Travel is a luxury but it doesn’t have to break the bank!
Booking our own flights, hotels, attractions and ground transport was the only way we could afford to visit 4 continents, but the information available online about things to do, itineraries, hotels and getting from A to B was seriously lacking when we were planning our honeymoon. We saw this as our chance to provide genuinely valuable and comprehensive advice from our experiences so that others could travel the world the same way.
If we’re being honest, we didn’t know what to expect from writing about our travels. It was a great idea in principle, but could we actually help anyone? We had no writing experience, we weren’t creatives and we didn’t know how to take photos. Then we went on a life changing journey together, learned how to travel efficiently, write creatively and capture places through imagery.
How do you define a travel expert? Does 7 years on the road without a home base count? We think so. Since 2018, our free to read blog posts filled with destination specific travel advice, itineraries and tips have helped more than 3 million people visit new places. Today, we sell expert travel guidebooks (that we practically give away!) for serious planners on a budget and we offer 1:1 itinerary planning. Oh, and we also sell our favorite travel photos.
We know how long it takes to plan trips and we know how much it costs. Trust us, we’ve spent a fortune on travel since 2018. We want you to use our travel itineraries, hiking guides and photography guides based entirely on our own experiences to learn what we did right and what we did wrong. Why do we write about travel? Because travel isn’t just a hobby, it’s our way of life.
Looking to work with us? Take a look at our partnership opportunities or see where we’ve been featured in our press and media coverage.
What Makes Us Different?
But that was 2018 and now there’s thousands of blogs and influencers doing what we do, so what sets us apart? It’s a great question with a simple answer:
What sets us apart is that we’re in this for the right reason – a true desire to help people travel better. There’s too many spammy, AI and copycat websites out there trying to make a quick buck, but we do this because we love traveling and we want to give others the best shot at having the same experiences we had. We could go back and pick up our scientific careers, but we believe in what we’re doing.
We plan and pay for every single trip we take – that’s our time, effort and money. And we only write about places we’ve actually visited ourselves in person, directly from our own firsthand experiences. That means everything you read on our site is written from our personal accounts, it’s our true opinion and it’s free from bias or outside influence.
Every travel guide, photo and guidebook you’ll find on our website is real and human made (here’s why we don’t use AI) by nobody but the two of us. Our biggest pet peeve when traveling is getting to a place with an expectation because we saw a photo or read a guide, only to realize the photo wasn’t real or the guide was fake. That will never be the case on our website. We tell you the good and the bad, but most importantly what you see is what you’ll get.
Here at Where Are Those Morgans, we have just one goal: to help serious travel planners visit new places and hike new trails. Helping millions of people plan better trips is what gets us out of bed in the morning. And the only way for us to do that authentically is to have done it ourselves, the exact same way you would do it. Our expert travel guides give you the important information we wish we had for every destination we visited.
Meet The Morgans
Mark morgan
Writer, Photographer
& Map Reader
I grew up in York in the north of England and immigrated to the US in July 2019. Before starting this travel business, I was a Senior Flow Cytometry Scientist overseeing projects in the UK, US and Singapore.
Some of my earliest and fondest memories are from trips I took with my family. And now that I’m a new dad, I can’t wait to create new travel memories with my daughter. She’s lucky to have two travel experts as parents!
I didn’t know the first thing about travel photography before 2018 and now it’s my biggest passion. So I hope this is an example you can use to pick something new up and make it a success.
My favorite travel destinations include the amazing US national parks, the Alps, Patagonia and Japan. Oh, and I seriously can’t travel without Yorkshire tea bags!
kristen morgan
Writer, Creative
& Travel Planner
I grew up in the Finger Lakes, NY. Before starting this travel business, I held lab scientist roles in R&D, QA and Project Management. I also completed my Masters Degree during our first 18 month world trip, which was not easy!
I’m at my happiest when I’m hiking, so I can’t wait to take Maya on some epic treks around the world. We’ll start her off easy, you know, Everest Base Camp or maybe the Pacific Crest Trail…!
I love visiting attractions and finding hidden gems when we travel to new places. For me, it’s important to use this platform to highlight lesser known attractions that support local business and you’ll find them in our guides.
As a keen hiker, my favorite travel destinations include the Grand Canyon, Tour du Mont Blanc, Inca Trail and the W-Trek. I can’t travel without Franks Hot Sauce or my Kindle!
Our Story
We’ve been on a wild journey from career scientists working a 9-5 to traveling the world for 7 years to being full time travel professionals. Let us tell you, running an online business is harder than you’d ever imagine. But we love it almost as much as we love to travel!
It was 2018 and we’d just taken the biggest risk of our lives by quitting our careers as scientists. We worked for the same company, in which Mark was managing teams and processes for flow cytometry in the UK, US and Singapore, and Kristen was transitioning from the immunology lab to R&D. Things were looking good, but we wanted more from life and after meeting through work in 2016 (when Mark was sent to the US lab) we bonded quickly over our shared passion for travel.
Fast forward 2 years, we walked out of the lab one last time, tied the knot in a castle in the Yorkshire Dales in England and set off on our 18 month honeymoon with just a 40L backpack each.
Let’s start at the beginning!
2018
Our adventure started with 3 months traveling through Europe in the middle of summer. And of course it was hot, expensive and crowded. What a great start! Can you tell our travel planning skills hadn’t yet been cultivated?!
But it was still amazing. We spent plenty of time in France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, Serbia, Slovakia, Poland, Czechia, Germany and Netherlands. And we did almost all of that by Interrailing, with just one flight from Seville to Pisa which cost $9 each!
Then we took the Eurostar back to England to see Mark’s family for a few days, before flying out to Asia where we spent 3 months split between Dubai, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam and Thailand. This was our first real eye opening trip away from the western world.
2019
By the end of 2018 we were quickly learning the best way to visit new places and improve our photography skills. The travel bug had really taken ahold and we were enjoying working on the earliest versions of this website, so we had lofty dreams to make this into something.
In early 2019 we flew from London to Buenos Aires and spent over 2 months traveling around Argentina, Chile, Bolivia and Peru. We hiked the W Trek in Patagonia, took the famous Bolivia salt flats tour and hiked the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu.
Then we flew to Mexico City for a week before heading back to England while we waited for Mark’s green card for the US to be approved. A few months later set off on our first 3 month US road trip, the majority of which was spent in South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, California and Arizona.
2020
You know what happened in early 2020. The covid pandemic forced us to stop traveling, but it was a blessing in disguise because that year was when we really began to work on this website and start growing it into what it’s now become.
We spent the year living in the New York Finger Lakes region, so we did a ton of (responsible!) local travel to state parks and waterfalls like Letchworth and Watkins Glen.
In September and October when people were starting to explore a bit more regionally, we took our first New England fall road trip and it turned out to be one of our favorite places to date.
2021
Imagine what it’s like to start a travel business during an unprecedented global lockdown event. Yes, we had doubts about our risky career move! So to alleviate some of the pressure, Kristen took a traveling med tech role in Bronxville, NY in early 2021 and we moved to NYC while Mark continued building the site.
We spent so much time exploring New York City when it was eerily quiet and we even got a photo of us alone in Times Square. Then Kristen took a 6 month position in Seattle, so we took a long road trip with plenty of stops along the way, including second trips to the Black Hills and Yellowstone.
We kind of fell in love with the Pacific Northwest. We didn’t let the heat dome (it was so hot all summer) stop us hiking pretty much every trail in western Washington State. Our legs were so strong by the end of summer 2021!
Then we spent the last 3 months of the year road tripping down the west coast from Seattle to Sedona. By this point travel planning and photography were like second nature to us and we had an incredible time.
2022
After spending a few weeks back in England with Mark’s family for Christmas, we spent a few months living with Kristen’s close friends near Nashville. This was so much fun but it was colder than we expected! Then we did a few months back in the Finger Lakes with Kristen’s parents, before doing another trip to NYC in April.
From NYC we flew to Italy and spent an unforgettable month exploring Rome, the Amalfi Coast and Tuscany. Then we did one of the best things we’ve ever done: hiked the Tour du Mont Blanc Trail over 8 days. It really was something else, but our prep (a months worth of pizza and wine in Italy) couldn’t have been any worse!
After spending a few more months in York, England with Mark’s family we went back to the US. This time we visited Denver and San Francisco, before taking a 17 hour flight to Singapore. We’d already spent months in Singapore in our science jobs so we knew it well. Then we took a short flight to Kuala Lumpur to begin a 90-day stay there.
2023
We spent Christmas of 2022 in a rooftop swimming pool with cocktails and santa hats! We’d always wanted to try the digital nomad lifestyle, which was why we spent 3 full months living in KL. It was a good experience but honestly we ended up spending similar to what it costs to live in the US or UK anyway.
From KL, we flew to Bangkok and spent a month living there. We love big cities, but Bangkok is so loud and chaotic, and we were ready to leave by the end. Next we spent a month living in Siem Reap, visiting Angkor Wat for 3 amazing days. We actually really liked Siem Reap, it’s set up really well for tourism.
Next, we flew to Seoul for 2 truly special weeks (we loved it there), before spending 3 more weeks in Japan for the cherry blossoms. Now, Japan is one of our favorites, but it was out of control during cherry blossom season and we much preferred the fall foliage season.
After 6 months in Asia, we were ready to be back in the US so we moved down to Raleigh, NC for 4 months and ended up building a great community in nearby Durham. At the end of the year we took another 3 week New England road trip, spent more time in England and took an amazing 8 day trip to Paris.
2024
We have to say 2024 was the strangest year we’ve had since meeting each other in 2016. We’d done so much travel but we wanted to start a family and we were craving things like community, stability and consistency.
So we decided to move back down to Durham, NC where we’d made new friends for the first time in years. It’s hard to meet people when you travel long term and have an online business, so this was a nice change of pace for us.
We did get away to spend time in Normandy with Mark’s family and we visited Paris again, but Kristen wasn’t the biggest fan of traveling when pregnant.
Then at the end of the year our baby daughter Maya was finally born and it instantly justified our decision to stop traveling so we could start a family. It was the best decision we could have made and we can’t wait to take her traveling around the world.
What’s It Like To Run A Travel Business?
There’s a common misconception that travel writers live this dreamy lifestyle lounging around on beaches drinking cocktails and spending 5 minutes writing about it. Or worse yet, people don’t take it seriously as a “real job”. But that couldn’t be any further from the truth!
Our travel business gives us an amazing lifestyle, but boy is it hard work. We had to learn everything from scratch: how to build and run a business, how to design a website, how to write travel guides and market them, how to take travel photos and videos, and the list goes on. And we did it all ourselves. We’ve never paid anyone to do anything on our site.
You might work in healthcare, finance or education and be great at your job. We create travel guides. And we’re very good at it. This travel business is our platform to directly impact people’s lives in a positive way, and we couldn’t be any happier for it.
We thought it would be fun to share some of our personal guides with you that explain what it’s really like to travel long term and run an online travel business, just in case you’ve been thinking about starting something of your own.
Here’s what we’ve written so far:
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