Welcome to our travel and photography blog!

We are Sylvain and Mélanie 🙂 We are the two people behind this travel and photography blog. Passionate about both fields for many years, we hope that our travel stories and advice, will make you feel even more excited to travel! Here, it’s very often Sylvain who writes (because he likes it) and Mélanie who does everything else (and believe us, there’s plenty to do!). Let’s go, we’ll leave you with a little presentation of each other!

Hey, hello ! It's us !

My name is Sylvain, I’m in my thirties, and I am a travel enthusiast. Actually, I don’t really remember where this passion started, but, even as a child, I remember spending hours looking at the maps of the world hanging on my bedroom wall or at a colorful globe my parents had bought for me. It was magical to see all its shapes, the countries, illuminated in front of my eyes. My dreams of travelling had already begun.

And then, what followed could only be described as logical. Passionate about maps and discovery, I was studying geography and geology in order to obtain a master’s degree in natural risk management. Why am I telling you all this? Throughout my studies, I remember my the college teachers who showed me pictures of magical places to illustrate their courses; “This is a picture I took last year of a dune in Namibia, here you see, we notice…. “, «Ah ! here is a picture of a dyke that I photographed 6 months ago in Iceland “, in short my desire to travel was growing more and more even back then. Naturally, I started planning my first trips. At 21 years old, I went on a trip to Norway with a friend, and then to the island of Martinique with my wife.

That was it, the die was cast, I knew I wanted to spend my life travelling

Around this time, in 2006, I started throwing myself into arenophilia (sand collection). Since then, I have collected sand and exchanged samples with people from all over the world. In 2015, I completed my goal of collecting sand from every country in the world (196).

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qui est les deux pieds dehors blog de voyage

For the rest of the journey

I left France in 2009 to finish my studies in New Caledonia. I spent the year 2010 more or less devoted to travelling. I went to Norway for a second time and to Nepal for a month of hiking in the Himalayas. In 2011, I decided to move to Mayotte Island, in the Indian Ocean, for work. I stayed there for two years, managing to include trips to the Comoros and Madagascar.

Unfortunately, life is catching up with me a little, especially my work, and I can’t really travel as much as I would like, but the desire is still there. At the end of 2012, after a year of planning, I decided to leave my job with my wife and travel to South-east Asia for a year. This exploration of Asia will remain engraved in my memory forever: so many beautiful encounters, beautiful landscapes, as well as culinary, cultural and other discoveries.

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qui suis-je ?

My return to France at the end of 2013 was difficult for me and I found it hard to stay in France permanently. I re-expatriated for 2 years to the island of Mayotte, again for work. This time I also had the opportunity to discover the Reunion Island as well as Madagascar (many times), and the African continent for the first time, with two trips: Mozambique and Tanzania, for a photo safari.

I left the island of Mayotte definitively in 2015 to move to French Polynesia, where I currently live with my wife and my son. Another great adventure, which is allowing me to discover the tropical islands of French Polynesia, and also the Easter Island and New Zealand.

What about Melanie?

Hey, I’m Melanie, also in her thirties!

Where to start? To tell you the truth, my passion for travel started in Martinique Island with Sylvain. Despite my many school trips, I didn’t see the point before to spend so much money on souvenirs, on something immaterial… But upon returning from this trip, the revelation was there and I really started to enjoy traveling !

However, I have always moved with my parents in France, especially when camping from places to places! Setting up, unpacking the tent, building huts with my cousins has always excited me!

What I like about travelling, apart from exploring new landscapes, is really meeting people. Our two stays on Mayotte Island will remain in my heart for the rest of my life. Apart from a wonderful lagoon, I would remember especially the long hours of discussions with the Mahorais (people living there) during driving hours (oh yes I didn’t tell you but I was a driving school instructor!). On the island, there was no taboo and I really learned a lot from them it was a real exchange!

My desire to discover new cultures was confirmed when I traveled to Southeast Asia. My best memories of this year spent on this part of the world will remain the encounters with people, the glances between us who said a lot…

What about today then?

First of all, I’m the mother of a little Louis as chatty as his father… and that’s already a full-time job! In my professional life, I’m lost, and yes, I am like that, I don’t like monotony, I get tired quickly!

After studying business, animation in a recreational center, I joined my parents in the driving school environment (and yes, always this side of interaction). This job in Mayotte was exciting. Here in Tahiti, I am no longer attracted to it at all. So I decided to turn myself to a profession that is still going on everywhere: accounting. I’ve always heard that you can get a job anywhere with this. I am therefore starting to resume my studies in 2017 for a bachelor’s degree and the challenge is not easy, I must admit.

In 2017, in collaboration with Sylvain, we decided to start this travel and photography blog to share our two mutual passions. I must therefore admit that it is not always easy to combine resuming studies and maintaining this blog. Because yes, here, it is mainly Sylvain who writes (because he likes it). Besides that, I totally invested myself in everything else. At the beginning of the blog, things were simple to manage, but as it is becoming more known, it now takes more time. I therefore take care of all the aspects (technical management, layout, photo processing, help with SEO, complete management of social networks and partnerships, etc.). Anyway, it’s almost a full-time job now!

Come on, enough talking, I let Sylvain resume writing to tell you the content of our blog!

Melanie

So what about this blog?

I must admit that I had a hard time getting started and it took me many years of telling myself to stop messing about and to just get on with it. I had already started blogging during my trip to Southeast Asia but only for my family and friends. And then time passed by and I just didn’t get started…

It was finally during a lovely encounter with a Polish blogger (!) during her stay here on the islands that something clicked! Beautiful exchanges were made between us and then, “click!” I got started and now, here I am, throwing myself body and (soul) into this blog. I must admit that it isn’t a simple task because I’m starting from the beginning, from nothing in fact. Blogging became popular in 2017 and everyone more or less keeps a blog when they go on a trip or a world tour.

Well, I am gradually getting started now and I’m starting to get the hang of it, the writing, sharing, and all the research. From the beginning, I deliberately wanted to talk about the two passions that make me feel alive: travel and photography. For me, they are inseparable.

That’s why I consider this blog to be a travel and photography blog. Anyway, I enjoy writing about both topics. So, you will find articles on the destinations I have been lucky enough to explore and then talk about as well as articles related to photography. As I was living on French Polynesian territory when I started writing this blog, there are many more articles on French Polynesia than on the other destinations. However, I also tell you about my travels over the years to Africa, the island of Mayotte and South-east Asia.

After that, I made it my goal to find cheap airline tickets, and I now offer a page that I regularly keep up to date with the best fare I find.

Please note that some articles on my blog contain affiliate links, which means that we can get a small commission if you book a hotel room or plane ticket via these links. You don’t, of course, pay more if you use these links however, if you do, you will be helping us to continue this blog. Which is how we’re able to continue to produce free and, above all, independent content, something which is extremely important to us.

If you would like to know more about me, my thoughts and ideas in 2019, come and read my article on my life as a blogger in 2019. Maybe it will evolve, who knows?

Before we meet somewhere along the road, we wish you luck and hope you enjoy discovering the articles in our blog, which will get richer every day. To follow the evolution of this blog and not miss anything, I invite you to subscribe to our newsletter in order to receive all the latest blog articles! Feel free to follow us on social networks too.

See you soon,

Sylvain & Mélanie