CURRENT MISSION

To do something new everyday

ABOUT ME

We are Jack and Hannah, a couple from Australia. We recently quit our jobs to spend some time travelling the world. We spent the past 4 months in India and are about to head to Europe. We only just (Jan, 2014) joined the couch surfers community and we are excited to meet new people from all over the place!

Jack is a 25 year old Mechanical Engineer from Melbourne, Australia. He works for a small solar energy startup in Melbourne and enjoys travelling, new people, new challenges and sports of any kind. Jack's favourite travel experience is sleeping in a 150m high treehouse in northern Laos and he will do just about anything for a banana smoothie or chicken sandwich.

Hannah is a 26 year old Civil and Environmental Engineer from Adelaide, Australia. She works from a global engineering consultancy in Adelaide and also enjoys travelling, baking, reading and really terrible giant animal movies (think Jaws, Anaconda). Han's favourite travel experience is driving a rickshaw 3500km's across India and she is currently training for a half marathon.

That's us. We met about 2 years ago at an Engineers Without Borders conference and have been together ever since. We are very easy going (we will happily sleep on the floor! haha), easy to get along with and, we like to think, a bit of fun. We're also mature and responsible when it comes to things like tidiness, being on time and trustworthiness.

PHILOSOPHY

Nothing specific, just to stay busy, keep challenging yourself and enjoy what you have got.

Be respectful to others and listen more than you speak..

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

We have just joined couch surfers, and we are about to leave on a year long trip to Europe via Sri Lanka, UAE and Kuala Lumpur, so we will be looking for hosts as we go.

We are in Australia until 10th January if anyone is headed to Melbourne. We have a large family home about 1 hour from the city, on a 10 acre block in the countryside. Kangaroos live about 20m from our front door all year, and we see possums, koalas and echidna's a few times a year on our place. We have a pool, spa and plenty of spare space (3 rooms!) for people to stay. We regularly have international visitors stay with us and couch surfers are more than welcome. Everything is free and we should be able to assist with transport from Melbourne. If you plan to stay longer than a day or two we would ask for a contribution towards food.

After the 10th Jan 2014 we will be away for about a year. Upon return we will put our couch back up for anyone who is keen. Happy travels :)

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

None! haha. We heard about couch surfing from a friend of ours on our last trip abroad and thought it sounded like a great concept. We have just signed up (Jan 2014) and we are looking forward to meeting new hosts and travellers to share stories, ideas and knowledge with.

Interests

We are both pretty active, outdoorsy sort of people. We like to run, ike and ride our way through new places, especially rural landscapes. We enjoy rock climbing and are planning to cycle our way across Europe this year from Turkey to the UK.

We also love a good laugh, chat and a cheeky beverage with pretty much anyone. We make friends easily and we like to think we have a pretty good sense of humour, which makes travelling a lot less hassle :)

We are pretty driven to keep challenging ourselves as much as possible. In the past year this has led to such adventures as;
Driving a rickshaw from one side of India to the other.
Completing a month long mountaineering course in the Himalayas.
Working for a solar energy startup in Bangalore that works in the urban slum communities.
Completing a TESOL course and preparing to teach english overseas.
Raised over $30,000 for a charity we are a fan of.

We are really looking forward to meeting new people through couch surfing and hearing what you have all been up to lately!

• animals
• design
• dining
• baking
• fitness
• yoga
• marathon
• running
• coach
• movies
• reading
• traveling
• billiards
• cycling
• mountaineering
• surfing
• sports
• rock climbing
• business
• economics
• engineering

Music, Movies, and Books

Hannah favourite books are a Secret History by Donna Tartt and A Short History of Everything by Bill Bryson.

Jack's favourite books are Contest by Matthew Riley and pretty much any non-fiction book about travel or adventure.

Our movie tastes tend to vary day by day, and we are pretty addicted to TED talks.

We love good music, especially live music, and Han is pretty addicted to The Tallest Man on Earth at the moment.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Jack: Bungy Jumping on the Nevis Highwire in New Zealand, scariest thing I have ever done :)

Hannah: Watching the mist rise over Machu Picchu. Second most beautiful thing I've ever seen, after my brothers baby boy!

Teach, Learn, Share

Hmmm.. skills and knowledge we might be able to contribute to this community. Here's a list I guess;
Hannah is a Civil and Environmental Engineer, and Jack is a Mechanical Engineer, so I guess technical, logical, planning and mathematical skills.
Teaching skills. We both have completed a TESOL certificate (80 hours), taught a fair bit in classrooms and have tutored in a number of fields.
Jack has worked as a coach and personal trainer in the past, and really enjoys sharing fitness training knowledge, tips and ideas with anyone who will listen!
We are both pretty interested in entrepreneurial businesses and have been for a few years. I guess that means we might have some knowledge, experience or ideas to pass on to people who are thinking of starting their own business.
Hannah has some basic website design skills using wordpress. She is by no means a cyber-hacker-genius, but she will happily share this knowledge with anyone who wants to learn.
As far as practical skills go, Jack has an advanced divers qualification, we both have basic first aid qualifications, and were happy to teach any of the hobbies listed in the above sections. We both ride motorbikes and Jack is working towards being able to pilot any vehicle on the planet (some sort of James Bond fantasy he never gave up as a kid) so I guess we can pass on these skills to anyone keen to learn.

What we want to learn in the near future?.. Again here's a list;
Some basic economics knowledge. We have found all startup businesses share the need for some degree of economics knowledge and we don't know enough. Potentially going to take some Coursera courses online whilst we are away, but would love to learn from other people
New sports, really of any kind. And not just sports, but any physical activities. We picked up some great Yoga techniques from fellow travellers in our time in India, and we really open to learning more!
Pretty much anything new, creative or useful, we are all ears :)

Countries I’ve Visited

Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bolivia, Brazil, Cambodia, Chile, Germany, India, Indonesia, Laos, Morocco, Peru, Portugal, Spain, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

Australia