Stopping by to Say ‘Hi’: My First TabiFolk Blog Post!

Hi there! I thought I would write a quick blog post, exclusively for TabiFolk, to explain more about me, what I’m up to these days, and what inspired me to join this community!

For those of you who do not know me yet, my name is Anthony (A.K.A Geordie Travels) and I am a 30-something guy from the North-East of England.

I live in Brazil with my wife Fê and my amazing four-year-old stepdaughter, Amélia. We live in the south of Brazil, in a state called Rio Grande do Sul, which borders Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay.

I started blogging through my Geordie Travels site many years ago, whilst studying abroad in The Netherlands. I had the opportunity back then to travel to Taiwan for six months, and then on to New Zealand for three months – during which time I was able to backpack my way around South East Asia and also have the opportunity to volunteer with the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF)! It was a really fulfilling time for me and really set me on a path toward wanting to see more of the world and have as many new experiences as possible.

At first, I wanted to be a travel writer in my own right – without feeling the need to even mention the fact that I was disabled. But after many long conversations with friends, they convinced me to try and use my disability as my USP – and later, I slowly transitioned into some low-level advocacy and started focusing more and more on accessible travel.

Flash forward a couple of years and in January 2018 I started a Facebook group called THE WORLD IS ACCESSIBLE. The inspiration for starting the group came after an amazing press trip to Romania, with Accessible Romania by Sano Touring. I had secured this trip solely off the back of my Geordie Travels blog, which was doing well at the time, but I felt I wanted to try and reach a larger audience, so the idea for the Facebook group was born.

It took quite some time for the group members to start to grow, but now, almost 6 years later, the total number of group members stands at almost 28,000 and I am proud to say that it is a highly engaged community.

I was introduced to TabiFolk through Josh – who I had been following on Twitter for quite some time. I really love this platform and have shared ads for it in recent editions of my The World is Accessible monthly newsletter. I am proud to be one of the moderators here and have plans to be as active as possible in the future. I also have a hand in the creation of the TabiFolk newsletter – which was recently relaunched!

I could seriously waffle on for hours, but I think I will bring this blog post to a close here. If anyone has any specific questions they would like to ask, please feel free. I am almost entirely an ‘open book’.

I will try to make these blog posts a regular thing – say once a month. That should allow me to round up what’s been happening in my life from an accessible travel front!

For now, though, it’s nice to formally meet you all. Thanks for taking the time to read my first TabiFolk blog post!