Katrina Medina Umandap or “Kach” to everyone who follows her online is a ray of sunshine. I met her online after stumbling across an article written by her fiancé Jonathan Howe. It was a feature from a well-known news and lifestyle website in the Philippines that was surprisingly shared 80,000 times on facebook alone.

Kach is co-writer/co-founder of Two Monkeys Travel Group – Community Travel Blog and Website. Together with Jon, she has been travelling the world since 2013 working her way, finding new and interesting ways to support a life of long-term travel sometimes either as an english and yoga teacher or as a massage therapist.

Kach and Jonathan have been featured in many articles and tv shows internationally including The Huffington Post, Forbes.com, Yahoo! News, Al Jazeera, Cosmopolitan, Trip Advisor and BBC Travel. They were travel ambassadors for South America Backpacker Magazine in 2015 and have been writing officially for luxury hotels, airlines and tourism ministries from different countries.

Two Monkeys Travel Blog and Website quickly grew into a valuable source of inspiring travel stories, advice, itineraries and travel guides, with the aim of demonstrating how to live a sustainable life of travel, whilst living your own definition of success and now they are a community with over twenty amazing travel writers and contributors located all over the world – Asia, Europe, USA, Canada and South America.

Kach had a white collar job in the Middle East and Jon was an architect in the UK before they met in Laos on a backpacking trip in 2013. Both gave up their nine to five jobs not long after and life for both since then became a series of adventures in different continents – mostly fun but definitely not falling short on challenges.

Kach and Jon are set to marry in an official ceremony this July in Checkendon, UK.

You gave up your normal 9-5 job in exchange of a life of travel. Are you satisfied? Didn’t you want to go back?

I have occasionally considered it, back when we ran low on money in our travels, but not any more. I am my own boss and I love that!

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Kach daydreming in Cancun, Mexico

When did you realize that you could make money out of travel blogging?

This was something that I knew about all along because I had followed several successful travel bloggers over the past several years. I started travel blogging knowing that I wanted to create a successful business.

Do you earn enough money? How do you make both ends meet?

There were times that we didn’t have much money, but back then we were still teaching English and practising massage therapy to earn money as well. These days we can travel, earn a good living and even save for our future too.

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Kach and Jon motorbiking in North Vietnam

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Kach after volcano boarding in Nicaragua

How long have you been on the road (travelling)?

I originally left the Philippines to work in the Middle East back in 2009, but I finally quit everything in April of 2013 and have been travelling since.

What’s your favorite country so far?

The Patagonia region of Chile is still my favourite by far, because the nature is just so unbelievable raw and beautiful!

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Glacier trekking in Patagonia, Chile

Don’t you miss home?

I don’t miss home as  such, but there are sometimes the little things about home that I miss. The biggest part of home I miss is family.

What is your “retirement” plan?

Jon and I plan to find our own special piece of paradise by the ocean, build a house and raise a family there. We still don’t know where that place is, but we are looking!

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Snorkeling in the Maldives

What’s the best thing that ever happened to you while travelling?

Some of the best things that have happened to us while travelling are things that seemed like bad things at the time, because they are the things that put us out of our comfort zone and into the hands of strangers around us, reinforcing our belief in the goodness of people.

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Kach and Jon met the Dalai Lama and made friends with Buddhist and Tibetan monks in Dharamsala, Northwest India

The funniest?

We once travelled by motorbike to the border between Laos and Vietnam to renew my Vietnam visa and ended up in a restaurant sharing food and bottles of Vodka with the Laos immigration police. That was a very funny night!

How easy or difficult is it for you to strike up a conversation with total strangers in a foreign land? Any hints?

It gets easier the more you do it, especially when you realise that most people really enjoy talking to you. My biggest tip is never try to start a conversation with, ‘do you speak English?’ This will embarrass people who have to say no and you’ll only speak to the ones who can say yes. Jonathan loves talking to people he meets and some of the best conversations he’s had have been in languages he cannot even slightly understand!

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Chichen Cenote, Mexico

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Kach and Jon in Macchu Picchu, Peru

Many people frown upon budget travelling e.g. backpacking. You have words for them?

Not really, because it’s not for everyone! It’s my personal belief that everyone should try it before dismissing it, but everyone is different.

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Jon at big log swing in Istria, Croatia

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Kach skydiving in Dubai

At what age do you think it’s already late to pursue one’s passion or happiness? Any words of advice to your followers about leaving their comfort zones?

It’s never too late, it’s more a case of what situation you find yourself in – do you have kids, financial responsibilities etc? Age is not a barrier at all.

Are you an artist?

I think we have art inside of us and we often express it without realising it. I prefer to call it creativity, and I think mine comes out through our lifestyle and how we achieve it.

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White water rafting in Ganges River, India

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Hair braids in Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos

If these photos ignited your sense of wanderlust, head on over to http://twomonkeystravelgroup.com to read about interesting travel destinations and stories on the planet. Remember, “the world is meant to be experienced, not imagined.


Main photo by JP Licudan. In-text photos provided by Kach.