About
About
Wandering Wheatleys was launched in 2013 when Nick and Val took their first around-the-world trip together.
Originally meant as a way to keep in contact with family and friends, this website has evolved over the years from a personal journal to an award-winning inspirational travel website visited by over 2 million readers each year!
These days the website is run by an incredible team of avid travelers and freelance content creators to ensure you’re getting the most helpful and up-to-date travel guides, tips, and recommendations.
Who This Site Is For?
Nick and Val love to travel but are definitely no longer “backpackers”. Both are pushing 40 and gave up the hostel-style of travel years ago. They now prefer to spend a bit more money on hotel rooms and tour experiences to really enjoy themselves.
And because they write about actual experiences, the Wandering Wheatleys website features high-end accommodation and unique excursions. You won’t find any hostel recommendations or “free things to do” articles here. Nick and Val are here to help you plan an amazing vacation without sacrificing any creature comforts from home.
The Wandering Wheatleys love being outdoors but also appreciate a good pampering session so on this website you’ll find fun hiking recommendations intermingled with luxurious hotel recommendations and everything in between.
On This Site You Will Find
Meet the Team
Val Wheatley
Val grew up in Portland, Oregon but moved to Oahu on a whim back in 2013. She sold her house and all of her belongings and bought a one-way ticket. Since then she’s taken two around-the-world trips and has visited 60-ish countries while living out of a duffel bag.
Val started documenting the Wandering Wheatleys travels back in 2013 as a way to update friends and family about her whereabouts and to relay humorous daily interactions. The only readers were her mom and her mother-in-law but that didn’t stop her!
With a former career in Human Resources and a degree in Business Administration, Val doesn’t exactly have a background in editorial work. She prefers to write like she talks – with a hefty dose of sarcasm, humor, and storytelling mixed in. These days you’ll find Val dreaming up future trips, creating new travel content, managing a team of amazing travel enthusiasts, and chasing around her little traveling toddler, Humphrey.
Nick Wheatley
Nick took his first solo trip abroad to Ireland and Scotland when he was just 19. Since then he has visited 63 countries and counting
He coupled his passion for travel photography with Val’s passion for writing and thus Wandering Wheatleys was born.
Besides photography, Nick loves eating the weirdest food he can find in a country (sheep’s brain currently sits in first place) and making Val get up an hour before sunrise to make sure he gets “the good light”.
Justine Lopez
Justine is a California native who always seems to take the unconventional route in life. She also suffers from a serious case of wanderlust!
In 2013, she set out on a yearlong round-the-world journey and never looked back. Since then she’s lived the expat life in Indonesia, Cambodia, China, and Vietnam. She’s now living and working as a freelance writer in Mexico.
As she meanders her way around the world, Justine is always seeking out delicious vegetarian food, pretty beaches, and amazing new travel destinations.
Jem Solis
Jem is a passion-fueled Filipina who dreams of traveling to faraway places, meeting people around the world, hearing their stories, and of course, tasting their cuisines!
Jems loves working hard as a freelancer to finance her future wanderlust. She provides an extra set of hands with various administrational tasks, social media handling, content creation, and she’s a wiz with WordPress!
Jem is a self-proclaimed foodie and can’t function without her morning coffee. She’s a people person, loves volunteering, and even joins local beauty pageants on the side because she loves being surrounded by empowered women. Because all women are beauty queens!
Charity De Souza
Born and raised in Florida, Charity moved to London after college and caught the travel bug. She then traveled full-time as a digital nomad for over a decade, living in the UK, New Zealand, China, and Thailand.
With around 60-ish travel stamps in her passport, her favorite memories include skydiving in Switzerland, eating sushi in Japan, island hopping in the Philippines, and camping overnight in the Sahara Desert.
She’s now a freelance writer living in Portugal with her husband and son.
Nicola Quinn
Nicola is a freelance writer with an insatiable hunger for travel. She swapped her home in the UK for the sunny Canary Islands when she was just 11 and she has been based there ever since.
From crawling on her hands and knees inside pyramids in Egypt to swimming with baby sharks in Bali and searching (fruitlessly!) for the Northern Lights in Iceland, Nicola takes every chance she gets to explore new places.
The incredible experiences she has around the world fuels her writing and inspires her to plan even more adventures for the future.
Richard Collett
Richard is an award-winning travel writer based in Southwest England who’s addicted to traveling off the beaten track. He’s traveled to 75 countries and counting in search of intriguing stories, unusual destinations, and cultural curiosities.
Richard loves traveling the long way round over land and sea, and you’ll find him visiting quirky micronations and breakaway territories as often as he’s found lounging on a beach (which is a lot).
When he’s not writing for BBC Travel, National Geographic, or Lonely Planet, you can find Richard writing for the Wandering Wheatleys or updating his off-beat travel blog, Travel Tramp.
Jacqueline Gualtieri
Jacqueline is a writer and editor pursuing the freelance life to explore the world. Born and raised in New Jersey, she spent her college years in Boston before settling down with her partner and puppy in Monterey, California.
When she’s not writing, you can often find her planning her next trip. Road trips are her favorite, whether it’s driving across the country or simply exploring a new city in her own backyard. She loves uncovering the history of every new place she goes.
Jacqueline has a restless passion for learning and makes it a goal to pick up a new skill every year. She’s picked up embroidery, crocheting, knitting, and cross-stitching, but she’s hoping to master more languages to help her in her travels. She’s also a published author, with short stories and poetry appearing in several anthologies.
Humphrey Wheatley
Humphrey got an early start to his wandering when he was born at a hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. For the first 16 months of his life, he got to experience Vietnamese culture, Vietnamese cuisine, and he got lots of love from old Vietnamese ladies. He also got to see more of Vietnam than most people see in their entire lives!
Now Humphrey’s traveling is mostly US-based but he’s already seen several states including South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Oregon, and Washington. Humphrey only tolerates car rides for about 2 hours so we’ve got some training to do before we set off on a cross-country road trip!