Hi, my name is Nico, nice to meet you!
Let me start off by telling you a few things about me:
I am from a small town in the northeast of England but I currently live in Beijing, China.
I think about food roughly 95% of the time, especially pizza.
I want a dog more than anything but I love travelling too much and it wouldn’t be fair, so instead I watch an unhealthy amount of dog videos on Facebook.
I am addicted to vaseline and never leave the house without it.
I love listening to old music, preferably played loudly on vinyl.
I am happiest sitting watching the sunset with an ice-cold beer.
Now you know a bit about me let me tell you my story:
In December 2015, I quit my job as a graphic designer to travel South America with my boyfriend. We had been saving up for a few years and decided it was the right time to up sticks and start our adventure. Our only real goal was a vague aim to travel for as long as possible, which led us down some pretty interesting roads.
We meandered up and down the length of the continent, from Brazil to Colombia, by way of Patagonia; hiking, exploring and taking in some of the amazing sights that each country had to offer. We mostly travelled overland on local buses and packed collectivos (communal taxis), stretching every Dollar, Peso and Bolivar as far as possible. We learned a lot - mostly through making mistakes – which was my inspiration to start We Are Nico, a website dedicated to helping other people live their own adventure.
In October 2016, we emerged from a 5-week stint in the Bolivian jungle, rich with mosquito bites and memories, but pretty poor in terms of money. Our savings were running out fast and we needed to work out what to do next.
We came to the conclusion that we had two choices:
1. Go back to the UK and start over
2. Figure out a way to keep travelling
What would you do?
For us, there was only one option worth considering.
As we were both native English speakers, the logical choice would be to teach English abroad. Prior to travelling, we had both completed our TEFL course so we were ready to try and teach abroad. I say try, because, we later found out that no online course can prepare you for the nerves of stepping into a classroom as a teacher for the first time, or give you any indication of just how much fun you will have!
After a lot of extensive research, we decided that our best option was China – a country that had always enchanted me. So, in spring 2017 we moved to China to start our journey teaching English.
Moving to China to teach English was a daunting prospect, but it turned out to be one of the best decisions we ever made!
If you are interested in coming to China to teach English and need some more information then get in touch and I can help!
By this point, my website was growing in popularity, but we realised that there was a serious lack of practical and up-to-date information on China so we set up a YouTube channel focusing on 'Life in China' and travelling throughout Asia. We try to focus on high-quality production, as opposed to flash-in-the-pan vlogs, which led to us setting up a multi-media company called Square Peg Media through which we share our skills and experiences with like-minded clients.
Our journey in China is not over yet and since moving here we have lived in 2 different cities and between us have worked several different jobs. We have visited over 15 cities and made countless videos documenting our time here. We won’t be in China forever but who knows where we will head next, so watch this space.