We’re Andrew & Emily

Our story began late one night and early one morning around a kitchen table in our rented flat in East London, after too many gins and too long putting too many dreams on hold.  

The plan? To have an adventure. 

Twelve months later, after saving as much as we possibly could, we quit our jobs in the UK and arrived in Mexico with overstuffed backpacks, a couple of cameras, and the hope that our best days lay ahead of us. 

On the road. By the sea. Atop a mountain peak. In the serendipitous moments in between.

We travelled Latin America together for two years in total (crazy right?). Our budget was strict and our itinerary loose; and that frugality shaped our journey, helping us to spend a long time going slowly to new places. 

And it allowed us to start this blog.

A person in casual clothes stands on a rocky path overlooking a beach with orange umbrellas and a scenic backdrop of mountains and a castle. The ocean stretches out beside rocky cliffs under a clear sky.
Person taking a photo against a textured orange wall with blue patches, wearing a light-colored outfit.
A person jumping above a lake with a mountain in the background, wearing swim trunks, and a small boat in the distance.
Woman in courtyard with arches and colorful flowers
Shirtless man smiling through a window with red chairs, a glass bottle, a can, and a plastic bag on a wooden surface.
Woman in a white T-shirt and beanie holding a green apple stands near an apple tree with many green apples.
Person standing in front of tall, rugged rock formations in a desert landscape.
Person wearing a white t-shirt and denim shorts standing on a forest trail surrounded by lush greenery.
Woman in white outfit and sun hat by the sea with mountains in the background.
A person wearing sunglasses and casual clothing stands in front of an old stone wall with Latin inscription "Tota Pulchra es." The wall features an ornate frame with artwork and a blue directional arrow sign.
Woman sitting on stone wall wearing hat and sunglasses, with scenic landscape in the background.
A person standing on a large rock, overlooking a forested mountain landscape under a clear blue sky.
Person in a hat facing colorful hillside buildings in a Mediterranean town.
Person in overalls and a yellow beanie standing outside a wooden building holding a cup.
A person standing on a wooden raft in a lake with mountains in the background.
Woman posing by a traditional architectural arch
Person in a hat standing in a desert landscape at dusk.
Woman in hat walking on a wooden suspension bridge through lush greenery.
Person in white t-shirt and jeans taking a photo with a camera against a textured orange wall.
Person standing on white steps with a stone wall in the background, wearing a beige outfit, sunglasses, and holding a woven bag.
Man wearing a white t-shirt, brown hat, and sunglasses standing next to a wall in shadow.
Woman in hat sitting on marble steps in front of ornate door of Siena cathedral.
Man in white shirt and sunglasses walking on rooftop of Iglesia Merced rooftop in Antigua with a volcano in the background.
Woman in white outfit and hat standing next to a white scooter against a beige brick wall.

Travel is the thing that makes the two of us feel the most alive.

It sets our senses on fire and is responsible for changing our lives for the better. 

Without adventures or a curiosity to venture toward somewhere new and different to home, we would be rootless and lost. 

Travel is what makes us happy. 

We created Along Dusty Roads because we wanted to help people travel more & travel better. 
 
We felt that sharing our experiences, our perspectives, our mistakes, and our advice would contribute a little bit to making the travel experience better for some people, and better in the long run for some of the people and places we all visit along the way.

We wanted travellers like you to use what we write and what we photograph as a handbook to craft your own memories & adventures out on the road.

To write your own stories.

Since hitting publish at five minutes past midnight in a sweatbox room with no windows in Guatemala back in 2014, our travel blog is now read and trusted by millions of travellers. People with different backgrounds, different budgets, different dreams, and different priorities, travelling to different parts known and unknown.

The modern day explorers who want to see the world, and want to hold a little part of in their heart.

So, what makes Along Dusty Roads a little bit different?

And why should you stick around?

Well, everything we write and curate here is done by the two of us and based on our own trips and experiences. We aren't a travel website that tries to write about everywhere for everyone - after all, it's just us - but that means you can really trust what we write and recommend in our destination guides and advice articles. 

All the photos you'll see on the blog are taken by us as well (after travel, photography is our biggest passion but the two sort of go together like lime, cilantro, and a good hot sauce). 

Second, we don't want everyone to quit their jobs to travel - and we're not going to sell you a course about how to do it. Instead, we just want everyone to be able to make the most of their own travel experiences - whether it's a year backpacking South America, a spontaneous city break in Europe, a road trip in Italy or a staycation closer to home - and to have the right sort of advice to create your own authentic travel memories. 

We try to live, breathe and fall in love with every country we step foot in, rather than just get a passing glimpse of its best bits. Or just for Instagram points.

Responsible, slow, and sustainable travel are also hugely important to us. In the last eleven years, we have been fortunate to make a lot of mistakes, learn a lot of lessons, and change our way of thinking about what it means to be a 'good traveller'. Across our blog posts, we do our best to raise awareness of simple practices and habit changes which we believe all travellers should follow wherever they go.

Because, for us, being a considerate, responsible traveller always results in better travel experiences. And it's a responsibility that's shared between us all. 

We are both conscious of how fortunate we are to be able to travel anywhere in the first place - and never take for granted that people trust and respect what we write or recommend here. Many journeys and many years may have passed since we started this travel blog, but our founding principle of helping people travel more & travel better still underpins every single thing we do here on Along Dusty Roads. 

And it always will. 

So, thank you for joining us and being a member of our little community of travellers. We both really appreciate it and we hope you'll find something here to be a catalyst for finding your own dusty road. 

If you want to follow our adventures as and when they happen, the best place to do that is over on Instagram - find us at @alongdustyroads

p.s. Andrew is from Scotland and Emily is from England, and we now live in a very old house in an English town near the Welsh border. We're both absolute tea-addicts and veggies. We like crime TV shows, British comedy, and podcasts. We are lovers of the outdoors, anything that's got four legs and fur, and overuse of the Oxford comma. 

We think we’re possibly the only people in the world to have our first post-engagement photo taken by a naked Mexican man we didn’t know (we were fully clothed by the way).

We also donate 2% of annual revenues to several charities that do incredibly important work related to travel, conservation, sustainability, and protecting those whose voices are most forgotten or neglected (details below).

If sending biscuits, chocolate hob-nobs are our weapon of choice, but you can also support what we do by buying us a coffee via our Ko-Fi page.

The 2% Club

We donate 2% of what we make to several charities that do incredibly important work related to travel, conservation, sustainability, and protecting those whose voices are most forgotten or neglected. 

A selection of those we support are:

The Phoenix Projects | A small charity dedicated to providing sustainable education, food services, and employment opportunities to marginalised communities in Guatemala, Ecuador, Peru, and Honduras. Its core mission is to combat poverty and inequality by offering long-term, community-driven solutions.

World Animal Protection | Fighting to end animal suffering and exploitation globally, particularly in tourism and the wildlife trade.

Survival International | The global movement for tribal and indigenous people's rights, to amplify their voices, and change the world in their favour.

Friends of Inti Wara Yassi | Supports two sanctuaries in Bolivia dedicated to the rescue, rehabilitation and care of wildlife that has fallen victim to illegal trafficking and other harm, as well as fighting the wildlife trade and environmental destruction. We visited them in 2015 - read more here. 

World Land Trust | Protects the world’s most biologically significant and threatened habitats.

Sightsavers | Works in more than 30 countries to prevent avoidable blindness and fight for the rights of people with disabilities.

Brooke | The world's leading equine charity on a mission is to create a world where working horses, donkeys and mules have a life worth living.

If you can support, or would like to find out more, please click the charity names highlighted above.

Contact us.

Want to get in touch about something in particular? Fill in this form and we'll get back to you - or if you'd prefer, drop us an email at hello@alongdustyroads.com 

If you would like to join us on our journey, then you can follow us on a variety of social media channels.

We'd love for you to be a part of the adventure!

For commercial opportunities, please visit our Work With Us page.