About Wanderlust Marriage

Welcome! Whether you’re a luxury, mid-range or budget traveler, we strive for you to have the most amazing trips. So in our travel articles, we also share many travel hacks for getting great value for your money. Check out our Resources Page, which includes ways to help travelers save thousands of dollars on flights and hotels each year!

We met in Brugge, Belgium in 2002 while backpacking solo after college – we were both headed to Amsterdam next. We ended up living in Amsterdam together for 3 and 1/2 years!

We’re Alex and Bell, an American and Australian couple of 17 years who originally met backpacking in a hostel in Brugge, Belgium in 2002. We’ve lived and traveled to every continent except Antarctica, and have firsthand experiences spanning visits to over 60 countries. We launched this website in 2012, while living in Dublin, Ireland, to be a useful resource for travelers and expats.

We cover hidden gem destinations off the tourist trail, in addition to the world’s most popular places. Whether you’re new to traveling or a seasoned explorer, you will find useful information based on 6 years living in Europe and over 23 years experience traveling around the world!

Alex took his first solo overseas trip to Paris in 1998 at age 19. Bell took her first trip out of Australia to Europe at age 21 solo, on the trip we met! When we first met in Bruges we had a day there, and happened to both be heading to Amsterdam for another overlapping day.

Alex with a red bike and giving a thumbs up in front of the Eiffel Tower

Three of our favorite films are the Before trilogy – Before Sunrise, Before Sunset and Before Midnight, starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. Guess why? 🙂 The below photo of us was taken atop Durnstein Castle, before a stop in Vienna during an incredible Danube River cruise aboard Emerald Cruises.

Alex and Bell atop the ruins of Durnstein Castle overlooking the Danube River in the Wachau Valley of Austria
View of the Danube River from Durnstein Castle in Austria

These days, our travels tend to focus on mid-range to luxury, but we also believe travel should be accessible to as many people as possible. The fun hostel where we first met in Brugge only cost €10 per night to stay during our backpacker days. So we know firsthand that you can have a lot of fun on a shoe string budget! We encourage young people to experience and learn from the world however they can.

Alex with wall to wall parmesan cheese wheels
Maturing Parmigiano Reggiano cheese wheels during an Italian Days food tour in the Emilia Romagna region of Italy

We’re proud that our story has inspired so many – including others to launch their own couples travel websites! Our story appeared in the book, The Trip That Changed Our Lives, which helped raise over $10,000 for the charities Save the Children and Unbound. Over the years, we enjoyed featuring couple’s interviews discussing their wanderlust marriage travel stories.

We’ve defined Wanderlust Marriage as “a love of traveling the world with your partner in life.”

Our 20 years of world travel have taken us to over 60 countries and counting. We’ve also lived in 7 cities spanning 3 continents during our 16-year marriage. Since 2017 we’ve been based in Washington, DC. Alex Kallimanis recently received an honorable mention in Landscape, Seascape Photography in the 29th Annual NATJA Awards Competition (North American Travel Journalists Association). Alex was also recently named NATJA’s featured journalist of the month for December 2020! Read my NATJA interview, where I share some of my most memorable trips along with tips on travel journalism.

We launched Wanderlust Marriage in 2012, while living in Dublin, Ireland. The majority of our coverage focuses on Europe and the Americas, as we previously resided in Europe for 6 years and visit regularly. Our work has been featured and shared by leading publications, companies and tourism boards from Tasmania to Washington, DC. Subscribe to receive future updates and money saving tips!

Ways to Save Money on Travel

safari holidays Africa

Credit card reward bonuses are a great way to save big on travel. We typically take several roundtrip international flights each year for little more than the taxes thanks to this. This saves us thousands of dollars on travel and we enjoy helping others save big money too. If you need tips on planning a trip or travel hacking, get in touch!

Canals with the gondolas parked and a dark moody sky over Venice



Booking.com

Another great way to save money on travel is to visit destinations during the offseason (and there’s always an off-season somewhere). It’s also a good idea to know where the emerging hotspots are. One example from our recent travels is Salento and the Cocora Valley coffee region in the Andes Mountains of Colombia. Another is beautiful Andros, the second largest Greek Cyclades island that currently draws primarily Greek tourists. Visiting emerging destinations is also a more sustainable and equitable way to travel, both for tourists and locals.

Enquiries

Alex Kallimanis enjoys helping travelers save money on their trips. He has also worked with companies to help them save money on business travel expenses. Bell is a PhD scientist currently working in cancer research. She assists in maintaining this website, along with helping with the Wanderlust Marriage Travel social media channels.

If you have questions on planning a trip, email me at [email protected]

Our Story

Bell and Uncruise guests enjoying the hot tub and drinks in front of a glacier

We originally met 17 years ago at the Bauhaus hostel in Bruges, Belgium, while each backpacking through Europe solo. When we first met, we had both just graduated from college. Alex had just finished a bachelors degree in history from UCF in Orlando, Florida and Bell had completed a psychology degree from Swinburne in Melbourne, Australia. Living half a world away, our paths randomly crossed in the middle.

We were both heading to Amsterdam with just a day overlapping, each armed with nothing but a backpack and a tight budget. Little did we know that six years later we would end up living and working in Amsterdam, married to each other.

We’ve now been working around the world together for over 14 years. Asides from living in Amsterdam for 3 and 1/2 years, we’ve also resided in Melbourne, Australia; Orlando & Tampa, Florida; Dublin, Ireland, Boston and we currently live in Washington, D.C. We’ve grown from budget backpackers in our twenties to travelers who appreciate comfort in our thirties. So we understand a wide range of budgets, interests and needs.

Wanderlust Marriage receives upwards of 14,000 unique visits and 35,000 page views per month. We also have over 70,000 social media followers. We have over 31,000 Instagram followers between our Wanderlust Marriage and Travel Guide Alex accounts. Our Twitter account has a following of around 28,000, and we have over 2,185 Facebook followers. You can also find me on my personal Twitter, @AlexKallimanis

Alex Kallimanis has previously worked for academic institutions and has been published in mainstream newspapers, such as Ireland’s largest newspaper, the Irish Independent. In addition to content creation for Wanderlust Marriage and other outlets, I assist tourism boards and brands with marketing. I also assist travelers with their itineraries. I’m a member of the North American Travel Journalists Association (NATJA). I’ve twice received photography awards, including the 30th annual NATJA awards.

Bell is an award-winning PhD scientist working in cancer research. She did her PhD at the University of Amsterdam and her postdoctoral research at Trinity College Dublin. She previously worked for over 4 years in cancer research at the Food and Drug Administration. She know works at a non-profit, Lungevity, focusing on lung patient advocacy. Lungevity has a lot of free resources for people affected by lung cancer. So if you or someone you know is affected, please check out their website and feel free to get in touch. Bell assists with photography and is sometimes available to accompany me on press trips and for speaking engagements.

To read more about who we’ve previously worked with and where we’ve been published, please consult our media kit. You can also read our privacy policy on our legal stuff page.

For all inquiries contact [email protected]

Some of Our Favorite Destinations

Alaska on UnCruise

Bell jumping out of a small boat into the water in front of a glacier

An incredible 7 day Danube River Cruise with Emerald Cruises!

Passengers on the deck of Emerald Cruises' Emerald Destiny ship watching as we sail into Durnstein, Austria along the Danube River.
Sailing into Durnstein, Austria on a Danube River Cruise with Emerald Cruises.
Alex and Bell in front of St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, Austria.
St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, Austria.

Andros, Greece

The Venetian Fortress and Bridge in Andros Chora, with a clear blue sky

The Great Wall of China

Arizona

Tempe Day Trip

Southeast Montana

Tanzania Safari

Safari holidays in Africa

Sydney, Australia and Melbourne, Australia

Alex giving a thumbs up to the Sydney harbor bridge

10 Awesome Day Trips from Amsterdam

Bordeaux Region of France

a grand water fountain in Bordeaux, France

Florence, Italy

Detail of the intricate masonry on the Duomo

Lake Como, Italy

Paris, France – read this article on how to spend one week in Paris, London, and Amsterdam.

The Eiffel tower in the distance with people walking around

Japan – check out this 12 day Japan itinerary I wrote!

Pinterest pin for capsule hotels

Chania, Crete

Belgium and Holland

guild houses of the Groke Market, Brussels

Naxos, Greece

Mexico

Malaysian Borneo

 

Loutra Pozar, Greece

Alex raising his hands under the beautiful thermal waterfall in Loutra Pozar, Almopia, Greece
The beautiful thermal waterfalls of Loutra Pozar, Almopia on a press trip in conjunction with Visit Europe and the European Historic Thermal Towns Association (EHTTA)

Travel Savings and Expat Advice

10 Ways to Save on Booking Plane Tickets

How to Move to Europe

Advice When Tickets Need to be Re-Issued

Expat Tips- Making Friends in a New Country 

Travel Blogging Tips

Read our detailed post on How to Make Money off a Travel Blog. We give tips on partnering with tourism boards and brands. We also cover ways to make money off social media accounts.

 

The Rest of our Wanderlust Marriage Story 

Brasov, Transylvania, Romania

After spending a day together in Bruges and then meeting up in Amsterdam two days later, I caught a flight to Barcelona. My plan after college was to live in Spain for awhile and learn Spanish. While in Amsterdam, Bell asked me if I’d like to meet up again in Rome before she flew back to Australia. After spending a few days alone in Barcelona, I booked a ticket to Rome to see her again. We loved each others company, but she had a flight back to Australia to catch. And eventually, we both returned to work and enrolled in graduate school, across the globe from each other.

As time went on, the time we spent together became a distant memory. But we remained in touch with weekly emails. Living on the other side of the planet with limited resources and returning to college posed big logistical problems to reuniting. And even if we did, what then? Two years passed before we finally decided to meet up again by booking tickets to reunite in Bangkok, Thailand six months down the road.

As the days counted down to our long awaited reunion, we started talking more on the phone and our conservations would run for hours. We then got scared because we both realized we couldn’t imagine saying goodbye again in Thailand. So Bell proposed that I come to live with her down under for a year while she finished her master’s degree in statistics. It was both exciting and nerve-wracking because I’d never visited Australia, barely spent any real time with her and I was working on a master’s degree of my own. But I knew I was in love with her and I was able to organize a one-year working holiday visa so we could be together (which I highly recommend for people under 30).

Long days slowly ticked away and after 2 and ½ years and months of intense anticipation, we finally reunited at Bangkok airport, which was surreal. We couldn’t believe we were together again, and this time we couldn’t imagine letting go. We toured frenetic Bangkok on tuk-tuks, rode elephants (which we now realize isn’t so humane), enjoyed each others company on gorgeous beaches, overindulged in delicious exotic food and stayed up all night at the full moon party. And after spending less than ten days with each other, I dropped down on one knee and asked her to marry me at a Thai beach bar with a DJ performing in the cliff above. Fortunately, she said yes!

The next day Bell insisted we rent a motorbike so I could drive us around the island of Ko Phangang. We ended up getting stuck on a hill and I nearly drove us off a cliff. We nearly got killed, and nobody would have ever known that we got engaged the night before. Luckily we made it, enjoyed more of the island cautiously, and we’ve never been back on a motorbike together since.

With my one-year working holiday visa for Australia, I took whatever temporary jobs I could find. I bussed tables at TGI Friday’s and worked at the Interflora (Flowers to Your Door) call center, which sells flowers through local florists. Months passed, and as my Australian visa was running out, we needed to figure out the next plan. So we organized a small last minute wedding that was shared with mostly Australian family and friends (a year later we threw a party for American friends and family to celebrate our one year wedding anniversary). After a lot of paperwork and hassle, we found ourselves explaining our relationship to a US immigration officer in Sydney who then issued Bell a spousal visa for the US. We celebrated by drinking a glass of champagne next to the Sydney Opera House!

Wanderlust Marriage, American and Australian husband and wife
Our wedding day in Melbourne, Australia in March 2005.

After an extended stopover in Vietnam along the way, we eventually found ourselves in Los Angeles for a few days. It was the first time Bell had ever set foot in the United States, and the country was now her home. A few days later she met my father in Orlando, Florida for the first time. She found a statistics job at the University of South Florida in Tampa, and we settled there for 2 and ½ years so we could be close by to my family for monthly visits.

Halong Bay, Vietnam

We were always drawn to the idea of returning to Europe again, after not having visited in several years. Bell was eventually offered a PhD position at the University of Amsterdam, and we decided to move to the Netherlands.

We sold some things, gave a lot away, and drove some belongings to my dad’s house before flying to Amsterdam for the first time in six years, with nothing more than four suitcases. We went from having an apartment filled with modest things to finding ourselves in a far tougher housing market, with less income in Amsterdam. There were serious challenges along the way because our move occurred just before the economic crash in 2008 and English speaking jobs in Amsterdam dried up, but it was also amazing to spend several years in such a beautiful and unique city. If we could do it all over again, we absolutely would!

We visited Dublin for our six year wedding anniversary and fell in love with the warmth and wit of the Irish. Coincidentally, a few months later, Bell found a post-doctoral position at Trinity College in Dublin and was hired to work on the largest ageing study ever conducted on the Emerald Island. We jumped at the opportunity and lived in Dublin for over 2 years. During that time, I also did some work for Trinity College and wrote for Ireland’s largest newspaper, the Irish Independent.

We lived in Europe for over 6 years and loved having so many different cultures on our doorstep. During our 2 and 1/2 years living in Ireland, we celebrated our 9 year wedding anniversary in Barcelona. We might have stayed living in Europe, but with my father turning 86, I wanted to be closer to home, so we returned to the United States.

We lived in Boston for 2 and 1/2 years, and spent a couple winters working remotely as snowbirds in Orlando. We lived in the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C for 4 years while Bell worked as a scientist in cancer research for the Food and Drug Administration. In 2021, we bought our first house near the beach in Tarpon Springs, Florida, near Tampa. Tarpon Springs is home to the largest per capita Greek community in the USA and resembles a Greek fishing village.

Alex and Bell posing behind the Sponge Factory display in Tarpon Springs

We’ve now lived in 7 cities on 3 continents during our 14-year marriage. Each city has offered an opportunity to explore the region in depth. It’s been a wild ride and after all this time, we still can’t kick our addiction to traveling. Follow us for travel tips and please feel free to share yours in the comments!

Bell kissing Alex in front of the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Sofia, Bulgaria
Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Sofia, Bulgaria

Contact [email protected] for all inquiries. Happy travels! 

Author

  • Alex&Bell

    Alex and Bell originally met while solo traveling after finishing university in 2002, in Brugge, Belgium. Alex grew up in the USA and Bell hails from Australia. During our nearly 20 year marriage we've lived around the world, including spending six years living in the Netherlands and Ireland. We have traveled to nearly 70 countries and enjoy giving readers authentic and quality travel tips. Alex is an award winning travel journalist and travel planner, who also freelances for other outlets. Bell is an award winning PhD scientist who currently works for a non-profit lung cancer advocacy research organization called Lungevity. Happy travels and if you have any questions leave a comment or drop an email!

21 thoughts on “About Wanderlust Marriage

  1. Alex and Bell, your story is so beautiful! I’m so happy that you two believed enough in your love to pursue it, despite the distance. That says so much! You have much to share; I look forward to reading more about your journeys! 🙂 @TravelChronicle

    1. Thank you Christina, that is lovely of you to say. While it hasn’t always been an easy path to follow it certainly has been extremely worth it and has led to some amazing adventures!

  2. What a wonderful story. Distance was never going to keep you apart and you found each other through the love of travel.

  3. Love you story! I ended up meeting my American husband on a couch in a hostel in Galway in much the same way. Hope you’re loving Ireland and I’m so glad I stumbled upon your blog. I can’t wait to delve into your archives!

      1. Thank you so much for the kind words! Yes, we’re enjoying Ireland, can’t believe we’ve been here 2 years now, time flys. We’ll have to come over and check out your blog too! Galway is a great place.

  4. What a beautiful love story! You guys have inspired me! I have a great love for traveling. It’s a great passion of mine and I hope to be lucky enough to find love by doing what I love the most. I hope you’re enjoying Boston! It’s a great city! 🙂

    1. Thank you, Laerta! Boston is indeed a wonderful city with so much to offer (especially when it’s warm) but it’s definitely an adjustment after 6 years living in Europe (work/life balance being a big issue). We’re not looking forward to the harshest winter we’ll have faced coming up some months down the line as winters are mild in comparison in both Amsterdam and especially Ireland (but then they don’t get a real summer). The very best of luck finding love in your travels! 🙂

  5. That’s a beautiful story. Love your site. I am starting my own in a few days and sites like these are an inspiration to me. I was only in Ireland for a few weeks and I have a lot to write about my trip. I love Europe and have also been to Germany. Hope you are enjoying Boston. Look forward to reading more about you guys. Great work here.

    1. Hi Kerry! Thank you so much for the compliment! That’s so sweet of you to say. We want people to be inspired by our story, to encourage people that it could be worth making sacrifices in the pursuit of adventure and love. Our life, like everyones, has faced many challenges, but we’ve been married almost 10 years now so it’s worked out pretty good. And as this site has grown we now focus on helping people save on travel while trying to be entertaining, informative and include inspiring photography and the occasional video (we’d like to start doing more video but need time to improve these skills)….That’s awesome you’ve traveled around Europe, including Ireland and Germany. Both wonderful countries! Ireland is one of the friendliest countries you’ll visit and the architecture in so many German towns is impressive and inspiring. Thanks so much again and we look forward to reading your work!

  6. Nice to meet you guys, very interesting story about how you met. We’ll make sure to check out more of your blog.
    Frank (bbqboy)

    1. Thanks for swinging by and commenting! Loved your post on Dubrovnik. Look forward to checking out more of your work also!

    1. Thank you Victoria! There are many great stories out there, I looked on your blog for yours but didn’t see it, if you have a link please feel free to share as we’d love to read it.

      That is great you are in Boston! Really hope our paths cross soon 🙂

  7. You guys are the greatest… Continue exploring:) Hope to see a little one with you in your next trips:) Am I too blunt? hihihi I am a mother 2 and love to taking the kiddos around the world:) Hope you guys can follow us as we discover the world one country at a time:)

    1. Thanks Bon-Bon! That’s very sweet! We may have a child traveling along with us one day. It will certainly change the nature of our stories quite a bit, we’re sure, and it will be nice to add a cute little face to our photos! We admire families who travel with children. Keep on showing your kids the world, it’s a great education! Happy travels!

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