Who are we….. Mmm that is quite a question to think about explaining. We can jump right into our story and take you on our adventure.

We are the Viljoen’s. Robert, Natasha and Amber. We were born and raised in South Africa. We met in our final year of University and we got married relatively young, at age 24. But we decided early on that our story will not be the typical story that people expected of us.

After we got married in sunny South Africa, instead of buying a house and starting a family with kids, we started our appetite for adventure. While we were still living in South Africa, we often planned weekend trips and tried to see as many new places as possible. Our first trip together across the borders of South Africa was to Mauritius for our Honeymoon in 2014, which we booked and paid before starting to plan our wedding. I know, priorities hey! Soon after that in 2016 we did our first Europe trip where we visited 3 countries and 6 cities in just 8 days. This was true backpacking style and it is memories we look back on. In 2017 we travelled to both Namibia and South Korea. Namibia was as beautiful as you see on all the pictures, where the sand dunes and the Atlantic ocean meet. South Korea was our first Asian experience where we got pushed completely out of our comfort zone with food and culture. We had the best local guide, Mrs Kim, who showed us all the local spots and took us to various temples.

In 2018 we were planning our biggest trip ever, or that was what we thought, exploring the east coast of America for 3 weeks. We planned everything to the tee and was convinced this would be the biggest and best trip of our life. Man were we wrong, a couple of weeks before the trip we were confronted with the opportunity to move to Europe. Although it was a scary decision to make, it was an easy choice… Don’t go and regret it for the rest of our lives, or take the opportunity and it might be the best decision we will ever make… and so our Viljoen Adventure continued in the Netherlands!

As we both work in finance, we got positions in the Netherlands to build on our careers and also make the most of the travel opportunities. We packed up our things in South Africa, put it into storage, sold our cars and started the goodbyes. With two bags each, we left all we knew behind and it felt like we were leaving for war. I even packed powder cheese sauce, yes I know ridiculous, but that made me feel prepared for whatever lies ahead as I felt that with some pasta and a cheese sauce we will be able to survive. Our first few hours of arrival was spend trying to connect to airport wifi to get an Uber, driving to our Hotel, being greeted by some strong ‘smells’ from youngster smoking, entering an hotel room and sitting on the floor and trying to not have a panic attack. We were seriously considering the next flight back to South Africa. But our sense of adventure took over, as we got up and walked into the first supermarket we could find and just buy some milk and bread.

And so our European adventure began in Amsterdam during the September of 2018. Our first year and a half was all about the traveling and ticking of a new country each month. We started experiencing even more about culture, food and landscapes. We decided to really put ourselves out there and during the first 1.5 years we travelled to 11 countries. When Covid hit the world in 2020, international travel came to a standstill, but we felt privileged that we could still stay in the Netherlands and made the most of what we could explore, but now locally.

In 2020 our adventure also took a turn for the best. Amber was born. It has been our best and wildest adventure yet. Our love for travel did not stop there and we took Amber on her first flight to South Africa when she was 5 months old. We have continued from there to expose her to as much as possible. And we are proud to say that now at age 3 she loves travel just as much as we do, and her most asked question is when we are going on holiday again. In her life that could be tomorrow every day.

That is in short about us, a family called Viljoen with a taste of adventure.