In 2016, Ines (Portuguese) and Chris (Galician) said goodbye to Madrid, where we had been living for over a decade, and started a journey with a one‑way ticket, without big, clearly defined plans (literally “random”), in Timor‑Leste.
Since then, we’ve been traveling around the world little by little and slowly: we spent a year exploring several Asian countries, eight months in parts of Latin America, half a year discovering some states of Mexico and several seasons exploring, at our own pace, paradises close to “home” that especially marked us and made us stay longer than planned. Among them, the Azores, Madeira or the Canary Islands… yes, we have a soft spot for island life.
We travel with our backpacks and laptops, which allow us to work remotely while we keep discovering new places. Chris works in SEO and Ines in content creation, and together we combine travel and work as best we can.
Randomtrip started as a space to share our experiences, advice and learnings, and over time became a professional project. Today we create very complete travel guides, designed for people who prefer to plan their trips on their own, having all the information clear and in one place. Everything we share is based on our own experience traveling to each destination—on what we’ve experienced firsthand.
We enjoy meeting people, discovering cultures and watching animals in freedom, in their natural habitat, in a respectful way. And although it’s hard for us to choose favorites, there are some that have stayed especially engraved, to which we always return mentally (and, when possible, also physically), like the Galápagos Islands, Sri Lanka, Colombia, the Azores or the Portuguese Costa Vicentina.
If you want to know more about us and how Randomtrip was born, keep reading…
Who is Ines?
Ines is Portuguese, although she has been living in Spain for as many years as in Portugal. It all started in Setúbal, where she was born and where her love for the sea (and its inhabitants) and for travel was born; then in Lisbon, where she found her path and her people; and then through Madrid, where she lived for over a decade and always goes back to hug her chosen family. From here, to this Randomtripper life in motion.
Chris says that Ines is the creative soul of Randomtrip, and the truth is that she writes most of what you read around here. She loves people – and people around the world – and has a special knack for starting conversations anywhere. Even underwater, or that’s what those who have already dived with her say, since she discovered the diving world back in 2016, the year everything changed.
Whoever knows her isn’t surprised to see her rhyme out of nowhere, sing at any moment or invent words. It’s also easy to recognize her by the necklaces she always wears: on every trip she tries to bring back a handmade piece, small, beautiful and with a story. She keeps them as souvenirs in her “Collares del Mundo” (World Necklaces) collection. And sometimes, in remote places, she also gives away photos taken with her instant camera, a small habit that started in 2017 and that she calls Foto‑Regalos (something like photographic gifts).
She likes to question herself (although sometimes, when discussing, it may not seem like it) and distrusts who believes in absolute truths. She studied Social Psychology and later did a master’s in Feminist Policies, back when the term still generated more doubts than conversations. Since then, she has tried to look at the world – and at herself – with a critical perspective, slowly reviewing her own privileges and contradictions. She says that, when she has time, she wants to take a Marine Biology course at a distance, because whales have, little by little, turned into a healthy obsession.
When she travels, there’s always something that repeats itself: learning new words, listening to local stories and, above all, giving space to women’s narratives she finds along the way. Part of these stories have ended up in her articles for the travel section of spanish Diario Público.
Who is Chris?
Chris is Galician, from the Rías Baixas, where the love for the sea (and its inhabitants) that he shares with Ines was born. After studying Computer Engineering in Salamanca and living several years in Madrid (where, by the way, they met), he has now been living a Randomtripper life for over a decade, with the freedom he values so much. He says he also wants to do a Marine Biology course at a distance, as his curiosity about the marine world and sustainable tourism keeps growing every day.
Ines says that Chris is the organizational soul of Randomtrip, and it is largely thanks to him that everything doesn’t stay just loose ideas and ends up having its place, structure and rhythm, so that everything fits together and the guides are useful, clear and easy to find. Besides contributing to the creation and development of the website and the guides, he also works as an SEO consultant.
He loves photography, so about 99% of the images you see on Randomtrip come from his camera (the rest, from Ines’s phone). In fact, since he is usually the one behind the camera, he doesn’t appear much in the photos, although he is almost always behind what you see, adjusting the perfect shot or frame. Sometimes he loses himself reviewing photos, other times planning itineraries, but always driven by the curiosity to discover what lies just a bit beyond the next trip.
Since 2016, his life has basically been this: combining travel, remote work and the construction of Randomtrip, together with Ines, as a project that started out of fun and gradually became a way of life.
How was Randomtrip born?
Randomtrip arose from our curiosity and desire to get to know the world, and from our way of traveling, always leaving room for improvisation, without giving up having a basic plan. In addition to trying to travel responsibly and sustainably, we prioritize traveling slowly, leaving space for the unexpected to beat over‑planning, and for getting lost in details or a conversation to beat the simple fulfilment of everything “to see” planned in a notebook.
Our way of traveling has been changing over more than a decade of Randomtrip. It’s true that when we travel to a destination, we try to create the most complete guides possible, to help anyone organize their trip, but at the same time we are also aware that what usually sticks in the memory is born at the margins of that very notebook…
We like the unexpected: changing route, discovering places that weren’t on the list, letting the trip adapt to the day’s reality. We like “Random”. And that’s also where the blog’s name comes from. In the early days, we did short weekend trips and getaways in a random way, but always within clear limits: we set a maximum budget for a flight from Madrid (where we were living), we listed all the destinations that appeared for those dates within that range and numbered them from 1 to 6, like the faces of a die. We rolled the dice and bought the ticket for the destination that came up.
Once in the destination, the logic of the game continued: on islands, we rented a car and, when leaving the airport, we chose north or south (even numbers, north; odd numbers, south) and the same logic applied to anything that put us in doubt: beach or museum, this restaurant or another… it was the die that decided. We always carry our Dadondevamos (that’s the name of the red die) in our backpack and our guide becomes chance. Or, better said, luck.
That’s how Randomtrip was born, a name that not only reflects our taste for leaving space to the unexpected, but also that fun and practical idea with which we started traveling and making decisions “rolling the dice” within clear limits. We don’t always do what Dadondevamos tells us, but we can guarantee it has saved us from a few arguments when we didn’t agree on where to go. If you want, try it too: open a map, fix a budget and/or a date range, number the possible destinations up to 6 and roll the dice. Your next trip doesn’t have to be fully planned, just lived.
Will you join us on this journey, Randomtripper?