Welcome! I’m really happy you’re here!

I’m Laura – a travel fanatic, creative, mother, and wife. I enjoy documenting my travel life in a creative way, whether that is via this website or on my Instagram page (as an amateur lover of iPhone photography) @whereislaus

This is my story.

A native Southlander, I grew up in Invercargill – the southernmost city in New Zealand, with my mother, step-father, and younger brother.

I had a pretty normal childhood growing up in Southland, and I look back on it now and can see where all the different parts of who I am came together – my love of all things creative from my mother and grandmother, who both love/d creating things whether by drawing, painting, gardening, interior decorating, sewing, knitting… the list goes on. Everyone in my family has always commented that they had no idea where my musical talent came from – it’s just another form of creativity, and I was surrounded by passion for general music and all different types from some of the main figures in my life.

My parents separated when I was six years old, and my father moved away from Invercargill and married my step-mother, who had big passions in life for horses, great and interesting food and travel. I never really got the hang of the horse thing – after being thrown off a particularly excited one (probably not helped by my screaming), I never really got back on again, however I definitely engaged with the love of food and travel. We were extremely fortunate in that they could afford to take us away somewhere once a year – we started with the Gold Coast – a tried and true holiday option for most New Zealand families, and went on to three trips to Fiji, and one to the Cook Islands… suffice to say, those experiences got the travel bug within me growing. I have memories of going to restaurants of all different cuisines whenever we’d visit in the school holidays – Christchurch, Wellington, or Auckland depending on where they were based at the time. We had a lot of trips to a Mongolian BBQ restaurant – I can’t remember where it was, but we couldn’t get enough…

…eventually, as I neared the end of my time at school, I realised I quite fancied a career in travel and went on to study the industry in Dunedin, before moving on to Christchurch to find a job. I ended up spending ten years with the one travel company in varying roles, and only left to start a family – fast forward a couple of years, including a year’s stint in another industry to give me some adult-time whilst I continued to navigate motherhood, I am now back working in the travel company (school house) and my husband and I are owners too.

I hope you enjoy reading my blogs as much as I enjoy creating them. They are the perfect way for me to look back on my experiences and remember the little details, and I encourage anyone who is interested to do the same.

Thanks for visiting! Laus ❤