Before Chickenfeet Travels became Chickenfeet Travels.
I moved back to Singapore in 2010, right after graduating from university and getting my certification as a scuba diving instructor.
I was full of energy, working for a startup in the superyacht industry, trying to do everything…all at the same time. I used to be an extrovert back then. I taught diving on weeknights and through the weekends. I worked 9-5ish Monday through Friday-ish. And whenever the startup did not have money to pay me or knew they had a quiet month, I would just travel.
Mostly to dive into my checklist and then to do everything else; I had developed a taste for scootering around semi-aimlessly, summiting mountains, and gained a deep respect and interest in all the cultures around this region that I had never learned about in school or on the internet.
Then I would return to Singapore, glowing with the best tan ever, excited with uncontainable travel fuzzies, and take meetings with young-ish corporates and attend networking events.
More often than not, I would be asked the simple question that kicked off friendships that I still have to this day and launched this company.
”Why are you [always] so tan?”
So what was my answer?
Certifying divers in Tioman
Diving in [Perhentians/Bali/Sumatra/Borneo/Philippines/Komodo/Thailand]
Trekking [volcanoes/mountains/to waterfalls/to see orangutans/to see elephants/to see gibbons]
Just exploring…
During 2010, 2011, and 2012, I explored and dived in all the destinations and places listed on today’s “must-see lists/blogs” of Southeast Asia and so much more.
This is the punchline, I promise, before Chickenfeet Travels became Chickenfeet Travels, while travelling, I would write down all the names, phone numbers, email addresses of the guides I trekked and dived with.
Time travel with me: Those were the beginning days of travel blogs, cheap internet, and smartphones. 2011 Instagram only had 1 million users! Instagram hit 100 million in February 2013! Do you remember Lonely Planet Travel Guides? We were lucky enough to go in blind to destinations and depend on the local people in each place we went to. We were lucky enough not to be distracted by travel influencers. We were lucky enough that a sense of discovery was almost guaranteed on every trip abroad.
2010-2015 was arguably the best time for me to be a young-ish corporate person living and working in Singapore; I only lived in Singapore part-time until 2013. Those days were filled with corporate packages that would essentially cover all your living expenses in Singapore, which back in the day were high salaries and meant expendable income you did not have to think twice about spending. Pair this with the launch of low-cost carriers; every expat I was friends with was flying somewhere every other weekend to drink on a different tropical island or a major city.
People started asking me to plan their trips. When their friends and family came into town to visit, I would plan those excursions, too. I also started to explore new places with friends, something that I had promised myself not to do since 2008 (I prefer to travel alone). I remember that around this time, my very good friend Stephen kept telling me that I should do this for a living, and I always lol’d at him.
Fast-forward to February 2012, when Simon and I met on a group dive trip to snorkel with whale sharks and dive with mantas. Then fast-forward again to early 2013, when Mark from said trip was leaving Singapore. First-come, first-serve claims to all his hard liquors brought Simon and me back together, and the idea of a travel company was incepted.
And there it is. Before I even knew it, Chickenfeet Travels was born out of a thirst for adventure, passion, and connection.
