Roaming Renegades
Tour Your Hometown:
Nic and Paul of the Roaming Renegades
1. For starters, where is your current hometown and how long have you lived there?
Hey, thanks for letting us be part of this, we are The Roaming Renegades and we are from Manchester UK. Both of us have lived here our whole lives which would be 26 and 28 years!
2. For many people, travel is not always feasible or desirable all year round. How do you make the most of your hometown when you are not traveling?
Well we are pretty adventurous, and for us travel is the pinnacle of that, although it’s not the only thing. It kind of comes with a package of other things we do that quench our thirst for explorations. Firstly we are climbers, cavers, and mountaineers and regularly explore the beautiful crags, cliffs, and mountains of Britain. We love getting out into the wilderness and challenging ourselves. Near Manchester we have the Yorkshire dales, Lake District, and Peak District within an hours drive. We go down to Wales regularly too. We are also slackliners, which is basically like tightrope walking but on a bouncy piece of webbing! Since we love hanging around at heights, we have done this over some of the local quarries where we have climbed and over in Liverpool too. Another major exploit is Urban Exploring, or “Urbex”, where we explore hidden or abandoned spaces and places within the city. We have abseiled down the underside of bridges, walked in the catacombs and derelict air raid shelters below Manchester Cathedral, and waded into the bowels of one of the Victorian train stations in the dead of night as well as scaling some of the city’s tallest buildings for a unique view of our amazing city!
Roaming Renegades
3. What is the most creative technique you use to save up for your travels while you are at home?
It’s a hard balancing act at the moment between saving up for our long term travel plans. We plan to set off at the beginning of 2016 and travel for as long as we can, while also satisfying the wanderlust we have in the short term. Basically any money we have goes towards either travel or adventures/explorations. We try to cut back on non-essentials and generally, once you have the gear, climbing trips etc don’t cost too much past transport. We don’t have a car and either take public transport everywhere or blag a ride off friends! We are in the process of renting our house out and moving back in with Nic’s parents to save up more, and we’ve been travelling around mostly Eastern Europe in the off season to balance out the need to save and travel… also beans on toast!
4. What is the best part of your hometown that other visitors should know about?
What we really love about Manchester is just the vibe and diversity. Everyone knows London is great but it can be a little too stuck up, Manchester is honest and friendly. We are the cooler and more down the earth city in the UK! We have the Northern Quarter where you can go and buy all sorts of weird and wonderful things in Afflecks Palace and hang out in alternative bars and cafes, skateshops and art galleries! We have shopping for everyone from alternative, high street, designer to haggling at the markets. Then you can head over to one of my all-time favourite areas, “Castlefield,” for a step back into the Industrial Revolution which made this city famous. There are huge iron railway bridges over 100 years old, and the Museum Of Science and Industry, which will teach you all you need to know about our city’s pivotal role in Victorian Britain! Not only that, but we have buildings such as our Town Hall, grade 1 listed and built in 1868. It is one of the finest in the country! Other impressive and historic buildings include the Harry Potter esque John Rylands Library and Cheetham’s library. Established in 1653, it is the oldest public library in the UK, but most importantly it was the meeting place of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels as they wrote the communist manifesto in reaction to the conditions the workers of the cotton factories of the time faced. Manchester is historic and diverse, you will meet people from all cultures, eat food from all corners of the globe, and revel in some of the best music the UK has produced, including Oasis, The Smiths, and the inventors of dance music, New Order! As kids growing up in Manchester, we skated it’s streets almost every night and explored pretty much every back alley and side street there is. It’s changed a lot in the 15 or so years since we were let loose, but it’s not lost its gritty charm!
Roaming Renegades
5. Finally, we can’t forget about the food! Where is your favourite place to eat in your hometown and why?
Oh man, where do I start! Manchester has everything; we have restaurants from all over the world! China town and our famous “Curry Mile” in Rusholme are great places to start your search! For a quick snack, “Changos Burritos” on Oxford road is amazing and also quite cheap. Lunch time has to be had over at “V Revolution,” which is a vegan junk food café/old fashioned record store in the Northern Quarter and is the place to be for any Manchester Veggie! For the more upmarket dinner (or as us Mancs say “Tea”) “Chaophraya” serves amazing Thai food, or you could head down near the Universities (We have 3!) to “Unami” noodle bar for some amazing Japanese food that will cost you hardly anything! “Croma” pizza restaurant right by the Town hall is definitely the place to get your pizza fix and “La Mancha” in the suburb of Rochdale is one of the all-time greatest Tapas bars we have ever visited!
Roaming Renegades
About Nic and Paul
Hi, we are Nic and Paul, the ‘Roaming Renegades’ we are travellers, adventurers and explorers and our blog chronicles our escape from the 9-5 and round the world trip. We came to realise we would never be satisfied with a “Normal” existence in which your life was controlled by work and money, in which you spend most of your life doing something you hate only to retire too old to enjoy it! We decided to do something about it and want to inspire others to believe they can too. We believe the “safety net” most people live their lives by is a myth; what is the bigger risk, settling for a life of dissatisfaction and regret, or going out there and taking the chance to create the lifestyle you could only dream of?
We report back on our experiences, give advice and destination guides and talk about our motivation and ideas about travel and what inspired us on!
So join us on our adventures, escape the 9-5 and create a life less ordinary!
Check out Nic and Paul’s favorite travel moment from New York!
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