Ok, it’s New Year’s Day, the annual date in the calendar where everyone sets ambitious resolutions for the year ahead that they’ll never keep.

Within two weeks, all but one friend is back eating junk food in front of the TV and trying to find a way to cancel the gym membership without having to go in.

This year, I hope to be that one friend that keeps it going. Nope, I’m not going to stop eating and start getting fit (sorry wifey) but I am going to give travel blogging/vlogging a go and hope to keep going past January.

So, hi! I’m Dave. As you might’ve seen from our ‘About Us’ section, I’m a TV producer and university lecturer. I’m used to making reports for TV News (features usually – I’m more of a ‘Mr And Finally’ and Sport, rather than the man stood outside court) but, apart from some corporate work, I’ve never made anything under my own name for the internet.

Why now? Well, like Liam Neeson, I have a particular set of skills. I can shoot, edit, write and produce videos. I think YouTube videos and online content will soon overtake traditional TV as the place to showcase work.

I’m very interested in the future of online video content, so I’ll be partly using this site to feed into the academic research I’ll be doing with my university lecturer hat – mortar board – on (get used to the bad jokes), so that I can pass on what I learn.

Do I want to be the next Zoella? No, I’ve never actually seen her stuff, plus I don’t think people want to hear my views on make-up (is that what she does?).

Those that know me well, know that I like to find a bargain and will spend hours at a computer screen to try to save a few hundred quid. I’m totally that annoying person who’ll have bought the same TV, car or holiday for less than you’ve paid for it – I love a bargain – so I’ll be doing some of the hard work for you, when I can.

The main reason for me doing this, is that we love to travel as a family and we are always asked about it: How do you survive an 11-hour Trans-Atlantic flight with babies and toddlers? How do you travel around California? Where’s the best place to eat? How does a House Swap work? Where should we actually go in Los Angeles? Seriously, how do you survive an 11-hour Trans-Atlantic flight with babies and toddlers?

It came to me, when my wife said she wanted to ‘do’ Route One (from San Francisco to San Diego) last year. I searched for weeks for the best way to ‘do it’ but no-one had posted a practical article of timings or created a video which was entertaining and informative. So, I borrowed a mate’s DSLR (cheers, Brett), took a GoPro to California last summer and started shooting things as a vlogger for the first time, much to the annoyance of Alicia (Mrs R, you’ll get to know her soon) who was constantly telling me off for slowing everyone down the whole time!

What you’ll see on this site over the next few weeks (definitely), months (hopefully) and years (definitely, hopefully) will have grown from that one subject to many thousands of miles of travelling, filming, editing and exploring the world with my favourite people on the planet.

I’m not planning on producing a video or blog-post every week – it will be quality over quantity – so make sure you follow our Facebook and Twitter pages to make sure you don’t miss out on anything.

Future articles will be much more informative – and less indulgent – but I just wanted to lay it all out there for my first blog-post.

Right, time to get writing and editing. I hope you enjoy watching and reading about our travels and that you’ll let us know if/when you visit the same place as us, to find out if we were able to help you live the Life of Reilly.

Get in touch, if you have any ideas or places you think we should visit!