Meet the Team

Jeff Bell

Managing Editor & Serial Desk Abandoner

Back before you could get TikTok famous for travelling and documenting it along the way, a round-the-world trip just meant you wrote a blog that all your friends pretended to read but only your family actually did.

And that was Jeff, back in the day: he left an investment banking job and spent 13 months crossing 20 countries across five continents. He hasn’t gotten it out of his system since.

He then went home and resumed a corporate career for longer than he anticipated, although he still managed to sneak in a 1,000 mile / 1,600 km trek on the Appalachian Trail along the way.

He eventually found his way to The Broke Backpacker, which he now oversees, mixing in some great stories with a deep love for well-put spreadsheets.

Will Hatton

Founder & Chief Adventurer

The first-generation Broke Backpacker, the legend himself, Will Hatton started travelling as a headstrong and penniless youth, but his years on the road quickly turned him into an expert of the budget backpacking trade.

Along the way, Will went on a crazy journey as he morphed from broke backpacker to serial entrepreneur. He grew, he learnt; he loved, he lost he made a lot of mistakes and today he shares lessons, wins and losses on his Substack.

Both cursed and blessed with a pathological inability to sit still, Will is passionate about the power of budget travel as a personal development tool, and about teaching others to ditch their desks, embrace adventure and to build an online income.

Will is currently based in Bali, where he Co-founded Tribal Hostel, the island’s first dedicated digital nomad coworking hostel. When not in Bali, Will is on the road – come travel with him on an Elsewheria Adventure.

Aiden Freeborn

Gear Manager & Senior Editor

Aiden began working with The Broke Backpacker in 2016. When not DJing Psytrance, Aiden is an explorer of uncharted countries, under-rated museums, and unsanitary dive bars in need of a good deep clean. If he’s not doing that, you’ll likely find him attending to his hair maintenance routine – he never hits the road without a hairdryer.

As well as freelancing as manager of The Broke Backpacker’s library of epic gear content, Aiden heads the development of new series and and is always keen for a think tank sesh. Aiden is the founder of the Consultancy firm Go Realise Digital and also moonlights as a guest writer for the Huffington Post and Matador.

One of his life highlights is push-starting a truly fucked tuk tuk on a very precarious slope amidst the Himalayan foothills – which he maintains is perhaps his greatest accomplishment to date!

Tomás Monteiro

Brand Specialist & Whizz-Kid

Part mindless, part mindful, and all goofball, Tomás believes he has mastered the Art of Chilling. You’ll likely find him in a sunny park, guitar in hand, and boiling hot tea by his side.

You’ll see his words all across the site. Tomás handles brand communication & works The Broke Backpacker voice, runs our sexy newsletter, slaps together some graphics when needed, covers a lot of bases. Tomás knows his wheelhouse and is always coming up with slick new ideas…

Tomás is currently based in Lisbon, Portugal, his big beautiful birthplace. You can find him there, or wandering around the globe looking for trouble. The good kind, that is!

Samantha Shea

Travel Writer & Adventure Expert

A travel blogger and writer-for-hire, Samantha has been on the road in one way or another since 2017. Hailing from the USA, you’ll most likely find her gobbling up the delights of Asia, particularly South Asia, and PARTICULARLY Pakistan. Her expertise of Pakistan is unrivalled.

Samantha is a fan of slow travel, overland travel, and adventure travel: the three travels of The Broke Backpackers’s golden ratio. As such, we’ve put her to good work expanding our ever-growing library of illustrious adventure locales. She also plays a hand in optimising our existing content and, particularly, tightening the screws of our Pakistan and USA content.

An ice-cream addict and documentary lover, her infatuation for hippopotamuses cannot be understated. When she’s not travelling or writing about travelling, you can usually find Samantha enjoying a tropical ocean or getting lost in the mountains. Or eating… Street eats are her other homeboy.

Clair Cathryn

Superstar PA

Endlessly patient, Clair is a limitless font of wisdom and humour as we try to deduce just how the hell we’re going to make this work. A logistics superstar and an admin goddess, Clair consistenly moves the parts behind the scenes of the blog that keep it running so damn smooth.

Communications, emails, affilates, the best shampoos for Will’s fluffy doo: this is Clair’s wheelhouse. Of all the Wizards of the Court, there can be only one Hermione, and that is Clair. It’s hard to imagine The Broke Backpacker without her.

A bit of renegade around Southeast Asia and a proverbial master of long-stay travel, Clair finds herself caught between her many, many homes. Currently marooned in her hometown in Australia, Clair hopes to be losing her purse, drinking wine, and seeking out her favourite street food vendors in a land far away, soon, once more.

Rhenzy Caguioa

Empress of the Virtual Assistants

When she’s not tirelessly poring over The Broke Backpacker’s content with her all-seeing critical eye, you might see Renz at one of her favourite cafes plotting just how she’d make this cheesecake ten times damn better!

Living in ever-bustling Manila, Renz is tempted out of the house for quieter activities such as concerts, cinema, and downtown people-watching. Renz plans world domination through a chain of stores showcasing her boutique baked cheesecakes and other goodies. Her love for Korean TV dramas (and Naruto – heaps yeah!) cannot be understated.

Renz leads our team of star VAs; the ever-present force behind the scenes that keeps The Broke Backpacker RUNNING. It’s safe to say that without Rhenzy and her team of vibrant VAs, there’d be no Broke Backpacker.

Nic Hilditch-Short

Senior Editor & Roaming Renegade

Nic (they/ them) has probably been to more countries than any of the other team members! Nic and their partner – together known as the Roaming Renegades – have been to 80 countries so far, including backpacking across Europe, Asia, South America, Australia and New Zealand and the list is still growing.

With so much travel experience, the one place that really stood out to Nic was Southeast Asia. And where else could you just casually buy a manual bike (with no riding experience) and then just head off for a 5000km trip around remote villages, off-the-beathen path tracks and some epic places than in Southeast Asia?

They’ve also got the best collection of hilarious dog memes! Nic is also a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community.

Danielle Wyatt

Dani is a lover of slow travel and marvelling at life under the sea. She’s lived in Spain and Thailand over the last few years, calling both her second (and third) home. She knows their underwater worlds almost as well as she knows the land.

Equipped with her bachelor’s degree in marketing and passion for creative writing, it makes perfect sense that she’s sharing her travel adventures with fellow globetrotters.

Taya Jessica

Editor & Resident Foodie

Born with a travel bug, Taya inherited her wanderlust from parents who spent their pre-kid years gallivanting across the globe, never settling in the UK for long. Now, she’s living by that same mantra, hopping about, soaking in every bit of culture she can find. She can’t imagine spending her 20s in any other way (who needs to use that degree anyway?)

A lifelong foodie and music lover, Taya’s adventures always lead her to one or the other, whether that’s festivals in Barcelona or street eats in Bangkok. If she’s not diving into research or diving amongst the fishies, you’ll find her forever scheming her next adventure and sniffing out the next best food joint.

Her belief is knowing that happiness is wherever her heart takes her, and she’s all about embracing the ride. The world’s big, wide, and she’s on a mission to explore every damn inch of it.

Alex Brown

Editor & Adventure Junkie

After getting a taste for long-term travel in 2019, a miserable IT job made Alex realise that there’s more to life than rotting away in an office for 40 years. So he hit the road, and has barely looked back since.

He excels at tackling logistical challenges in complex countries, which has resulted in him eating ice cream in a dusty Afghan town with the Taliban, and backpacking in Maduro’s Venezuela at a time when no westerner would dare go there.

With funds declining, his path to digital nomadism began in 2023 when he set up his blog “Adventure to Every Country”, which he scaled from 0-10,000 sessions in 10 months, kickstarting his travel writing career.

He’s a particular LatAm aficionado who is often spotted tucking into a proper Argentine asado feast, and he’s currently on a mad mission to visit every country on Earth.

Rose Wilson

A born and raised Bristolian, Rose’s love for travel started from childhood with her family trips around the world. Her parents celebrated imparting rich cultural experiences on their children and such a blessed upbringing led to Rose’s adoration with travel. Yearly visits to Bali to meet family-friends led to an early onset dream of one day living on the Island of the Gods – flash forward 20 years, and here she is.

A lover of dogs, pasta, rewatching the same TV shows on repeat, and espresso martinis, her travel days are mostly behind her now, content to her life in Bali with her fur-babies.

Art Patterson

Art and Will met in South America and Art worked as Will’s apprentice and right hand man for a couple of years before setting off on his own adventures. His hard work on multiple project has landed him a spot in the elusive Broke Backpacker Hall of Fame.

Who knows where Art can be found now? We’ve heard rumours that say he’s back in the South American hills, the word on the street is that he’s in Estonia, but he’s most likely somewhere else where the woods are vast and the mountains high.

If you do spot Art in a cafe, ordering round after round of V60 pour-overs, fear not. This highly caffeinated animal doesn’t bite.

Ralph Cope

Ralph is a wild child. He has a desire to experience all things unconventional and often gravitates to the lesser-known landscapes of the world, landing him in some pretty strange and sensational places.

During his time at The Broke Backpacker, Ralph adventured to Africa and the Middle East and transversed the steppes of Eurasia. He generally did his best to maximise his time in the wilderness and avoid anywhere the crowds go. His photography and writing will live on in The Broke Backpacker’s history.

The Master of the Negroni, Ralph bases himself in Italy these days from where he ducks out for quick jaunts across the globe.

Ziggy Samuels

Zig, Zigz, Zigglez, Zigzag, Zigalig, and even just plain old boring Sam, Ziggy is a man of many names. And many lives. Once, he even milked a goat!

A published expert on all things budget backpacking, Ziggy really embraces the spirit of a true broke backpacker. He was our connoisseur of the art of dirtbaggery: busking, dumpster diving, hitchhiking, vanlife, illicit substances, sleeping in cemeteries (don’t ask), etcetera.

A native to the notorious Byron Bay Shire, perhaps Zigz was always destined for vagrancy. Although it’s been a long time since he held a fixed address, Ziggy still always finds himself begrudgingly dragging his ass back to his found-family in Australia for a boogie and keenly-rolled doobie.