Travel Co-ordinates Bracelets – Giveaway with Life Less Ordinary

It’s been a little while since we’ve done a giveaway, so to celebrate our six year blogging anniversary, we’re delighted to be partnering with Life Less Ordinary to give you the chance to win one of TWO gorgeous ‘Fernweh’ Co-ordinates Bracelets. Just to say thanks for sticking with us, and because these bracelets are just so awesome we can’t keep them to ourselves!

There are lots of travel bracelets out there, yet the Co-ordinates Bracelets from Life Less Ordinary are our favourite by a mile. Not only are they personalised, ethical and attractive, they’re also perfect for travellers on the go, no matter where you are or what you’re getting up to. We took ours on a recent trip to the tropical islands of Sao Tome and Principe and wore the bracelets pretty much 24/7. They hiked through rainforests, explored plantations, and even came snorkelling with us.

All About Life Less Ordinary

We love the story behind Amie and Joe’s new UK-based company, which specialises in creating personalised ethical jewellery that captures your own special moments in travel and in life. The light bulb moment didn’t come when they were trekking in the Appalachian Mountains or leaving their footprints on Sri Lankan beaches. No. It happened on a bus. Whilst they were heading to a friend’s house for dinner in Brighton! Realising they weren’t content with life, Amie and Joe gave up their jobs as teachers, sold their house and headed off to explore the world. They wanted to live differently, and for their lives to have true purpose.

The idea for Life Less Ordinary jewellery began to develop after meeting some incredible individuals on their travels, and they decided to make charity support an integral part of the new business. When you purchase a charity-linked item, 10% of net profit from that sale goes to one of the charities supported by Life Less Ordinary. These include Indigo Volunteers, who work with humanitarian projects to help people in refugee camps and impoverished communities around the world; and One World Projects, which helps to reduce poverty and promote peace by offering artisans the opportunity to earn fair pay.

Life Less Ordinary creates ethical, Fairtrade and sustainable jewellery for men and women including bracelets, necklaces, anklets, cuff links, and earrings. Some can be personalised with reminders of your favourite trips and locations. All pieces are made from the Ecuadorian tagua nut, which is known as vegetable ivory because of its likeness to animal ivory. The best thing is it’s completely cruelty-free, and each nut is different, so it means your jewellery will be a truly unique one-of-a-kind piece.

It didn’t take us long to decide on the bespoke Fernweh Co-ordinates Bracelets, which come with a choice of colours for the woven wrist band, and the option to engrave a ‘secret’ message on the back of the tagua nut, so cool!

All that was left to do was choose a special travel location!

Choosing Our Coordinates

17.2237°N – 89.6302°W.

A set of co-ordinates that will mean absolutely nothing to anyone, and to be honest, they nearly didn’t mean anything to us either.

Her Ladyship and I got together back in 2001, with our first ‘date’ being an overnight in a cave here in the Lake District. I’m such a romantic! After a while we moved permanently up to the Lakes, and it wasn’t long before non-subtle hints about getting married started coming my way. Being ‘spontaneously’ dragged into a jewellers to ‘just have a look’ wasn’t lost on me, but I feigned ignorance. You see, I had a plan. I wanted the proposal to be a complete surprise.

In September 2005 we went to Guatemala. It was our first big trip together and the perfect opportunity to get down on one knee and potentially pull off the proposal to end all proposals!

There were several moments when it could have all gone wrong. The first was at Gatwick airport when I was singled out for a random search. With the ring hidden in my hand luggage I had visions of popping the question at the departure gate. Next was a grilling at Atlanta airport, where an obnoxious customs officer refused to believe I’d never been to the US before, and started interrogating me about trips to Chicago. I started to think I’d have to propose whilst being carted off by immigration.

We finally made it to Guatemala, but almost immediately came down with severe travel bugs, and spent a few days hugging toilets and cancelling tours. So romantic. There was one tour that was of particular importance to me, and thankfully we were well enough to go, although trying to get Her Ladyship out of bed at 4:30 am is a task only for the brave, or the foolish. Luckily I do like to live life on the edge!

Tikal National Park is an immense ancient Mayan site dating back to 900 BC, with several crumbling pyramid temples poking up out of the dense rainforest canopy. We’d booked onto an early morning tour to avoid the crowds and the worst of the heat, and enjoyed wandering around the complex, exploring the plazas, temples and learning about this mysterious civilisation.

By midday we’d climbed five temples, and with the rising temperature Heather’s enthusiasm was starting to wane. But we needed to bag one final temple. Temple IV is the tallest in the complex (65 m), with the park authorities describing the climb to the top as a ‘daring ascent’. Her Ladyship wasn’t having any of it, and declared she’d rather sit in the shade with a cold soda than climb another sodding temple. Maybe I should’ve proposed in the airport after all!

Trying not to get exasperated, I somehow managed to persuade her to join me on one last climb. Convincing her that there were monkeys up in the trees, I snaffled the ring into my sock whilst she was squinting unimpressed into the foliage. I wanted to be the first up so that we would have at least a few seconds by ourselves, and I’m not sure if Heather has ever forgiven me for marching her up, having to use overhanging lianas for support. When we reached the top the heat was intense and the views were no different to what we’d seen from the previous five temples, so she voiced her displeasure and started to head back down.

Pushing my luck yet again, I dragged her grumpiness to the furthest corner of the ledge and made her sit down to enjoy the iconic views. As we sat with our legs dangling over the edge, sweat dripping off us and slowly cooking in the heat, I pulled out the little red box and finally asked the question that I’d been planning for well over a year.

Thankfully she said ‘yes’!

And that’s why 17.2237°N – 89.6302°W is special to us. These are the co-ordinates of the corner of Temple IV where we got engaged. The corner of the tallest Mayan temple in Guatemala.

What would your co-ordinates be?

GIVEAWAYS

We’re delighted to be partnering with Life Less Ordinary for not one, but TWO amazing giveaways. The first is your chance to win one of TWO Fernweh Co-ordinates Bracelets so you can carry your travel memories around with you wherever you go. The second is a chance to win one of TWO £20 Gift Vouchers to spend on anything from the incredible Life Less Ordinary range, which includes a whole variety of personalised jewellery such as bracelets, necklaces and some rather unique cuff links! Perfect for Christmas presents (or just a little treat for yourself!).

How to enter the giveaways

It couldn’t be simpler. Just use the Gleam widgets below to enter, completing as many of the options as you like. If you have previously completed any of the actions (for example if you already follow us on Facebook, Twitter etc) then feel free to have an entry for them!

Please check our Conversant Traveller Privacy Policy and also the Gleam Privacy Policy for more information on how your data will be used and stored.

IMPORTANT: Make sure you use the Gleam widget below to validate your entries.

#2 Gift Voucher Giveaway (ends Mon 25th November 2019)

£20 Gift Voucher for Life Less Ordinary Jewellery

#1 Travel Co-ordinates Bracelet Giveaway (ends Mon 14th October 2019)

Travel Co-ordinates Bracelets Giveaway

Terms and conditions

No purchase is necessary to enter or win. A purchase will not increase your chances of winning. The prizes are provided by Life Less Ordinary and are a Fernweh Co-ordinates bracelet in a colour of your choice (there will be two winners) and a £20 gift voucher for Life Less Ordinary (there will be two winners).

The giveaways are open to a worldwide audience. No returns. The prizes are not refundable or exchangeable for cash. Giveaway #1 will run for 2 weeks starting on Monday 30th September 2019 and end at midnight on Monday 14th October 2019. The winners will be determined on or around the 15th October 2019 by a random drawing of eligible entries received. Giveaway #2 will run for 2 weeks starting on Monday 11th November 2019 and end at midnight on Monday 25th November 2019. The winners will be determined on or around the 26th November 2019 by a random drawing of eligible entries received. Your chances of winning are determined by the number of eligible entries. Winners must respond within a week of receiving the notification email, otherwise another winner will be chosen. The winner’s name and email address will be passed to the giveaway sponsor in order to arrange delivery.

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Life Less Ordinary have kindly provided the prizes for this giveaway, as well as our bracelets mentioned in this post. We never work with brands we don’t know and love, and as always, opinions are entirely our own.