Hi, We’re Nusi and Gijji (Husband and Wife)

Welcome to Passports and Bags! We’re thrilled to have you here! Our goal is to share our journey with you, as well as our experiences, along with some tips and ideas that will hopefully help you in navigating your own traveling journey with confidence and ease. 

Our Story:

Our story is that we live in Canada. We both had careers in the corporate world. I (Nusi) was in the insurance business and Gijji was in IT.

But we had a dream. The dream was to, some day, be in a position to have the freedom to start travelling around the world and seeing as much as we could, while we still had our health.

We worked towards it, and in 2020 we both quit our jobs, and in 2021 embarked on the life of our dreams.

Our first trip was to the stunning eastern provinces of Canada – Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. Absolutely loved every second of it! They’re gorgeous, and the people are just wonderfully friendly! And of course, great seafood!

In 2022 we spent a few days in California. After that we went on a 2-month long trip to Italy, Spain and Portugal. It was a fantastic trip!

Since then we’ve been to many more countries. One of the journeys we really enjoyed was a trip across Europe by Eurail visiting 8 countries. That was an incredible experience!

We’ve also been all over Asia, and to most of the GCC countries in the Middle East.

This year (February 2025), we visited Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires. Spent 10 days in each city. Both are fantastic destinations. If you haven’t been there, I highly recommend them.

Then, in May/June of this year (2025) spent a few weeks travelling around the Balkans. Had a wonderful time there. Lovely people everywhere. If you have a chance, do visit Serbia and Bosnia & Herzegovina. They are underrated, but worth visiting!

What a blessing it is to be able to experience so many cultures and to be able to see such beauty in people around the world! I’m forever grateful for the opportunity.

We decided to start this blog to share our experiences with you and pass along whatever we learned so that it may benefit you.

The key to a great travel experience is PLANNING! Without proper planning and research, you will end up wasting a lot of time and money and not get enough out of your trips.

The planning involves figuring out where to go, what to see, where to stay, what to pack, how long to go for and how to budget for it.

• 10 Essential Trip Planning Tips: A Step-by-Step Guide on How to Plan an Overseas Trip

Or, you can download my free e-book:

There are literally thousands of travel blogs on the internet, and many of them are awesome! (We use them to plan our own trips).

So we are one of many, bringing our perspective to the travel scene. We hope that you find it useful. 

We wish you all the best! May you enjoy your travels as much as we do.