When Travel and Work Converge: "
Jorrit Jorritsma, co-founder of Millican, discusses how traveling has influenced his business and led to a commitment to sustainability.
Written by Jorrit Jorritsma
My wife Nicky and I love travel. My own love of travel sprung from an instinctive delight in heading off over the horizon, combined with the pleasure of reading childhood tales of Victorian expeditions and adventuring.
Stewart the Courier Bag
However, as we travelled over the years, Nicky and I have found ourselves increasingly challenged by travel to change our lives back home. What we’ve seen around the world has impacted how we want to continue our lives once any of our travel trips comes to an end.
Today, we’re running a business based in the United Kingdom’s Lake District. Our passion is creating travel bags based on timeless, vintage designs – bags as functional and flexible for everyday use as for more exotic travels.
Our other great passion is for finding ways that we can produce these bags in ways as eco-friendly and sustainable as possible, using organic or recycled materials. We want our bags to be used by our grand-children, to have that long a life.
Periodically we’re asked how we came to this convergence of travel bags and eco-friendly lifestyle. Well, the answers lie dotted around the world in several different continents and by what we’ve seen and experienced along the way.
Lamas with packs on Machu Picchu.
Take bags. We’ve always loved the kind of worn, cracked leather bag you might find in a grand-parent’s attic. But we’ve also had our fire fed by things we’ve seen on the road. Take the time we were trekking to Machu Picchu. It was fascinating to learn from our local guides that the Incas built inns and depots at distances exactly conforming to how far a fully packed Llama can walk in a day. This led us to investigate llama packs, the kind of bags the Incas carried, and the style still being used in Peru today.
Travelling through the Australian outback, we quickly realized the life-saving value of a good bag. We heard plenty of stories of pioneers and explorers who only had a single swag bag thrown over their shoulder as they trekked thousands of miles across the forbidding landscape.
In Melbourne, we visited Nicky’s Uncle Jim who, at seventeen, embarked on a £10 boat from Liverpool to Perth via the Suez Canal, then to walk from Perth to Sydney with just a single pack on his back through the outback.
Later, we gained a glimpse into more colonial traditions, visiting tea plantations in Sri Lanka. As we visited bizarre Tudor-style houses, grand Victorian hotels and racecourses, we saw how the British colonials had sought to create a home from home. We also pored over the enormous travel chests, wardrobes, and wooden trunks that had enabled them to ship their treasured possessions from home.
And more recently, we’ve enjoyed our second visit to the souks of Marrakech. Here we’ve encountered members of the Touraq tribe, nomads of the Sahara who dress in vibrant blue. As we’ve examined their saddle packs, money belts, water carriers and leather pillow cases, we’ve found huge imaginative inspiration for creating future products.
Tsunami anniversary on Sri Lanka.
But we don’t just have bags on the brain. Because there’s been another thing that has impacted us as we travel the world. And that’s the increasing need for our generation to make lifestyle changes that will improve the future prospects for people and planet alike. It’s not that we’re eco-warriors but our eyes have certainly been opened by some of the things we’ve seen.
A major influence was our visit to Sri Lanka on the anniversary of the tsunami. It was humbling to gaze out at hundred of paper bags filled with lit candles along the shore, placed by local people to commemorate each person who had died. At the same time, we were greatly encouraged to see how international support was making a difference. Micro-finance was working well. For example, a local fisherman who’d lost his boat and livelihood was given enough money to buy new rods and netting, enabling him to take the first steps to re-establish his line of work.
At a time when we often hear much cynicism about Western aid and its administration, it was heartening to see it making a significant difference in Sri Lanka.
In the Australian outback again, we were struck by something very different – the importance of water for survival. Wide riverbeds lie dry for much of the year. However, when the rains come and flash floods strike, entire valleys spring to life. Fish emerge from the mud while flowers and plants erupt into bloom. It has led to our being fascinated by the rising global challenge of water provision.
View of Derwentwater in the Lake
District © Graham Soult
And back at home in the Lakes, where we moved after busy lives in the city, we’ve also watched how local communities are caring for their environment and making a living through the conservation and preservation of nature.
All of this has led to a concern that our company should be eco-friendly, ethical in its practices, and committed to sustainability rather than a here today, gone tomorrow mentality. It isn’t always an easy road. For example, we’ve faced the issue of whether to collaborate with ethical partners in China when other factories there may be profoundly unethical. There are no easy answers but our own view is that its only by encouraging the success of companies that work to high standards and ethical guidelines that other companies will be led to adopt similar practices.
However, overall, we are hugely grateful to be part of a growing movement of businesses and brands committed to making conscious choices for a better future.
And funny to think that this joint passion for bags and sustainability all began and grew as a result of our many travels across the globe.
We love travelling for pleasure but it’s been a real added pleasure to be able to carry the fruits of our travels back into our work.
Co-founders Nicky Forbes and Jorrit Jorritsma live in England’s Lake District with their daughter Kiah, enjoying the essence of outdoor living, while running the Millican business from their back garden.
Possibly related posts:
- When to Travel Where
- Sleeping Out in the Open: Overnight Outdoor Travel Necessities
- Travel Means Experiencing
No comments:
Post a Comment