Thailand’s biggest Nottingham Forest supporters: Jaa & Pai at Broadway Tower.

We get such a variety of different customers at Go Cotswolds from many different parts of the world. Getting to talk to people who love to travel is one of the reasons we do what we do as it gives us a taste of travelling right in our own back yard.

I love finding out our customer’s stories; what’s bought them to the area, where they’re from, where they’ve been and where they’re heading to next. We’ve had all sorts – from English couples on mini breaks to Australians entering their ninth month of travelling.

So far we’ve already had customers from 24 nationalities* and we’ve even had customers from 10 different states of the USA!

A week last Sunday we welcomed our first Thai passengers on board. Jaa & Pai were great fun and had such a brilliant spirit of adventure. They’d brought their luggage with them for the day as they thought they might stay in the Cotswolds somewhere. However, after a full day of seeing what the Cotswolds had to offer, I ended up dropping them at Warwick Parkway station as they’d decided to go to Nottingham instead!

My wife Lisa and I travel in a similar way – although we have a vague idea of where we want to go we just make it up as we go along. Sometimes this culminates in arriving in a town after dark with no accommodation booked – which can be quite daunting (Harare in Zimbabwe springs instantly to mind) – but the majority of the time it’s been a good thing as it allows you the freedom to do exactly what you want when you want.

So why did Jaa & Pai pick Nottingham? Well, to my amazement, it transpired that Pai was an avid Nottingham Forest football fan and he wanted to see the City Ground. This wasn’t their first brush with the team from Nottingham however – oh, no – the day before they toured the Cotswolds with us Pai had dragged Jaa to Wolverhampton to see his beloved team play for the very first time! I thought this was genius and reminded me of going to watch test cricket with Lisa when we were in South Africa..

As I said, I love talking to our customers and finding out their stories. By now Jaa & Pai are probably in York or The Lake District or London even but I’m sure Pai will be a very content man having fulfilled a childhood dream by visiting the home of his favourite football club. Much like I was when I got to watch cricket in stadiums I’d only ever seen on the TV. That to me is very much what travelling and the spirit of adventure is about.

*The Go Cotswolds customer country roll call is currently as follows: USA, Northern Ireland, Sweden, England, Taiwan, New Zealand, Japan, Malaysia, Australia, Finland, Argentina, Scotland, Italy, France, Brazil, Germany, China, Canada, Uruguay, Colombia, Hong Kong, India, Bulgaria and Thailand.