Couple chase bucket list dreams after health scares

The travel bloggers said life is all about "deciding which risks you want to take"

A married couple say two major health scares gave them the push they needed to "live life to the fullest" and tick off every bucket list experience.

Travel bloggers Hannah Bird and Charlie Camper, from Burnham-on-Sea in Somerset, have explored more than 50 countries together over the past six years.

Mr Camper wears an implanted defibrillator after suffering a cardiac arrest at the age of 15, while Ms Bird was diagnosed with stage 4 blood cancer in 2022.

The 25-year-olds have amassed an online following of more than 450,000 people, and use their platform to share travel tips and raise awareness of symptoms.

The couple say they are drawn towards experiences "off the beaten track"

For six months, doctors told Ms Bird her persistent cough, night sweats, constant exhaustion and unexplained bruising were nothing to worry about.

But a week after the couple's engagement, she was officially diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma diagnosis - an aggressive cancer that affects white blood cells.

Throughout 18 gruelling rounds of chemotherapy and immunotherapy, the couple sat together in hospital and planned their adventures.

Ms Bird was given a 60% chance of survival, while Mr Camper was faced with a less than 2% likelihood following his cardiac arrest

"Every appointment we'd sit there and think 'where do we want to go? What do we want to see?' It was the one thing really pushing us through," said Ms Bird.

With doctors so "unsure about what the future was going to hold", the couple took a chance and booked a last-minute flight to Cappadocia in Turkey.

The day after they returned from their spontaneous trip, a PET scan revealed there were no more cancer cells left in Ms Bird's body.

The pair use their platform to raise awareness of health condition symptoms and encourage testing

"We gained quite a good following off the back of that trip," the couple said.

"People were asking us how we do it, saying we were quite inspirational, which made us blush a lot.

"We started blogging more and it kind of escalated from there."

Their passports are now adorned with stamps from across the world - including Tokyo, Australia, Singapore, Greece, Switzerland, Budapest, Egypt, Kenya, Dubai, Iceland, and Norway.

The couple said the serious health scares "changed [their] outlook" on life

"We've got a big bucket list on a bit of paper in our bedroom, but it seems to constantly get longer and longer," Ms Bird laughed.

"I don't think its ever going to stop if I'm honest, we see new inspiration pretty much every day."

The couple have now been shortlisted for the ITV Travel Creator of the Year award in recognition of their engaging content and inspiring stories.