This is where we are now, but it all started with my Uncle David three years ago. He'd just got back from walking in the Highlands to celebrate his 67th birthday when he developed a sore throat. Three weeks later he died from oesophageal cancer. He left behind his wife Alison and their daughter Anna.

Then a year after David died, a best friend called Tim – a 48-year-old from Chicago who I’d met on travels two decades earlier – contacted me just before Christmas by email with a shocking out-of-character message. “I might just kill myself,” he wrote.

I spent two months chatting with Tim, thinking he was overall getting over the unplanned life events that had taken him into this depression. But just two months after that initial message Tim took his life. He left behind a crowd of bewildered friends and family including his son Andrew, aged 19.

In the intervening months, it really hit Debs and I that life really didn’t go as you always thought it would. So six months after Tim died, rather than take a regular beach-type holiday, we spent a week visiting a dozen friends who we, although in touch through Facebook, hadn’t actually seen for too many years. This included another of my best mates Bernie, who had beaten cancer when we were at school. Some of them met our two boys Daniel and Darley for the first time.

Increasingly, Debs and I were reminded that the most important things in life are not things at all, but family and friends. We were amazed when we realised how many family and friends we hadn’t really seen for years. While Facebook is fantastic for staying in touch, it can veil how infrequently many of us actually see our loved ones face to face.

Then this summer Sean, a fantastic guy I'd played football with as a teenager, died – aged just 46 – from an aggressive cancer, leaving behind three children including a baby, as well as many others distraught and confused at how this could have happened. When I'd last seen Sean a few years back at our football team's reunion we'd promised to meet up again soon – but as often happens, other bits of life got in the way…

If there can be any solace within it all it's that we have been clearly reminded of the real value of life: the friends and family we have. And so our idea for this family travel project came about.

But rather than it just be about us travelling around visiting people, we wanted to do a lot of good as we did it (extra to our hugging of family & friends!) – and inspire others to spend more time with the people they love. So ideas developed.

This is where we are now, on the excitement of life on the road to see our amazing family and friends and raise money for Cancer Research UK and other worthy charities as we go…

We hope with all our hearts you'll come on board with us, follow the journey and support the cause too.