I didn’t have a difficult upbringing. As the daughter of a shopkeeper, money and opportunities did not come to us in abundance. We lived above the shop in a modest 3 bed maisonette for most of our childhood and we didn’t own any of the trending brands until we were old enough to start earning our own money through Saturday jobs.

Despite this, I was a wealthy kid. My wealth lay in love. Deep, unconditional love of which our parents never held back. So much of that love was sprinkled with their beautiful Pakistani customs and though our parents had limited resources for travel , their longing for their family back home meant that we were lucky enough to experience international travel at an early age. In fact, one of my earliest memories is playing with a pair of white sunglasses as my father carried me through lush green wheat fields to meet our Pakistani relatives for the first time when I was just two years old. I still recall the humidity in the air, the overcast sky and most notably, the emotions radiating from my father as he was about to reunite with his family the first time after several years of separation.

Pakistan is a country rich in diversity. From its geography to its people and customs. A nation of nations. It is no doubt that experiencing that culture at an early age has equipped me with skills that have proven invaluable time and time again as I grew older. Foreign languages for example were extraordinarily appealing to me in school and I have been able to master the accents that my peers struggled with. And transferring from London to the Middle East office several years ago, which was still very much in the middle of a desert at the time, was something I embraced whilst other western ex-pats found it harder to adapt.

Since those formative years, travel has been a significant part of my life and so when I married and had my children, I was determined that they too wouldn’t miss out on travel opportunities. It would be too easy to leave them with family and go off on our own, but my parents gave me the gift of travel at an early age and it left an indelible mark on me, instilling a lifelong love for travel and adventure, and I want that for my own kids too.