Meet the Yorkshire Traveller Who Has Explored Nearly 60 Countries – Now She’s Passing on Her Wanderlust to the Next Generation

A Yorkshire entrepreneur who has travelled and explored 57 countries across five continents – from riding motorbikes across the Himalayas, exploring the jungles of Borneo and camping beneath the stars in Africa – is now using a lifetime of adventure to inspire the next generation of explorers.

Gemma Herron, 53 from Leeds, has launched Colour the World, a collection of screen-free travel adventure books, explorer packs and educational resources for children aged 5-11. Created from more than twenty years of travelling the world, the books are designed to spark curiosity about different countries, cultures and wildlife, helping children discover the joy of exploring long before they ever board a plane.

“Travel has shaped every part of who I am,” says Gemma. “I wanted to create something that would give children that same sense of curiosity and wonder I discovered through travelling.”

Gemma’s love of travel began in Garforth, Leeds, where she grew up, Gemma explains; “I was a quiet, bookish girl who didn’t quite fit in. I had a huge imagination and an even bigger curiosity about the world beyond my own street. I’d read about countries and cultures for hours, but travelling felt impossibly far away. I always knew I wanted to see the world. I just didn’t know how.”

But, Gemma’s first opportunity came in her early twenties when she packed a bag and travelled alone to France to work for Eurocamp. She returned the following season to Majorca as a children’s entertainer, spending her days inventing games and activities for hundreds of children.

Looking back, she now realises two lifelong passions were beginning at exactly the same time. “I fell in love with travel… and I fell in love with seeing the world through children’s eyes.” And, those two passions would eventually become her new business ‘Colour the World’, although it would take another two decades – and 57 countries – for the idea to fully take shape!

For most of her twenties, Gemma continued to work on campsites in France, Switzerland and Mallorca. But, she got the wanderlust bug when she first travelled to India for 6 months in 1999. Gemma explains; “It was my first trip outside of Europe. I’d never even eaten Indian food before I went. Looking back that probably tells you everything about how sheltered my world was at that point. The first two weeks were quite hard – India doesn’t ease you in gently. It just arrives, all at once, at full volume. But soon, something shifted and in those six months, India stopped being overwhelming and started being extraordinary. The kindness of strangers. The colour of everything. The way food I’d never tasted before suddenly became the best thing I’d ever eaten. The way people with so little seemed to carry so much joy. And, for the first time, I wasn’t just visiting somewhere. I was truly seeing it. And once you learn to see the world that way – with genuine wonder – you can never go back.”

However, by her late twenties, Gemma felt it was time to settle down. She built a successful corporate career in learning and development, bought a house, got married and embraced the life she believed she was supposed to want. But the traveller in her never disappeared. Every annual leave allowance became another opportunity to explore somewhere new.

Looking back, Gemma says she was following the path she thought was expected of her. “On paper, everything looked right, but I slowly realised I’d become tied to a monthly salary and counting down my holiday allowance. I was becoming more risk-averse, and the freedom I craved was limited to a few weeks each year. Deep down, I knew there had to be another way to live.”

At work, Gemma’s team was facing a major restructure, with roles being reshuffled and redundancies on the horizon. Rather than wait to see what would happen, she initially decided to play it safe and applied for another role within the company. Much of the restructuring process unfolded while Gemma was away on another adventure, riding motorbikes across the Himalayas with her husband. When she returned home, she had a ‘now or never’ moment and decided it was time to leave the corporate world behind. To her husband’s surprise, she accepted voluntary redundancy, knowing it was her opportunity to choose a different way of living. She and Mark rented out their Yorkshire home and returned to seasonal work in France and Switzerland, spending each winter exploring a new corner of the world.

Over the next twelve years, they travelled extensively across Asia, Africa and the Americas – travelling the length of Vietnam, exploring Patagonia by campervan, camping across Botswana and South Africa, and returning to India time and again.

But, Gemma says, it wasn’t the landscapes that changed her most… “it was the people. Wherever we went, complete strangers welcomed us into their homes, shared meals with us, helped us when we were lost and showed us incredible kindness. It taught me something I wish every child could grow up knowing – that the world is overwhelmingly full of good people.”

Then life took an unexpected turn. While living and working seasonally in Switzerland, Mark was diagnosed with cancer. “It stops you in your tracks,” says Gemma. “One day you’re planning your next adventure, and the next you’re sitting in a hospital wondering what the future looks like.” Mark underwent treatment and surgery in Switzerland, and thankfully went on to make a full recovery. The experience was a profound reminder of how precious life is and strengthened a belief they had been building throughout their years of travel – that they were choosing the right way to live. Gemma explains; “It reinforced something we’d already started to believe – that life is far too short to keep waiting for the perfect moment. We spend so much of our lives saying ‘one day’. But life doesn’t always give you one day. We realised the memories we’d collected together weren’t the reward for living – they were the point of living.”

Rather than making them step away from their adventurous lifestyle, it reinforced their desire to embrace every opportunity, continue exploring the world, and make the most of their time together. Gemma and Mark continued working seasonally for several more years, until changes brought about by Brexit eventually made that way of life more difficult to continue.

Back in Yorkshire, Gemma found herself thinking about the little girl she had once been – the quiet child in Leeds who dreamed of seeing the world but had no idea where to begin. That became the inspiration behind Colour the World – and, despite its name, it is about far more than colouring… The growing collection of screen-free travel adventure books, explorer packs and educational resources encourages children to discover countries, cultures, wildlife and traditions through puzzles, stories, games, creative challenges and hands-on activities… colouring is simply one part of the adventure.

“I don’t just want to keep children entertained,” says Gemma. “I want them to fall in love with the world.”

Having travelled to 57 countries, worked with children across Europe and helped people with their holiday and travel, Gemma believes curiosity is one of the greatest gifts a child can have.

She said; “I’ve seen incredible beauty and kindness everywhere I’ve travelled. Children are naturally curious about the world, and I want to help nurture that curiosity. Because a child who falls in love with the world grows up wanting to protect it, celebrate it and share it with others.”

Gemma and Mark continue to spend their summers working on campsites in Yorkshire while using the autumn and winter months to explore the world, with Georgia, Istanbul and Azerbaijan next on their ever-growing list of adventures.

To find out more about Colour the World or order a book, please visit www.colourtheworld.co.uk