About Us - Nelson B&B

After finally realising that there was more fun to be had than working for someone else for 12 hours a day, I (Chris) gave up my career in marketing in 2002, and set off for the Amazon. After three months living in a thatched hut, tracking wild cats and bird-netting, two hundred miles from the nearest town, without running water and only candles for lights, I made it out to Bolivia to work on a wild animal refuge. Sally, who had continued with her job in London, finally tracked me down, after she had taken an exit package from her job trading bonds for a German Investment bank. She left too early to be responsible for the 2008/9 world financial collapse, she tells me.

We never looked back, and carried on travelling through the rest of South, Central and North America, Australia, New Zealand, South-east Asia, India, and southern Africa, before feeling completely safe that we could return to the UK and never work ever be considered reliable for work in a bank or an office again. The pictures that you will see all around the Inn are some of the spectacular sights that we have been lucky enough to see.

Not quite rid of the travelling bug, we decided to immigrate to British Columbia to see what new roads this would open up for us. The birth of our son, Albie, delayed our exit from London for a while, and we finally arrived in Nelson in July, 2006. Having been out to see the Inn previously, we then bought it over the phone, and took over the business three days after entering Canada. Albie has subsequently been joined by a sister, Hannah, who ruined his only-child status forever in February 2009.

There are a few questions that we are asked quite a lot:
Question: What do you miss most about Britain?
Answer: Great cheese, warm beer and cosy pubs, friends and the best fish and chips. And Jeremy Clarkson, of course.

Question: How did you find the Inn was for sale?
Answer: On the Internet.

Question: What did you know about Nelson before you moved here?
Answer: We had no idea of its great reputation; it was all a lucky surprise. We really couldn’t have found anywhere better for a business like this, or in which to raise a family.

Question: Where are you from in Britain?
Answer: A town called Alsager, near Crewe, in the Northwest, famous as the home of Rolls Royce cars; and from a village near Colchester, the oldest town in Britain.