About Us

It’s crazy, but the way in which me, Cosmin, and my friend & business partner Florian came to join forces and create the Hidden Gems of London goes all the way back to when we first met and the very unlikely circumstances of how that happened. It was the summer of 2020 and we were both in Bucharest, Romania during the Covid-19 pandemic, each one of us separately having spent his holiday there, we didn’t know each other until we met inside the coach that brought us back to London.

Eventually one day each of us had to return to London, and because the airplane flights were not available, the next best choice was to take the coach. It wasn’t the most glamorous option either, because usually they take 3 days to reach their destination, you can’t lie down and sleep – you have to sleep while sitting down, they’re very hot during summertime, they’re smelly, and only stop every so often. It wasn’t great, and that’s just me saying it with an euphemism, and I dearly missed many comforts that I took for granted, but I also cannot complain, that coach journey was fateful and changed everything.

I remember the day clearly, I got my luggage in and got inside the coach, then went upstairs on the upper deck and there was a free seat, next to that seat was Florian, so I sat down there, neither of us really said much, but then a few hours later, we started talking.

The coach was moving north-west through the Transylvanian roads, Transylvania being a famous region we both visited before, and we started talking about the places that we saw over the window as the coach was moving past them, pointing over to the mountains, the pastures and the fairytale-like Romanian countryside, being in awe of the surroundings and telling stories. We opened up the subject of London and discovered that we both live in London, and then he started telling me about his travels and specifically the special places he visited in London, and how hidden they are unless you know where to look for them and so on. By this point I knew I came across someone that shares the same passion for London as me and that also lives in the same city, so it would be a great idea to connect and catch up for a beer when we get back into the Kingdom. He was a really great chap and I knew that there would be a purpose or a meaning to this interaction and set-up of events, even though at the time I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what. During the rest of the journey we sort of stuck together due to having been familiar with each other by now and continued to exchange conversations, I also remember when we hopped off the smelly coach at Calais to take the cruise to the UK mainland, and I captured one of the most impressive sunrises, glittering over the ocean waves, and I also remember smelling the fresh ocean air in the morning, it was such a relief from that coach, but then we hopped back on it as we reached the mainland.

And after 3 long days in a hot and smelly coach, the wait was finally over, the coach announced the end of the trip and dropped us off in Wembley, London. We hopped off, grabbed our luggage, shook hands, and went on to our separate paths, little did we know at the time that it was only for us to meet again with a renewed and greater purpose.

The next time we met was at Waxy O’Connor’s, an Irish Pub in Piccadilly Circus, we had some blueberry ales there and talked some things, life and work and how nice it is to see London again and so on, some regular, general stuff. Then the next time we met was in Covent Garden, where we talked more about how Instagram and the online world changed everything and how easy it is to produce content and make a living out of it nowadays. And the more we conversed our conversations became oriented towards London and entrepreneurial endeavours more and more, until finally something clicked and an idea sparked in both of us that ushered in a new version of reality not just for both of us, but for anyone who will discover and get to know London by it – The Hidden Gems of London. And that is, truly, when it all began.

We have met each other whilst travelling, only to set in motion one of our greatest undertakings, the Hidden Gems of London, which is related to travelling. Where a journey’s end seemed to be, it was actually only the beginning of a new journey that reaches so much further than we would’ve thought. The perfect alignment on that day with the coach, the travel destination, the timing, and even the seats that we happened to sit down on, simply just changed everything. How beautifully inter-woven it all was, it was almost like the universe plotted and perfectly timed everything for a great and life-changing event to happen, it synchronised everything in order to enable this future. And the key takeaway from all of this, the core moral of the story, is that when you travel you become open to new life-changing possibilities. It may seem like a bit of a wild theory, but it’s not, when you travel, everything around you is vastly different, yet you are the only element that is the same, you are the only constant, whereas everything else around you is an ever-shifting surrounding. You enter a realm of new discoveries, you go to different places, you see different people, you consume different foods and drinks, the way in which you spend your time is different, the regular pattern of your ordinary routine is so broken that a stream of completely new possibilities rushes in to fill the empty spots. Everything else around you is a novelty and an unknown experience that is interacting with you, and you get to choose how it does this.

And then when it’s over, after you return from your holiday and settle back into the ordinary life again, you notice that everything around you is the same constant, and yet oddly enough, you are now the one who’s different, you’re the one who has been changed and nourished by experience, the holiday you’ve been in seems to stay with you through yourself, and although the places you’ve been to are so far away, they can now be found so close to you within your dearest memories, so close that they are almost there with you. And this is why our slogan “Happy travels, discover hidden gems, create memories.” has such depth to it, all three of these mentioned concepts played a part from the very beginning of how Hidden Gems of London came to be, and if you mull over it a little, they ring true for all of your travels. This is the sequence of fulfilling and joyous travels, you are enjoying yourself, discovering and experiencing something new, and creating beautiful memories you can look back on and tell their story. Travelling is something incredibly special, that changes you just as much as it changes your bearings, and we have discovered, from our own first-hand experience, that it can really be the tale of tales, and the beginning of beginnings.

– Cosmin Savenco