On holiday, most people leave a country with a few new foreign phrases under their belt, a few new friends, and perhaps a few too many drunken nights they’d rather forget.
Rarely do most leave with a new wife!
But then again, Will Hatton, a 27-year-old from Brighton, England is not most people.
Earlier this year in January, Will travelled to Iran for the first time in his life on his epic three-year overland trip from England to Papua New Guinea (he’s not taking any flights).
He entered the country after hitchhiking from Armenia with a friendly Iranian driver. This experience, according to Will, opened his eyes to the extremely hospitable nature of Iranians.
“Iran is the easiest country in the world to hitchhike in.”
Will Hatton, speaking to MailOnline Travel.
After travelling through the country and meeting lots of lovely people along the way, Will was bored one night and decided to log into dating app Tinder (by downloading a VPN to get around Iran’s stringent censorship Internet policy) to pass the time, and ended up matching with Esme, a 26-year-old from Tehran.
The two ended up chatting for hours that night, and decided to meet up for coffee the next day. Turns out the pair got along exceptionally well, with the date lasting over 11 hours!
Will had plans to head to Kurdistan the next day and Esme was back at university, so the pair parted ways after the date.
But Esme made quite the impression on Will, and the Brit was unable to get his Persian princess off his mind, prompting him to ask the uni student to come travelling around Iran with him – to which she said YES!
However, things are never that easy in Iran. Conservative government policy has strict rules about unmarried men and women travelling and socialising together, and their unmarried status started to cause trouble on the road.
“In the first three or four days we had trouble checking into hotels and every time we did, it was dodgy.”
Will Hatton, speaking to MailOnline Travel.
So in order to overcome the restrictive hurdle to their blossoming relationship, Esme suggested the couple apply for a temporary marriage license, which is perfectly acceptable in Iran, allowing the couple to travel together for a month without the risk of getting into trouble.
Once the legality of their relationship was sorted, the rest of their travels was smooth sailing – very smooth, according to Will, who noted the exceptionally warm welcome he received from locals all over the country.
“People said it was great we were together. Iranians got very excited in general about a foreigner visiting their country, then when they realised she was Iranian, they would lose their s***.”
“They were so happy that someone had come to Iran and had an Iranian girlfriend because it showed I was not the kind of person who thought it was a bad country, it validated me.
“Iranians are very aware of how they are portrayed on the world stage, they are the default bad guys in most low-budget actions movies and that’s got to hurt.
After their month-long travels in Iran, Will headed to India and Esme met up with him a few weeks later. They have now been travelling the country for a couple of months and plan to head to Pakistan next, where Will is hoping to open a backpacker hostel before the end of the year.
Iran is preparing for a massive influx in foreign tourists in the near future with the lifting of visa sanctions and the opening of the country to tourism breaking down the boundaries between Iran and the Western world.
In Australia, passenger numbers to Iran jumped by 150 percent compared to the same period last year, according to Intrepid, and high demand for the destination in 2015/16 has led to itineraries selling out months in advance.
In October last year, Tempo Holidays announced it would be returning to Iran after a five-year hiatus.