‘You deserve the world’: NI adventurer builds £122k house for mum in Thailand

Johnny Ward made headlines earlier this year after completing the ‘ultimate explorers grand slam’ — as he dubbed it — when he scaled the summit of Vinson Massif in Antarctica, completing his Seven Summits challenge back in January.

He and his wife Jaa built their “dream home” in Chaing Mai in Thailand just last year and decided soon after that he would also build one for his mum, Maura, who is a travel blogger too and would visit him often in Thailand.

Maura runs a travel blog called ‘The Geriatric Traveller’ where she joins Johnny on some of his adventures — and the pair have hiked up Mount Fuji in Japan and rode tandem bikes across Jordan in the Middle East.

The energetic 74-year-old often undertakes travelling fundraisers to raise money for the Parkinson’s Disease Trust, a condition she was diagnosed with 10 years ago.

In a video on his Instagram page earlier this week Johnny shared a tour through Maura’s new 170sqm home which is situated only 800 metres from his own.

He told his 90,000 followers at the end of the video that, all in all, the cost of the build — including the purchase of the land and furnishing — cost in total $160k. This equates to roughly £122,000 and took just under twelve months to build.

In the post, he said: “Love you mum, you deserve the world. Cheers to many happy years in your new house and thank you for supporting me through this crazy life when most parents would have said “don’t you think it’s time for a real job”. You do so much for so many people and it’s time to take a rest, kick back and pour yourself a gin and tonic. PS I’ll start dropping my dirty laundry over on Tuesday afternoons.”

Speaking to the camera, Johnny revealed how much his mother supported him throughout his life as a single parent.

“I come from a single-mother family, we were on welfare for 10-plus years,” he said.

“I became a blogger and was a broke backpacker for years and my mum always supported me so much when everybody else was asking “when’s Johnny going to get a real job?”

“She’s supported me in whatever makes me happy, so I always felt that love and support for her,” he added.

“The blog then started making some money and my life turned around and I visited every country in the world; I climbed Everest and rowed across the Atlantic and my life changed and I was in a position where I could give back to my mum, so I built her a house here in Chaing Mai in Thailand only 800 metres away from my house so she will be spending her winters or maybe eight or nine months of the year or who knows, maybe permanently, here in Thailand.”

The open-plan house has three bedrooms and three bathrooms over two storeys. Johnny explained how the entire bottom floor is entirely self-sufficient which means that Maura doesn’t have to climb stairs every day.

“The top level is really only when she has guests over, because she has Parkinson’s she doesn’t have to keep going up and down the stairs,” he said.

He caught Maura’s reaction to seeing the house for the first time on camera when she walked through the door.

She said: “I’ve never been lost for words before, anybody who knows me will tell you, but I just cannot believe it.

“I think I’ll be waking up tomorrow morning and discover that it’s all a dream, it’s absolutely beautiful, I’m gobsmacked.”

If you’d like to keep up to date with Johnny’s future travel adventures, you can follow him on Instagram @onestep4ward

News Catch Up: Monday 16th September