About Chris

Chris Backe (rhymes with hockey) had his life changed when he moved to South Korea in 2008.

Initially, the plan was to teach English, get out of the USA, write a bit about travel, and otherwise enjoy life. He couldn’t have known then how big that decision was, since it set his life on a completely different trajectory. His original travel blog, Chris in South Korea, focused on life in Korea and at least one new destination each week. It became one of the most popular blogs about South Korea.

While living in Seoul, South Korea, he met an awesome Canadian woman. After months of dating and weekend-long tours, they married at a public park in Seoul in 2013. A couple of weeks later, they set off to become digital nomads. Since then, they’ve traveled across Thailand, South America, Eastern Europe, and taken an epic road trip across North America.

Since 2008, Chris has lived as an expat or digital nomad, and he’s currently an expat in Birmingham, England. While he dislikes the term ‘former digital nomad’, they’ve transitioned to an expat lifestyle where they’re still traveling and enjoying life, just not with everything they own!

Today, Chris is a full-time board game designer, a digital nomad consultant, and an author of dozens of books. As of December 2022, Chris has 15 games signed with publishers (with more coming soon).

Beyond designing games, Chris is an entrepreneur in the board game space. In 2020, shortly after COVID locked down the world, he co-founded Virtual Playtesting (a Discord server for online playtesting). In 2021, he launched TabletopPublishers.com (a service to help designers pitch publishers better). In 2022, he launched No Box Games with two partners to make print-and-play games with no assembly required. Their first game, Spies, was funded by over 2,000 backers. Another of his projects is over at PrereleaseGames.com (a way to help designers grow their following).

In his free time, you might find him on the tennis court, at the gym, or possibly doing yoga.