A few short months ago we decided we wanted to plan for a year off work. We though in a year or 2 would be something to aim for, by morning it was early next year, and a month later it was ‘what are we waiting for?’

So here we are , homeless, jobless and ready to head off……….

We bought a house in March 2015, I could see its full potential, whereas Tina thought the place to be a dump. The keys were in our hands and we moved in on a Friday, the following day the kitchen was stripped out as the new kitchen was arriving the following Monday. We totally refurbished the whole house, new kitchen, new bathroom, total redecoration inside and out and total landscaping of the grounds and a Spa pool. It took us 6 months to complete it and come the following September we had finished. The house also had a self contained 1 bedroom flat downstairs with its own access. We had come to a stop and was excited about the summer coming and having lots of parties.

At work both Tina and I were getting stressed with our jobs. We had been to our employers, (different companies), and had requested a better home/work balance. Both employers refused our requests of going down to a 4 day week, or coming off the “on call” rosters, or taking a sabbatical. So we had to make a radical decision and opted to take a year off. The options were plentiful, we could study, take on non stress jobs, or even travel. We laughed about the latter stating we could never travel for a year, that would take ages to sort, besides where would we go! This suggestion grew on us and we decided we would do this in a couple of years. This was a Friday in September 2015 we made this decision. Saturday came and it was the only topic we talked about all day so came to the conclusion that we would do it next year! Sunday was the same we talked and talked about a dream of travelling, visiting places around the world that we had only seen on TV, places where only the rich and famous go to, places that were so “out there” the world hadn’t caught up, remote far away destinations. We got pen and paper each and wrote down where we could go. After an hour or so we had a total of over 80 countries to visit. This was too over indulgent so had to narrow the list down. We made another list and included the countries we had both put down, this brought the total to around 50 countries. We wanted to spend more than a week in one country so I searched the Web looking at our list of countries where as we were travelling on UK passports, what are the Visa restrictions. This again brought the list down to about 30 and these countries didn’t need an application for a visa apart from 2, Australia and America. We went to bed that night with the decision, “what are we waiting for” we’re doing to do this.

That week we called in several real estate agents, all of which stated the same thing, that was if we wanted to sell we had to do it now or wait until the following January as no-one would buy by mid November due to it being too close to the Christmas period. We opted for now. The house sold within a couple of days and with multiple offers. We chose the highest obviously, which had 1 clause that being the buyer wanted to be in the house within 3 weeks. 3 WEEKS, wow this was moving forwards quickly. It took a week for it to go “unconditional” so the day came to inform our employers. We again asked our employers for a year off to which they both denied our requests again, so we resigned on that day giving a months notice.  Wow we had 3 weeks to pack everything up, find storage, find a place to live for a few weeks before our trip, plan the trip whilst still working full time. This time flew by, but we did it. We sold a lot of furniture, got a great deal on long term storage, moved in with friends, finished our notice period and planned our trip. It was now late October, had spent a whole day booking flights and the odd hotel etc., and had got visas for Australia. We bought a world map and had marked our root out on it with a heavy black marker and had organised 2 months at the start of our trip travelling around New Zealand and were so very very excited. We then realized that our 1 year trip could extend longer as we had no jobs, or even a home to come back to. Therefore a 2 month trip around both islands in NZ would have a purpose, that being where to live on our return. The date was fixed to start our expedition – 30^th November 2015 whist came to us at great speed. The home contents had been packed and repacked several times in the storage unit. We had even organised a PO Box for any post that we had forgotten to change address for, and our route planned and tomorrow we start our adventure.

The who – Roy and Tina

The where – anywhere we wanted to go

The why – to de-stress and have an adventure of a lifetime

The what – travelling the world

The how – by using only public transport.

So, house is sold, pussy cats adopted, left our jobs, tickets booked and bags packed (well almost) so would love for you to follow us as we travel to loads of countries to see the sights, drink the wine, laze on the beach, swim in the sea, meet the locals and fellow travelers, eat great food and generally be pretty chilled out for the next year or so.