Our Family Gap Year

If you’d told me a couple of years ago that in 2019 we’d be leaving our jobs, taking the kids out of school, packing up our house and setting off around the world with nothing but a couple of backpacks, a (very detailed) plan and the desire to travel I’d probably have laughed at you for saying something so unlikely (apart from the plan – that part would have been guaranteed). And yet here we are.  As I write this it’s 10 weeks until we go, the flights are booked, the house has been rented and resignations tendered.  How have our lives taken such a major turn?

How did we get here?  Why are we launching off on a family gap year?

It’s a pretty long story which you can read here, but includes some things I expect many of you will be familiar with; long hours at work climbing the career ladder coupled with guilt for not spending enough time with the kids and around my impact on the earth leading to stress and, in my case, depression.

It took my mental health breaking to make us question what we were doing, and to look at what we really wanted from life – at what was really important. Travel came pretty high! Along with more time with the children.

Travel has always been something that Chris and I wanted to do. We had planned to go for 9 months nine years ago but didn’t go in favour of having children instead. We had decided that we would see the world on holidays rather than with a long spell of travel.

With two young kids, careers and a mortgage, we thought that there was no going back on this decision. But in 2018 we took the children to Costa Rica (follow our adventures here) and had the most amazing time exploring the country and its culture with the children and spending all our time together.

 

The travel bug which we’d locked up before having the kids was fully let loose by the time we returned and we quickly arrived at the question ‘Why can’t we go travelling now?’

I’m sure other people can come up with lots of reasons (school, money, safety, friends and family and jobs to name a few), but none of them seem like something we can’t get around. So we’re doing it!

People have called us brave (I’m pretty sure that’s their polite way of saying mad!) and most people have expressed jealousy at what we’re doing. So what’s stopping other people? I’m pretty sure that if we can do it so can you and we’re determined to show it!

Perhaps it’s fear of the unknown, or an inability to understand what it’ll actually be like, maybe you’ve just not actually ever thought about it before.

If you’re not sure whether this is for you follow our travels on social media and in the blog and ask us questions in the comments below.

Our Itinerary

We will be travelling through 17 different countries in total (although the Philippines is a single day in Manilla on a stopover) in the following order:

UK -> Philippines -> Australia -> New Zealand -> Myanmar -> Thailand -> Laos -> Cambodia -> Vietnam -> Singapore -> Malaysia -> China -> Indonesia -> Oman -> Malawi -> Zambia -> Botswana -> Zimbabwe -> UK

We’ll be updating as we go so keep an eye out on the blog.

If you’re excited by this idea follow us as we travel around, sign up so you don’t miss a post and then head on over to our planning page to get started! What are you waiting for?