How do you start an adventure? I started mine with my first ever blog post on my free wordpress.com site. I took it down when I started a self-hosted blog with my own domain name. (Read how to do that here, I know a lot more about the business of blogging these days, but the basics remain unchanged.) That post has been sat unpublished, ever since. That old post is now published below.
We did it, we got the money together, we sold everything and left. We travelled for over 6 years, visiting 50+ countries, basing ourselves in a handful along the way. It’s been so worth it.
Not only that, I started a travel blog that now brings in money and has over 300,000 page views per month. Thank you for that!
Back in 2012 I wrote the following. This was after an evening conversation over wine, sitting on the patio. One of us, I think it was me, suggested we go travelling again.
How To Start An Adventure
The first step in starting an adventure is in deciding to do it. Make your decision, stick to it, and start working towards it. This is how we went from normal to a full-time travel lifestyle. This is how I built a travel blog that brings in serious money. This is how we educated our kids outside school while visiting over 50 countries. This is how it started.
“We need a new adventure, we’re fed up with being tied to work and the daily grind. We want to experience other cultures, give the kids amazing learning opportunities and be together as a family more. Dad is missing out on their growing up.
The gladdest moment in human life, methinks, is a departure into unknown lands. The blood flows with the fast circulation of childhood
Sir Richard Burton, African Explorer
Since Chef and I met just over 11 years ago, on the Nile (doesn’t everyone?), we’ve had many adventures, many moves, many job changes, many upheavals. All these changes have moved us closer to a goal.
In the beginning, that goal was to just be together, later to take a very late “gap year”, then to become homeowners and start a family. Along the road we moved from Twickenham, just outside London, and our safe, comfortable jobs, to start again in Australia. We’ve been here, in Far North Queensland, for almost 5 years now.
It’s nice, we live pretty well, James has a great job with lots of advantages. The children are happy and have a nice life but it’s all just a bit dull, a bit ordinary. We’re not very good at normal or ordinary. So we’re off again.
We have made the slightly insane decision to jack it all in and travel again, I mean really travel, backpack, hiking boots and a map travel. Not around Australia in a camper van, that’s too normal, we’re off to Asia for a year or three. With the kids. It will cost us a bit, but travel is cheaper than living at home so we won’t have to save up a huge amount.
I should mention at this point that we homeschool, see what I mean about not doing normal well?
So if you’re interested in how a middle-aged perimenopausal woman, her younger husband and 2 kids fare on the road, keep reading.
If you’ve always fancied chucking it all in and donning backpack but have never quite found the right time or worked out how to achieve it, you may get some ideas here. I’m not exactly sure how we’ll make it happen, but I’m pretty sure we will, because the first step in any adventure is making the decision to do it.
And if you homeschool, or want to learn more about homeschooling, or at least, my version of homeschooling, this is the place for you.
Welcome!
Want to find out more about how we did it and how everything turned out?
Start here.
1 Year of Travel, What Did it Cost.
Highlights of 1 Year of Travel
1 Year of Worldschooling, Look at The Learning
How Many Countries Have We Been To?
So how do you start an adventure – by deciding to do it. Set it in stone, put a date on the calendar and don’t waver from your decision. Make up your mind and don’t let anything get in your way.
If you'd like to hire a car during your stay, use this car rental comparison tool to find the best deal!
We also suggest you take a look at this company to get a quote for all kinds of the more tricky adventure or extended travel insurance.
Try Stayz / VRBO for an alternative way to find rentals on homes/apartments/condos in any country!
We did it too! Just got home in May. Itching to be back out but trying to live vicariously through the blog. I enjoy following!! Thanks!
Thanks Anne!
I was older than you, my daughters at uni or beyond, when I gave it all up and went round the world on my own in my mid 50s. The first decision (to go) was amazingly easy, then (as people began to ask me to justify it and I couldn’t beyond it feeling like a good idea) terrifying – but it’s the best thing I could have done. I’m home now (I have grandchildren and cannot bear to miss their childhoods) but pack my rucksack and escape the bad weather for a month or so every winter – not the easy way, in a villa, but I buy a flight somewhere warm, book a hotel for the first few nights, and take it from there.
It can be done!!