I’m a traveller, a dedicated globe trotter and wanderluster, but something weird has happened lately. I’m loving just being at home. It’s hard to fathom but it’s almost like, most options have been removed so I’m not constantly pondering where to go next. I know I’m stuck here, as most of us will be this …
Planning a family gap year, where to go, destinations, costs, ideas, itinerary, saving for travel, budgets, and our experiences of being on a family gap year. We sold everything to travel the world with kids then aged 6 and 8. Through choice we would never have gone home. We have a wealth of information to …
A favourite part of any trip to Thailand, the Bangkok to Chiang Mai journey, is to be enjoyed not endured. Chiang Mai is a fantastic destination, it is cheap, relaxed, and very different from Bangkok. We highly recommend a trip to this part of northern Thailand and exploring further into the mountains if possible. There …
This is the question I’m asked most in our Facebook group – Living Differently. Do I need onward flight tickets, a return flight ticket, or other proof of onward travel, to fly into Thailand. It’s not always Thailand, sometimes it’s Bali, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, but we’ll address Thailand in this post. First I’d like to …
Yes, it happened, the day we never anticipated. After 5 and a half years of full time travel we met our first major booking related problem. We turned up to board our flight to be told that no, actually, we weren’t getting on their plane today. Our tickets didn’t exist, our flights had been cancelled …
Why do people travel? People travel for many reasons and love travel for different reasons too. Some people don’t enjoy travel, but they still have to travel for many reasons. Reasons can involve work, family, health or medical treatment, social or economic needs. People who love to travel enjoy relaxation, new cultures, foreign food or …
A reader asked me to write a Thailand itinerary for her 3 week vacation, I think it’s best to start with 2 weeks, because that’s how long most holiday makers have, and add on some optional extras as trip time allows. A Thailand itinerary is something unique to each person, one man’s dream tour is …
This week we’re touring northern Thailand by car, it’s amazing, fascinating and fun with the added bonus of being incredibly cheap. This part of the world is pretty affordable anyway and for a family of 4, hiring a car beats bus prices hands down, but what’s made our holiday within a holiday super cheap is …
This is how we renewed a UK passport in Bangkok. British passport renewal in Thailand. Our younger son’s UK passport was down to less than 6 months and we had absolutely no desire to head back to the UK to get it renewed. We were in Vietnam and about to travel to Malaysia so it …
Travel can be one of the most important and incredible things you can do in your lifetime, opening you up to amazing new experiences, teaching you more about the world and its people while giving you a chance to enjoy freedom and exploration. Of course, it also means time when you are not working in …
We’ve been travelling and taking tours full-time for over 5 years now and more and more we’re using GetYourGuide to reliably get us to the places we want to go, on the day that fits with our schedule. We’re savvy travellers and we like a bargain, so why, and when, do we use GetYourGuide to …
A reader asked me to post about our European road trip costs, so we collected the data, saved every receipt and collected all the information you need on driving around Europe for almost 2 weeks into this post. We have petrol ( diesel) costs for all of the European countries we visited, road toll charges, …
Hi there, so you’re as crazy as us! Great to meet you. You’re thinking of selling everything you own and setting off to travel the world or just moving abroad for fun. We did just that. We were that family that sells everything to travel. We didn’t sell everything but we sold a lot, and …
Travelling and vacations are always exciting and fun thing to do. What’s not that exciting, is having to prepare and pack all your stuff along with making pre-travel arrangements. Squeezing everything in a limited amount of time plus squeezing everything into your carry on luggage, backpack or suitcase can be pretty stressful and anxiety inducing. …
You want to know how to travel the world, right? We’ve done it, so can you. It could be a 2-week vacation to an exotic, far-away place that just puts you a little outside your comfort zone, or you could be wanting to travel for a year, maybe more, as a family, as a single …
Thailand is one of the more tricky countries for travellers to handle their travel money at minimum cost. We normally tell our readers just to get money out at ATM s or cash points, but in Thailand, that costs a lot. Just withdrawing cash from an ATM in Thailand can cost you half a day’s budget, …
Finding accommodation as you travel ( budget to free being hardest) is a huge topic and one that is mentioned all over this website, but you, and I, need one post to put everything on the same page. Finding a place to stay, be it a hotel, guest house, hostel, apartment, caravan, mud hut or …
I’m famous for saying that AirBnb is useless for families and we never use it. If you’re not on Facebook you may not know that, so I’m putting it out there via the blog today because I’ve (possibly) changed my mind. After 3+ years of full-time travel I’m sitting in a glorious light-filled apartment in …
I’m going to say what I really feel (surprised, right?) and that is, long-term family house sitting as part of family travel, isn’t for us. Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s not for you, plenty of families house sit with kids, find good house sits, and enjoy house sitting with kids. But for us, as …
If you’ve been following us right from the start, you’ll know that I always said I’d never travel with carry on only. I even wrote a post about why we’d never travel light. We just had too much stuff as long-term travellers and the children were too small for their own, decent-sized, packs. Well, that …
This post is about the planning stage of travel. How we do it and how you could do it. How to put together a big trip, be it a month, three months, a year or an RTW ( Round the World Trip). Some tricks and tips to put together a trip and arrange flights, accommodation, …
It’s true. We are great at budget travel – without a budget. People ask about our travel budget, what it is and how we afford to travel as often and as long as we do. It still surprises me that anyone should care about our finances, but I guess that’s the world we’re in because …
London is expensive and if you prefer to spend your cash on the incredible experiences the city has to offer, rather than on a place to sleep, you’ll be looking for a great deal on cheap or budget family accommodation in London. This could be hotels, hostels, apartments, B&Bs or other family accommodation. Budget and …
Of all the tools we used for finding bargains in the travel world, Skyscanner was number 1, until the day we found ourselves at the check-in desk with non-existent tickets. That update and scam warning is further down the page. Our tips on how to save money on flights with Skyscanner still stand and are …
As most of you will probably know, we’ve signed a contract to rent a small flat in a stunning London location for the next 10 months. We need time to stop, regroup, refinance and generally get our lives in order while enjoying our favourite western city. We are in London, we’re loving it and life …
What to Look for in a Hotel for Your Family Holiday Choosing a hotel for your family holiday is a very individual decision, what we look for is probably the exact opposite of half the global travelling market. Location and Facilities Some families prefer hotels with child-friendly clubs, activities and surrounds, so parents and kids …
There are ways to save money on travel that are great, a good idea, the best ways. But trying to save money and travel on a tight budget isn’t so good sometimes. Best ways to save money on travel, and when not to cut travel costs. We’ve just completed one year of family travel on …
We’ve been “Living the Dream” for 2 years now. We’ve been travelling full-time, seeing the world and spending most of our time together as a family while hardly working, other than on the blogs. Before we set off on this journey we weren’t rich, we were a very normal family struggling to make ends meet …
Kuala Lumpur is a wonderful city, in one moment ultra slick and modern, the next ancient, traditional and cultured. Its a city everybody should experience at least once, and a city that many of us these days visit because of the great connections Air Asia offer. Prices seem low at the moment, they’re lower than …
I’m having a bad day. We have 3 countries coming up in the next two months, we’ll be moving around a lot and I have the job of finding budget family accommodation in a dozen or so towns. That is the hardest part of family travel. It’s frustrating, time consuming and a pain in the …