Planning a year-long trip around the world? This is how we did it.

Not that we are necessarily the best example (follow our advice at your own risk…) but it’s worked for us so far, so here goes.

Here we are looking exhausted already before our first train from Liverpool to London. Though we were pretty proud of little luggage we had for a whole year away. Blurry photo taken with an iPhone.

I think a lot of us have dreams of quitting our jobs, jumping out of the proverbial hamster wheel and spending our time travelling around the world. At least I know I do. But that hamster wheel is usually a pretty comfortable place to be and it takes a lot of planning and preparation to be able to jump off, at least without being flung into the side of the cage. I promise to retire the hamster metaphor now. Anyway, it took us a while to get from the dreaming stage to actually booking our flights, so I thought I’d write down how we did it and what our key advice would be to anyone considering doing the same thing. Let’s get into it.

Here we are on the day we got they keys to our new house - goodbye travel savings...

We had initially planned to go travelling in 2021, but then as we all know, Lady Rona swept into our lives like a swarm of angry, disease-ridden locusts and all plans were indefinitely shelved. What followed was two and a half years (ish) of zooming, baking and, in Han’s case, mastering the art of sewing. Fortunately for us, me being able to work from home and Han’s role as a teacher meant we were able to save pretty consistently through that time and were lucky enough to buy our first house together in May 2022 – cue picture of us at our new front door looking very pleased with ourselves.

This did kind of throw our travel plans a bit up in the air though, as 1) we spent all our savings on the house and 2) we then had a mortgage that would need paying when we decided to travel. At this point we had to commit to a plan one way or the other, either we do minimal work on the house, start saving hard, and set a date to leave, or well… we don’t. Obviously, we picked the first option. But that would be my first bit of advice: commit to going and set a rough date, otherwise everything just gets pushed back again and again and before you know it, you’re trying to work out how to book your Zimmer frame and oxygen tank in with your cabin bag.

That also leads me to my second bit of advice. Let your work know as soon as you have a date you’re looking to leave. Han and I were lucky that both our employers were really understanding and were prepared to let us take a year away from our roles, but we know that that certainly won’t be the case for every workplace. Knowing you have a job (and a salary) to come back to makes a massive difference when planning your trip – you don’t want to get home flat-broke and spend three months searching for a new job while your credit card bill rises like Mary Berry’s banana bread (if you know you know).

So, by this point, we’re saving hard every month, we’ve told our bosses we’re leaving and we’re sketching out a rough plan of where we’re going to go and when. The only problem is… the mortgage. We’ve hit mid-July and we still have no idea how we’re going to let the house, which agent we’ll use (if any), what the rent will be, or how long the process is going to take. Enter my third piece of advice (homeowners only – renters will of course sail into the proverbial sunset without this admin maelstrom), get your house rented out ASAP and shop around for the best agent. Our first attempt to let our house was an unequivocal disaster. By which I mean, no one showed up to our open house, the online advert was full of mistakes, and ultimately, we had no potential tenants. Fortunately for us, our second attempt with a different agent (don’t be afraid to jettison your agent if you aren’t happy with their service, just make sure you check you won’t have any cancellation fees) was altogether different and we ended up with multiple offers to rent the house. Cue sigh of relief. We were also in even more of a rush as we were trying to get tenants in a month before we were due to leave, so that we could move in to my parents’ house and save an extra month’s mortgage payment (special thanks to Mum and Dad). Speaking of saving extra money, tip number four is there are always hidden costs! Between your agent’s fees, gas and electrical safety certificates, repairs (it’s always easier to fix any minor niggles before you leave than wait for your tenants to complain about them), insurance, and the inventory, you can easily spend thousands before you even set foot out the door (trust me, I speak from experience).

With the house rented out, I was working from my parents’ spare room while Han was already on school holidays and we were free to get booking flights, hotels and all that fun stuff. All credit to Han here for trawling Skyscanner and Booking.com to come up with a pretty awesome itinerary for our first few weeks. Our initial plan had been to fly straight to Australia as our first stop, but a little jiggery pokery with the dates and the airlines and Han realised we could fly west rather than east, and stop in San Francisco and Hawaii for three days each, all for the same price as a direct flight from London to Sydney. So last tip for this post: don’t book the first deal you see and be open to changing your route! We got to visit two incredible places on the way to our first proper destination, without spending any extra cash – win, win!

I think that pretty much sums up how we planned our trip. We definitely could have done some things sooner, which could have saved us a headache or two. But I think once you’re committed to going, you have to make it work one way or the other, so may as well plough ahead!

This is the first post on our blog so please comment and let us know what you think (unless you’re a troll or hated it, in which case, ignorance is bliss). Equally, if you have any questions on how we did anything, leave a comment or reach out to us on Instagram.

Signing off for now. Next stop San Francisco!

Connor