Tom and I want different things. At least, that’s how our stories currently play out. And it’s fine; relationships are built on compromise and negotiation.
Tom loves his job, and he also appreciates the security and stability it brings to our current lives, and to the future. This is all the more important to him now we have a son.
I am hugely grateful for this, but I also crave freedom and flexibility. Over the past 15 years, since our last big trip, I have veered wildly from being content to stay put to being desperate to leave. More recently, changing cities has helped, but the drive to explore more widely is still there.
Up until now, I have been convinced and re-convinced, regularly, by Tom’s position. It’s the conventional path, after all. Travel is all very well when you’re young and carefree, but we can’t afford it now, and why would anyone leave a secure job for an unknown future?
A few things have changed for me though. First and foremost, I am utterly convinced, and believe wholeheartedly, that travel provides THE best education. It certainly did for me, as a 23 year old, changing my perspective, opening my eyes and forcing me to question so many things. It is not all about excitement and relaxation, it’s hard work, particularly the kind of shoe-string backpacking that we undertook.
Getting to grips with new cultural nuances, languages, currencies, food, finding out about the history of each new place, crossing borders, meeting people from every walk of life. It can be tiring, daunting but incredibly rewarding and character building. It is constant, mind-bending learning, made all the more stark through lived experience, not dictated or read from a book. It’s what I want for my son.
Tom agrees, but thinks it’s more sensible to fit travel into an extended period of annual leave, say eight to ten weeks, straddling two financial years. This idea has been on the cards for the last couple of years. And now the mortgage is paid, we can save up for this once in a lifetime trip, buy a round the world ticket, have a few weeks in Cambodia, Vietnam, maybe a week visiting relatives in Australia, and a couple of weeks in New Zealand, before high-tailing it home to return to normality.
I’ve priced it up. We need around 3-4000 GBP. Living frugally, we could save it; we could go. And yes, it would be fun. We could fly long-haul, pre-book our accommodation, plan our route and our stop-offs, make sure we did everything we wanted to do and got back in good time. Tom’s job would be there to return to and life would go on. We could continue to save for our future, take holidays in Wales, occasional trips to Italy, maybe Madeira to escape the snow in January. It would be a good life, but I know deep down it wouldn’t be the best one.
That involves a risk. A risk that we leave a steady income for an uncertain one. A risk that we struggle to find accommodation, we get lost, we lose our passports, we run out of money, we get sick, we burn out. A risk that we travel for six months and then need, or want, to come home. A risk that we FAIL.
Another thing that has changed for me recently though, is the availability of information on others, out there, living an independent travel life. There are bloggers and vloggers, cost of living statistics and comparison guides, how-to sites, airbnbs, housesitting and couchsurfing opportunities. So it has become more of a calculated risk.
A further change for me, is my personal conviction. After many years of doubt I have begun, once again, to see myself as a writer. I have always enjoyed writing. In childhood, stories and poems, in adolescence, diaries and songs, and in professional life, as a reporter and feature writer. I have always loved language, reading dictionaries at my grandparents’ house during the school holidays. Now, I want to write again, I am growing in confidence, the passion is returning. So, it is time for me to do the convincing.
What do you think? Would you leave your job to travel or are stability and financial security more important? Comment below or join us on Facebook and leave your thoughts.
*See the comments below for clarification of my position regarding air travel.
I have enjoyed reading your blog, it is interesting and thought provoking. It appears to me however that, were you to follow your wanderlust dreams as outlined above, you would be clocking up the air miles and thereby contributing to the polluting of the planet that you want to protect. Given that we live in a beautiful country with its own mountain ranges, coastal scenery and forested areas; given that we are lucky to live in a multicultural society where children can interact with and make friends with others from varying backgrounds, cultures and religions, I would suggest that staying put would be more in keeping with your ‘planet protection’ values. Also it is more in keeping with the notion of a simple, frugal life – contributing to lining the pockets of airline execs doesn’t exactly scream minimalism and conservation to me. All of the simple pleasures in life are available close to home.
Thank you for your considered comment, and I couldn’t agree with you more, Sarah, truly.
I think that the UK is a wonderful place to live and bring up children. We spend many happy days in the Derbyshire Peak District, on trips to the Yorkshire Dales, the coast, Snowdonia, and have plans to visit Scotland in the near future. We also love living in multi-cultural, multi-ethnic Sheffield and taking trips to other cities, such as London and York.
I also fully agree that air travel is one of the worst things we can do to harm the planet (although, arguably, so is having children) and it is currently a hot topic of discussion in our household (I plan to write about this shortly). We have taken a number of short haul flights in recent years, usually to visit family members within the time constraints of annual leave. However, my wanderlust is not fully satisfied by short trips to Europe or walks in the countryside (both of which I do love).
I am passionate about travel and its potential to provide an unrivalled education for both children and adults when done thoughtfully and immersively. I therefore advocate slow travel, either in a van or some other camping set-up, or using public transport.
When Tom and I travelled in our early 20s, we bought STA round the world tickets, permitting 26,000 air miles. We took eight flights connected by large sections of overlanding on buses and trains. I regret the tickets now, but we were young and inexperienced travellers looking for reassurance from travel professionals. I now know that overland (and often sea) travel is incredibly easy and affordable in many places and offers a much richer experience than flying. I also know that the round the world tickets dictated and dominated our travel schedule. At a time in our lives when we had plenty of time and few responsibilities back home, we could have travelled much more slowly and mindfully had we not been constrained by our flights.
When I state that our life would not be the ‘best version’ if we fitted long haul (air) travel into a two month trip I am implicitly referring to this necessity to fly rather than travel overland; to have to rush and only gain a superficial understanding of a place; to pay an airline a small fortune to contribute to toxic air pollution on our behalf.
Ideally, I would spend six months in every country from place A to place B, soaking up everything the culture, the people, the history, the natural environment had to offer.
Thanks again for giving me the opportunity to clarify this.
Thank you, modes of travel are one of the things I worry about/feel guilty for as we have our own van for uk trips which is a source of pollution in itself. Trying to live responsibly and simplistically is a real challenge when also trying to educate children and exercise them in natural settings! I’m sure you will appreciate what I mean. Thanks and keep up the blog which I will continue to follow with interest.