The Year Before We Left To Travel Full Time

• Securing sabbaticals from work
• Renting the house out
• Selling our beloved camper van

Those three things sat in the back of our minds constantly for months.

Because without those falling into place, none of this was happening.

The Months Of Saving & Overtime

The biggest thing for us was simply earning and saving as much money as possible.

We didn’t suddenly become financial experts overnight. We just worked. Constantly.

Any overtime we could get, we took it.

There were months where life felt like: work, sleep, repeat.

At the same time, we were decluttering the house and trying to sell as much as we possibly could because we didn’t want to pay for storage while we were away.

Some of our winter weekends were spent freezing cold in the loft boarding it out ourselves so we could store the things we wanted to keep.

I still remember standing up there in January, absolutely freezing, surrounded by boxes thinking: “What are we actually doing?”

But every little thing we got done made the idea feel slightly more real.

March 2025: Booking Bangkok

Oddly, booking flights wasn’t the emotional moment we expected.

We had Morocco booked already and were coming home afterwards, so that still felt like a normal trip.

Bangkok was different.

When we booked those flights in March 2025, that was the first real: “shit… this is actually happening” moment.

Because Bangkok wasn’t a holiday.

Bangkok was the start.

That was the point where everything shifted mentally from “idea” to reality.

Selling The Van

Out of everything we had to do before leaving, selling the camper van was probably the hardest emotionally.

We bought that van for memories. For adventures. For Jax.

We genuinely never planned to sell it.

It felt like part of our family life and part of our future, so letting it go was incredibly hard. There were definitely tears involved with that one.

But we knew realistically we couldn’t keep it while travelling long-term.

Sometimes preparing for a new chapter means letting go of something you really love, even when it hurts.

The Things We Still Worry About

One thing I never want to do is pretend we have everything figured out now we travel full-time, because we absolutely don’t.

There are still things we think about all the time.

The biggest one is education.

Jax is actually learning really well through travel, but like most kids, he’s also perfectly happy sometimes doing absolutely anything except the thing he’s supposed to be doing.

And honestly? That little voice still creeps into our heads occasionally asking: “Are we doing enough?” “Is he falling behind?”

But then we look at the experiences he’s having, the conversations we have together daily, the things he’s learning naturally from the world around him, and we remind ourselves there’s value in that too.

We also sometimes think about the fact he’s an only child.

Would this journey be different if he had siblings with him?

Maybe.

But then we meet families travelling with multiple children who are exhausted, overwhelmed and constantly arguing, and we realise every family setup comes with positives and challenges and having a sibling to share these wonderful memories would be so beautiful but the money is what made us choose one and that's ours to deal with.

At the end of the day, Jax is genuinely happy, confident and thriving in his own way.

And that matters most to us.

The Final Month Was Complete Chaos

I think people imagine the lead-up to long-term travel looking really organised and exciting.

Ours absolutely did not.

The final month was chaos.

Oli’s mum was moving to Scotland. The tenants wanted access to the house earlier than planned. We moved out sooner than expected.

We spent one week living at my mum’s house and another week staying at Oli’s friend’s house before our flight just so we weren't paying to live and work in an extortionate Premier Inn somewhere.

By that point we had no car, barely any routine and were still working every day while trying to prepare mentally to leave our entire normal life behind.

Jax was already off school while we were both still going to work.

It was such a strange feeling because we’d mentally left already, but physically we were still stuck in between everything.

We couldn’t really settle anywhere because we knew we were about to leave.

We were just… waiting.

Saying Goodbye

Saying goodbye was emotional, of course it was.

I know my mum found it difficult. Oli’s mum misses Jax massively because she saw him every single day before we left.

And lots of people questioned how travelling full-time with a child would work. Especially when it came to schooling.

But weirdly, it never really felt like a huge dramatic goodbye to us.

We knew we’d see everyone again.

More than anything, we just felt excited.

Excited to finally experience the thing we’d spent almost a year working towards.

The Best Thing We’ve Ever Done

The second we stepped onto that plane, we knew we’d made the right decision.

And honestly, it has been the best thing we’ve ever done.

Not because life suddenly became perfect.

Not because travel fixes everything.

But because the constant stress disappeared.

The difference in both of us is huge.

We laugh more. We talk more. We spend actual time together instead of constantly rushing through life trying to keep up with everything.

Even if we spend a day doing absolutely nothing special, it still feels good because we’re together and present in a way we probably hadn’t been for years beforehand.

There’s no pressure anymore to chase some version of a “perfect life” that never actually felt right for us anyway.

And for our family, that change alone made every difficult moment before leaving completely worth it.