After all the planning, all the saving, all the frantic preparations – Cath and I are finally departing for our year of travelling the world.
Four continents, thirteen countries, innumerable bouts of diarrhoea all begins now with a short drive to Heathrow Airport and a final farewell to our families.
The last few weeks have been fairly hectic. In the 14 days preceding our departure we have; both quit our jobs, moved out of our rented home, given 80% of our worldly possessions to charity, poured everything we have left into two rucksacks, had six leaving do’s, said goodbye to countless friends and loved-ones, drunk 10,000 alcoholic beverages, spent 72 hours repeatedly checking the whereabouts of our passports and had zero restful nights sleep… and that was the calm before the storm.
For so long it felt as though this was some distant event, barely visible on the horizon, certainly nothing to worry about, I mean it was forever away. But every time we turned our backs, it crept a little closer. Every time we made some tiny step towards readying for it, it got a little more real and before we knew it here we were – no home, no jobs and no idea how this all happened.
Our families have helped immeasurably in getting us to this point. They’ve encouraged us when others might have tried to swing us round to a more conventional or “sensible” way to spend 18 months worth of savings. Instead of that, we’re off to chase our dreams – something that I believe, if possible, everyone should have the opportunity to do.
So a big thanks to you, Reilly’s and McCartney’s, without you we wouldn’t be here… wherever the fuck that is…
So all that remains is for us to get going, first stop Budapest on a five week tour of Europe that is sure to be fine preparation for the 11 months of continent-hopping that’s to follow.
Thanks for reading and we hope that you’ll follow us and our adventures here on the blog.
