[scraft]

My partner and I took a year out for all of 2018 and travelled for 365 days, aged 34. We went to 21 countries during that time, the route:

UK India Hong Kong Vietnam Cambodia Laos Thailand Russia Mongolia China Tibet Japan Malaysia Indonesia Australia New Zealand Fiji Hawaii North America Chile Bolivia Peru Colombia Brazil

We saw many wonders of the world (from various lists) including Taj Mahal, Angkor Wot, Great Barrier Reef, Machu Picchu and Christ the Redeemer.

We drove coast to coast in the US (LA to New York via the South) over a month.

We took the Trans-Siberian Express train across Russia to Beijing (St Petersburg, Moscow, Kazaan, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, Lake Baikal, Ulaanbaatar, deeper into Mongolia and stayed in a Gerr and Beijing).

We also looped around China by train including going to Tibet via Xinning. Tibet is like nowhere else we have been in the world.

We spent a couple of weeks driving around New Zealand South Island in a campervan.

We did the classic backpacker route around South East Asia, traveling overnight on sleeper buses, visiting the tourist destinations, site seeing, going on a booze cruise party island in the middle of a site of natural beauty (Castaways), visiting temples, full moon party. All in all a bit of everything. We were at the absolute age limit of some activities and accomodation, where although they were willing to show some flexibility, you wouldn't want to be much older as the majority of people were about 20. At times we felt old and past it, but we were happy we went ahead and did it.

Whilst a lot of the trip we just planned and booked ourselves, small parts, like Australia, we went on an organised trip. It wasn't one where we follow a tour leader, instead we were given vouchers for accomodation and activities and transport that went from Cairns down to Melbourne and followed it ourselves. It included dolphin feeding, scuba diving at the great barrier reef, driving around Fraser Island on 4x4s and staying a couple of nights, going on a boat tour of the Whitsundays and seeing White Haven beach with the softest sand I have experienced.

We could have done a fraction of the amount of stuff we did, and seen more or each place. We could have recouperated more rather than end up exhausted. But it was one hell of a trip.

I worried about finding work when it was over, but had several job offers before I returned so that turned out to be a false worry!

[artemonster]

How do you plan such things and how do you keep your safety? I always wonder how many people get mugged or even dead during such trips?

[scraft]

It took a while to plan, not just the trip stuff but finishing a job, packing up a house, signing cars off the road, cancelling bills etc.

We got a round the world flight ticket, we had to commit to the first six month flight times then half way through commit to the rest. It was possible to change for a fee. But we found the flights gave us a schedule to work around.

Some parts we planned extensively (you can't go to Tibet without being on a tour the whole time you are there, Machu Picchu books up months in advance, etc) other parts (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand) there is somewhat of an established back packer route you can follow and just make sure you get through in time for the next flight.

By far the least safe place was South America, we met many travellers there who had been mugged, beaten up, etc. It was our last destination and we were not very adventurous as we were tired and also just wanted to get to the end without an incident.

Other than that, we generally felt safe, there were one off isolated incidents (drunk Russian man on train trying to make advances on my partner when he thought I was asleep) which were uncomfortable, or going to a train station in Jaipur at 3 in the morning and waiting for a train, with lots of people loitering around and bothering us, and no real security or staff to reassure us, but these were exceptions rather than the norm.

We typically went to places which had a reasonable number of travellers, so it didn't feel too crazy in that sense.

[vitorbaptistaa]

Although you have to be careful in some places, the world is scarier on TV that in real life.

[icy]

How were you able to fund this? Sure sounds expensive -- can you share a rough estimate of how much it cost you?

[scraft]

Budgeted £42k ended up costing £60k for us both. I know some people which did it for a lot less (like half) but we didn't want to miss out on various things as we went.

We stayed in a lot of hostels, along with some guest houses, Airbnbs, hotels but the majority of the time it was something in the cheaper end of the spectrum.

We initially budgeted £10 food, £5 drink and £5 activities per day, and kept quite a lot of records at time, but ultimately we just ended up feeling "it is what it is". We made the active decision to just make the most of the trip and overspend. For a reasonable number of days we could average out towards our budget but we found fairly regularly there were bigger expenses for activities which would blow the budget and we neither wanted to miss them or do nothing for the next fortnight! Once you have committed so much, it sort of feels like it is better to commit a bit more and make it awesome (£60k spent on awesome seemed better than £42k spent on okay).

Before leaving I ran a couple of companies, one which employed 12 people and another which was contractor based. I wasn't wealthy (at least not by the standards set in the UK if you speak to a financial advisor) and £60k was a large amount of money for me to spend (a very large amount). But all things going well with life, you earn it, you spend it, we decided we wanted to do some of that spending earlier in life whilst we could enjoy it.

Since then... I have had heart ops, a blood clot on the lung, my partner has developed ME/chronic fatigue syndrome... COVID19 has engulfed the world. Needless to say we are glad, thankful and lucky we did what we did when we did!