Break out of the cage that you’re in, let your blood flow…

As far back as I can remember I’ve wanted to run away and join ‘the circus’.

As far back as I can remember I have loved to write songs.

As far back as I can remember I’ve loved to write stories.

I’m an adventurer, an epicurean, an artist. For most of my life I’ve been a musician, I’ve travelled around in a rusty old van with my friends, playing music. I love it. I feel like I’m breathing for the first time in a long time when the wheels start turning.

I have seen more of my home country than most people do, and I have toured Germany and America with my band, Obsessive Compulsive, but at some point in the past few years I feel like I have fallen into a routine.  My gypsy heart has been satisfied with the life of a part time touring musician until now. I will always continue to tour and make music, but I need more.

Around the time that I identified my rut and burgeoning wanderlust, I began to save money. I was a waitress and occasional prep chef at the time, saving my tips in an oversized JD bottle, shaking them into the coin counter at the bank every 6 months or so. Working as many extra hours as possible. I talked with my boyfriend and lifelong partner in crime Giz, and he was feeling the same. We didn’t have a plan, we just started saving. We cut back, we stopped buying each other birthday and Xmas gifts, we stayed in our tiny flat and saved, and saved and saved. We worked our arses off. I took my CELTA and became an English teacher, something I can travel with, and continued to work and work. We carried on saving.

While we were saving, I started to research. I devoured blog entries by the likes of Nomadic Matt, Adventurous Kate and Wandering Earl and learned that our dreams of low budget long-term travel could actually become a reality. It dawned on me that people DO THIS! It’s possible! It’s scary and challenging and no matter how much I read I feel like I still don’t know what I’m doing but I think it’s possible.

So now we’re here. We’ve saved what we decided we would need to do the basic trip.  We have friends and family in various places around the world and we’re going to try and join the dots for a RTW trip.  We have skills and means of earning a bit of money as we go and we are signed up to the various work exchange and housesitting websites which we hope will help to elongate our journey. In fact our first part of the trip is a ten day house sit in France.

Our basic budget is £20 (approx $30) per day each to include food and accommodation. We will spend a lot less than this in certain parts of the world, India/Asia, and a lot more in some of the big cities we plan to visit like Rome and Venice. But we’re using this budget as a rough guide, to keep us in check. We have a seperate budget allocation for flights/trains/cars etc. and a little emergency pot for fun things we don’t want to miss out on. We plan to go for 6 months minimum, but for as long as possible.

We’ve quit our jobs, given up our flat and packed all our stuff into boxes to be stored. We have a dream and a rough idea of where we want to go but we’re kinda winging it. I will be posting a couple more blogs before we leave, and as much as possible on the road. I hope you’ll join us and keep in touch.