Welcome to blog number 1!
So what’s this blog all about? Basically, it’s purpose is to keep a record of our year long, round the world trip that begins in July 2019. I think this will be amazing to look back on in years to come, especially for our (currently) young children.
It’s also a good way for our friends and family to keep track of where we are, and what we’re up to each week. Finally, I think it may be of interest and helpful for other families looking to do the same, or for other people interested in specific places.
Why are we doing this?
A couple of years ago we had this silly idea that it would be great to spend a whole year travelling and circumnavigating the globe. As well as being a great adventure for Pavla (my wife) and I (Hello, I’m Richard!) we thought it would be amazing experience and education for our children (James who’s currently age 9, and Sophie who is 7).
After speaking to friends who are full time digital nomads about our initial plans of staying in 12 different places (1 per month) they all advised us otherwise. The opinion seemed to be that to get the most out of this type of trip, you need to stay at least 2 months in a place to really get to know it. Any shorter and you’ll feel too much like a tourist and/or holidaymaker. We didn’t want it to be like that and wanted to live as much like locals as we could. So after much deliberation and mind changing, we finally narrowed it down to 6 different places.
The 6 places we’ve chosen to live in over the next year are as follows:
1. Breclav/Chudcice, Czech Republic (as we already have friends/family there this will ease us into it!).
2. Ubud, Bali, Indonesia.
3. Ao Nang, Thailand.
4. Wellington, New Zealand.
5. Lima, Peru, South America.
6. San Diego, California, USA.
The Preparation
Initially, we had to do quite a bit of research, mainly online, but also by speaking to people we know you also travel. The main things we had to think about were as follows:
1. Health/Jabs.
Thankfully these days there is a lot of information online about the jabs you need for different countries. We had these done at our local Doctor and was really only a couple of jabs (one in each arm) that covered everything we needed.
2. Schooling and Timing.
This was a major factor in this whole process. We didn’t want to risk messing up the children’s education so there was only really a short window to do this year long trip. We didn’t want them to be too young so that they’d not remember it in later life, or be too old and be into more serious education with exams and/or moving schools. The reality is that to do exactly that, at their current ages this was the perfect time to do it.
As for their schooling while we’re away, then Pavla will be homeschooling the children. Their UK primary school have been very supportive and we’ll be continuing to follow the curriculum they’d have been doing there for the whole year. As there are only 2 of them, we’re hoping that we’ll be able to do the equivalent of a full school day in a much shorter time each day, so we can then explore and enjoy the places we are living.
3. Work.
This is where our timing wasn’t great. Unfortunately, earlier this year the software development company I had run for the last 10 years (and spent the last couple of years setting up so I could work remotely from anywhere, that Pavla also worked for) went into liquidation. After a few weeks making sure that everyone involved in that company (employees, suppliers etc) were looked after as best they could be, I took a few more weeks of recovery before starting a small marketing company. Because this was starting from scratch, it was designed from day 1 so that I could work remotely.
Our Last Month in The UK
This was a fairly stressful experience to be honest. Much more so that I’d expected! Rather than putting everything we owned into storage we decided to pretty much sell everything we own. That was a fairly cathartic experience actually and really fitted with the minimalist approach that I’d been taking over the last couple of years anyway.
We also wanted to only take the smallest amount of luggage with us and travel light. Thankfully, because of the way we’d planned the route and locations, it will be summer for the whole year so we only really had to take summer clothes (a few t-shirts and shorts etc) which helped.
And We’re Off!
So on the 26th July 2019, a good friend dropped us off at Leeds Bradford Airport, and we left the UK for the Czech Republic…
Leave a Reply