What planning did you do for your trip? How could you leave your home, your family and your friends? What about your dog and the cat? Isn't it dangerous? Aren't you afraid? What will you do for money? What about your pension? What if you get ill? The doubters, scaremongers as well as friends and family who were simply concerned, bombarded us with these and many other questions. Not that we hadn't asked ourselves the same questions, but when someone else keeps asking it seems to be more pressured somehow.
'Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'said Alice to the Cheshire Puss.
'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.
I don't much care where....' said Alice.
Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.
.....so long as I get somewhere,' Alice added as an explanation.
Oh, you're sure to do that...' said the Cat, '...if you only walk long enough.'
(Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Caroll)
Some might argue that the best form of travel should have no planning. Go where the
fancy takes you. No route or direction. No regard for security, safety
or good health.
Karen and I have both sat quietly giggling away, reading "A Narrow Dog
to Carcasonne" by Terry Darlington and his second book "A Narrow Dog to
Indian River". On his narrow boat tours with their whippet dog Jim,
Terry portrays himself as an "artiste", a poet with little in the way of
practical skills and leaves the planning to his wife Monica. He says
that a trip cannot develop into an adventure if it is too well planned.
In one way he is right, but in truth they spent a long time planning and
researching both of their trips beforehand. We share a similar view. We
hate to commit ourselves too strongly to a specific route or
destination. We are spontaneous, often doing things last minute, but
equally we enjoy planning routes, pouring over maps and reading about
places to see and wild country to visit.
We were also planning for a number of years before we jumped out of the
comfort of our cosy jobs and home. The amount of planning you do can
make the difference between an enjoyable trip and a disaster.. At one end of the scale a trip could be foolhardy,
dangerous and all risk. At the other end of the scale a trip planned in
every minute detail can be too predictable, safe and ...well, quite
simply unchallenging. Our two eldest sons have both done "the gap year"
and both warned us not to plan to rigidly and to be ready to change our
plans as we travel.
Terry Darlington writes "On an adventure, much of the time you feel
rather as you would do at home, perhaps a bit happier at times a bit
more bored at others. But sometimes you are scared - jolted and empty
and cold and tasting metal in your mouth. It is not a nice feeling and
you don't forget it." And this is how we see adventure. This feeling is
like a drug. The more you get the more you want.
So think of planning as you would of climbing a rock face. Place some
good secure safety ropes, but leave plenty of room for maneuvering from
one hold to another. There are a number of things that need careful
consideration even if they do not require in depth planning. How much
consideration you give to these things will depend on your own attitude
towards them and to risk in general. The main thing is that you are
comfortable with the feelings and emotions that different levels of risk
create.
Perhaps a good place to start is to ask “why do I want to travel and
what do I expect to get out of it?” The answers to which will determine
how much planning you do. You will find, as we did, that you continue
to ask yourselves these questions throughout your travels as
circumstances change or when you simply need to reassure yourself.
We hadn't always harboured a desire to travel the World. When we were in
our twenties and fresh out of training, very few people took "gap
years". The term hadn't even been invented. Some students did VSO
(Voluntary Service Overseas) or went "grape picking" or such, but their
numbers were few and most people though it was a "bit weird". It was
taken for granted that you studied, qualified and went to work. It never
occurred to us " to go travelling". And then before you know it you're
married or following careers, renovating houses and settling into a
cosy village life. You live in a nice house and raise your kids. They go
to school and some to university. You give 'em a secure and loving
upbringing. You have good jobs, pay your taxes, pay into your pension
fund and try as best you can to build wealth. You buy lots of "stuff"
and climb the career ladder to earn more money to maintain the stuff and
to buy even more stuff. You buy the flat screen television, have two
cars and underfloor heating, walk in showers, golf clubs, mountain
bikes, running shoes and you continue buying more stuff to maintain the
stuff that you’ve already accumulated.
The trouble with climbing a hill of course is that whilst you are
climbing it you are focused on the top, working hard and developing.
Sometimes there are false summits and then you climb again. When you
reach the top do you reach a plateau, climb the next hill or slip down
the other side? And all along the way there are roots, rocks, ruts and
ledges designed to throw you off.
I guess in our case we decided that we had spent enough time climbing
and wanted to reap the rewards before we got too old or unfit to enjoy
it. Yes, we could have tried to get our bosses to agree to us taking a
sabbatical, but that didn’t really appeal to us. We felt we had both
reached a pinnacle in our careers and didn’t really want to embark on
climbing another hill. We wanted to see all the places we had read and
heard about.
It was Steve that suggested going travelling around the World. It was Karen that laid down the condition of doing it by bike.
We are not out to break the round the World cycle touring record a la
Mark Beaumont or cycle from London to Bejing within a year a la
Christopher Smith. Neither are we the archetypical road cyclists intent
on racking up as many miles in a day as possible. We are not the
intrepid explorers prepared to brave any environment rain, shine, frost,
snow or storm. On the converse we are not the Conde Naste traveler
staying in boutique hotels and travelling on luxury liners. We are just
ordinary fifty somethings looking for adventure.
To us what we are doing is ……all about the journey…. and this has become our motto. The journey means……
A huge hurdle - how do you feel about leaving a secure job, your home
where you may have lived for many years, your friends, pets and of
course your family?
There is no getting away from it and those who say otherwise are not
facing reality, to leave your family and friends you have to be selfish.
You have to block out those emotions that keep pulling you back. At
least on a day to day basis, you have to be able to put them out of your
mind. This is easier said than done and for some it is an impossibility
that they couldn't even consider, but hey, we didn't just pack it all
in and leave. We couldn't have. We had the same ties and emotional
issues that anyone else would have. The planning for our departure took
years and in the early years we were not really even conscious of it
being planning in the real sense of the word.
It was precipitated when Steve’s firm relocated its operations from
North Yorkshire to Sterling. Steve took the opportunity of a severance
package and left the company. After a couple of months he got a new job
as Sales Director of a Sheffield based company. Travelling daily to and
from North Yorkshire and monthly to the south coast coupled with the
pressures of the job took their toll and Steve decided to leave after 6
months. At this time he suffered a life threatening head injury, which
he fortunately recovered from quickly, but it did make us re-evaluate
our lives and what was important to us.
Steve had drunk his fill of the corporate world and needed to do
something different. He had an ambition to build our own house and
suggested that we sell the house where we had raised our children and
had lived for 20 years. We moved into a rented apartment whilst he
built the house. Not only would he achieve his ambition, but we would
hopefully pay off our mortgage. This was a big step for both of us, but
Karen also fancied the idea of building our own place. So it was
decided. 2 ½ years later we moved into our new house.
During this time Karen’s job also became difficult due to a disruptive
staff member and she became quite depressed by it. It only lasted about
two or three months, but the result was the love that she had held for
her job didn’t have the same luster anymore.
We were both getting itchy feet again. While he was building the house,
Steve had done some part time work for an ex boss and once the house
was complete this had helped him secure a job with an Aberdeen based oil
and gas services company. After a year or so Steve was promoted to
Sales Director and after a further year trying to do the job remotely we
decided that a move to Aberdeen was on the cards. Coupled with the
possibility of a managing director’s position for Steve, we took the
plunge and moved lock stock and barrel to Inverurie in Scotland. We
moved with next to no mortgage into a traditional lodge style bungalow
on 3 acres of landscaped gardens and trout pond. It would be a lot of
work for Karen who would give up her job and concentrate on the house
and Garden.
The result of this series of events is that we had, somewhat
subconsciously, gradually been severing the ties that held is to the UK
and our cosy, secure existence. We had sold the family home, we had
moved a long way from all of the friends and family that we held dear.
Our youngest son Joe, was starting at Liverpool university and Ben his
elder brother was buying a house in Liverpool that Joe and his friends
could rent from him. So as the last dependent one, he was getting closer
to becoming independent.
That doesn’t mean to say that Steve was not committed to his new job in
Aberdeen. There was a good possibility of promotion to managing
director and if he was successful we agreed to give it five years in
Scotland before going travelling. If not then we could leave earlier.
The move was good for us. It made us de-clutter and get rid of a lot of
stuff. We had always wanted to see more of Scotland and Inverurie is a
lovely market town with everything close at hand. We made the most of
our time there, cycling and walking around the area as well as
undertaking some longer tours of the Inner Hebrides and Outer Hebrides
(featured on Our Tours pages). We made some good friends. Karen got a
part time practice nurses job, which suited her and Steve really
enjoyed his work too.
However when the recession hit and Steve’s boss decided he needed to
stay on longer than he had planned, we had some decisions to make. We
realized that unless we set a date for our departure we may never go so
we decided that we would leave on 1st May 2009.
We put the house on the market in September 2008 and in November Steve
told his fellow directors of our plan. They were remarkably
understanding although a little shocked.
However, by May 1st we still did not have a buyer for the house. We
stuck with it and suddenly at the beginning of July 2009 we struck gold.
We then had to move fast. We both handed in our notice. Fortunately,
Steve only had to work 2 of his 6 month contractual notice period,
which meant that we would leave on 28th August 2009.
The next two months were manic. Fortunately Ben’s house purchase in
Liverpool was also going through and his completion date was planned to
be the same as our leaving date. We agreed a price with Ben for him to
buy a large part of our furniture and belongings from us with which to
furnish his new place. Most items would be packed and shipped to
Liverpool the day before we would leave.
This still left a lot of other things that he didn’t want. We set up
accounts with Ebay for general sales and Amazon for book sales. Every
day Steve would take items to work and pack them and ship them from his
office. We raised about £1500 from the sale of our goods. Things that
we couldn’t sell through Ebay or Amazon we took to car boot sales and
made a few more hundred pounds. We didn’t like this bit much. It was
disheartening that the things we felt had real value, people only wanted
to pay pennies for.
What we couldn’t sell was finally dropped off at various charity shops during the last few days of our departure.
We had to find new homes for Sam and Delilah. Joe said he would keep
Sam with him in Liverpool, but we had to advertise for someone to take
care of Delilah. Time drew on and still we had no takers for Delilah.
Delilah was old and failing. Few people want to take on an old cat. We
reached a point of making an appointment to have her put to sleep. The
day of the appointment and a friend at work said they would have her,
so she was reprieved at the 11th hour. Thanks Chris.
There are a number of specific areas of planning that warrant their own pages as follows:
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