We are quitting our jobs and taking the kids on a multi-year Round-the-World trip! I have never said this and not gotten at least 5 follow up questions. These are the most common ones.

Why are you doing this?
Lots of people have dreams about traveling, seeing the world or they dream about something else. They plan on making those dreams a reality after they retire, or after the kids go to college, or after… We want to be able to do these things while we are in shape and can do the things that we really want to do. We don’t want to wait. Life is unpredictable and anything can happen. We want to make it count and experience it now!

When are you leaving?
March 2017.

What about the kids?
We are really excited to travel with them and show them the world. As working parents, we are especially excited to spend a lot more time with our kids and with each other.

What about your jobs?
We will have to take a leave of absence or quit our jobs to take this adventure. We both love our jobs and where we work. We really hope to come back to the same companies after our trip. If that isn’t possible, as Software Engineers we are very employable and will find new jobs when we get back.

That is a long way off. Why are you talking about it now?
The boys will be 9 and 12 in 2017. We think that is old enough to appreciate a trip like this, but not so old they that they will be too “cool” to hang out with us. A bonus is that they will be both independent readers by that time. I’m hoping that the challenge of educating / entertaining kids on the road will be easier once they are good readers. Also, it takes a while to save up for a trip like this and this should be enough time for us to save up for it.

How long are you going for?
Based on the places we want to go and things we want to do and our “hard” deadline of being back for Quinn to start high school (Aug 2019), we should be gone for a little less than 2.5 years.

What about school for the kids?
We are going to be road-schooling them. Hopefully, the trip will be an education all by itself, but formal education is important too. We want to keep them up to speed with there peer groups in reading, writing, math, science, and history. Keep following the blog for more detailed plans on how we are going to do this.

How are you traveling?
We will travel by the most convenient and cheapest methods available to us at the time. We will likely fly for the biggest journeys and drive a car, take a train, bus or boat for the shorter journeys. There isn’t a master plan to do the entire trip overland or all on a boat.

Where are you staying?
We will probably stay at a lot of vacation rentals (think Airbnb or VRBO) in many places. The advantage of a rental will let us cook our own meals and save a bit more money. In Asia, small hotels will likely be cheaper and since food costs are lower there, the need for a kitchen will be lessened. We are hoping to rent an RV in New Zealand and have that be our home and transportation while we are there.

What are you doing with your house?
We will rent it to another family while we are gone. We hope this will offset some of the cost of the trip and the upkeep of the house.

Where are you most looking forward to visiting?
For Nicole: England (to see my family), Italy, Cyprus (to see our friends), Bali, and New Zealand
For Keith: Japan, Bali, Australia (Keith’s parents may come at visit us here), and learning Spanish in South America
For Quinn: Australia, Africa Safari, London, and Greece
For Patrick: Egypt, Italy, and China

What are you going to do with all your stuff?
Sell it, give it away, or pack it and store it. Many of our belongings will be sold or given away. We don’t want to pay to store very much. If it isn’t sentimental or required for when we get back, we will be getting rid of it. We’d like to pack everything into a smaller storage location if possible

How can you afford to do this?
We have been blessed to have very good jobs. We have been careful with our money and saved a lot for this trip. Since we have been thinking / planning it for almost 10 years, this has given us a lot of time to save for it. We will do a separate blog post on money and how much we think it will cost for us to do travel. We’ll keep track on a monthly basis of what it is actually costing us and publish it.

Are you crazy?
Maybe.  Most people don’t ask this question outright, but you can tell they are thinking it. Some people seem to be envious and wish they were taking this trip with us.

Contact Us

We're not around right now. But you can send us an email and we'll get back to you, asap.

Not readable? Change text. captcha txt