When Life Gives You Lemons...

Things were always bound to go wrong on this trip. I knew that. I had accepted that. But I thought the trip would at least be allowed to start before the proverbial crap hit the proverbial fan.

The WTF?

Neither of us particularly enjoy our 9-5 lives, in the same way you wouldn't particularly enjoy being burnt at the stake. But we were willing to carry on regardless for another 6 months in order to go on our planned year long trip.

But life unfortunately, had other ideas. Emma's company was brought and taken over by a larger company, creating a stressful and unclear future for her job role. With only months to go before our trip, there was not much point in her getting another job just to quit and short-term temping doesn't offer the regular and reliable salary you need when you're saving for a year away travelling. 

The What Now?

We were faced with two real options:

1) Roll up our sleeves, get extra jobs; even if it was waiting tables or on the tills at Tesco in order to scrimp and save our way through until March 2017

OR

2) Fuck it all and take the money we have saved now and head to South East Asia where it's so cheap to travel and leave as soon as we could possibly go.

THE DECISION

Fuck. IT. ALL.

This isn't THE trip that I have been dreaming off. But it is A trip I have dreamed of for a very long time. When we first started toying with the idea of backpacking ten months ago I really wanted above all else to visit South East Asia. It looks beautiful, it's cheap, but mainly because it all seems so utterly different from the suburban town I grew up in.

It was only when we started researching flights and routes that the round-the-world trip started to seem doable as apposed to this unclimbable mountain I had envisaged. But as I said, life happened.
A quick side note, when I told my parents that I would leaving for travelling in 7 weeks and not 7 months my mother cried and was very emotional about losing both Emma and I so soon to our trip. My dad meanwhile said:

"Oh okay, look at this two pound coin I found, It's about the Magna Carter"

1 over reacting parent + 1 under reacting parent = normality.

Ying and Yang kinda shit.

The Route

Now we are left with a bit of an odd route. Starting September 13th 2016 we will be flying to Singapore; we will then proceed to make our way up through Malaysia, into Thailand, then onto Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. This part of our trip will take us about 6 months.

It's a hell of a long time to travel one "Area" but it is for the most part really very cheap and now we can take things at our own pace and also South East Asia is still pretty god damn big.

After the 6 months in South East Asia we will then fly home in early March for a few days and then it's back on the plane to head for the USA where we follow the same route we had previously (Blog about our USA plan here).

From there it really is just wherever the wind may take us.

The Resulting Feelings

Mixed, I would say mixed. I mean if I had to try and capture what I am feeling right now into one word it would probably be:

"FFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKK"

We now have a little under 7 weeks to arrange everything, and by that I mean:

1. Visa(s)
2. Injections
3. First Aid kits
4. Leaving a job
5. Saying goodbye to friends and family
6. Deciding what to take
7. Getting travel insurance 
8. Getting a credit card
9. Buying Malaria tablets
10. Having a mental breakdown

In a weird sadistic way, I feel less stressed than before. Because I am going in 7 weeks regardless of if I am 100% ready or not, I don't have the exact day by day planned route I did originally, I don't know exactly where I am going or how I'll get around. I just know in 7 weeks time I am going to be travelling with my favorite person in the world... me Emma and that is as exciting as it gets.

So maybe I need to change my summary word, I think instead it should be:

"Succ-stress-ful"

I am doing something that is both a massive success but is also stressful as hell.               
                   

How to Save for a Round the World Trip

One of the first things people say to me when they find out I'm going travelling for a year is "shit, that must be expensive," or, "how can you afford not to work for a year?" So, I thought it would be a good idea to throw a little blog together giving some advice on how to save for a similar trip based on my experiences so far.

But first, let me clear a couple of things up:

1) Yes, it is fucking expensive.

2) I can afford to not work for a year because I've spend the majority of the last couple of years doing NAFF ALL and putting away about 75% of what I earn each month, just so I can one day go on a trip like this.

In short, saving this much money in a relatively short period of time (I'm considering one to two years a short period of time here btw) isn't a barrel of laughs. It will be shit. There will be times when you just think "fuck it" and nearly withdraw all of your savings and spunk them up the wall on new clothes and nights out in the same shit area you grew up in, but then you'll think WAIT, I'm no quitter and go back to sitting in watching Netflix on a Friday night with nothing but an oven pizza and some bargain bin alcohol to boost your spirits.

And that's just the start.

Still want to go on a round the world trip?

Okay, great. I'll continue.

How much do I need to save?

Like with a lot of things in life, travel can be as cheap or expensive as you want it to be (or as is more often the case, as cheap or expensive as you can literally afford. I've never seen a millionaire in any of the hostels I've stayed at, just sayin'). 

In all of the magazines, blogs and travel guides me and Callum have read, the general consensus is that you'll need about £1,000 a month (approx $1,300) to survive when travelling; this includes food, accommodation, (some) activities and public transport. Of course, this will vary depending on where you go and places like Thailand and South Africa are going to be dirt cheap compared to places in Europe, Australia and the USA; so sometimes you may need more than £1,000 a month, and sometimes you may need less, but it should even out at about that amount. 

Then on top of that you've got your flights, which, for us, works out at about £3,000 (approx $3,900) each. This is pretty damn good when it comes to flight prices and I would highly recommend using STA travel to help you secure a good deal.

Then on top of THAT, you've got your travel insurance, your visas and your vaccinations.

You do the maths.

So, it's no cheap trip, but in my opinion it's 100% worth it. I've got the rest of my life to build a career, buy a house and all that business, but to up sticks and travel the world while I'm still young? I'm only really gonna get one real chance to do that and that's now.

How I've been saving

When I first started saving, I would just put aside whatever money I had left in my current account at the end of the month and transfer it into my savings account. This worked well for a time and I managed to save about £3,000 in a year this way, but it was nowhere near enough if I wanted to go travelling as soon as I wanted to.

I've found that the best way to budget myself is to limit the money I have in my current account, and what I've done for the last 10 months or so has been transfer X amount from my current account and into my savings account ON payday. That way I know I won't spend it because once it's in savings, it's there to stay. I leave myself with enough money (JUST!) to get me through the rest of the month and as shit as it is waiting all month to get paid, only to never get to spend it, I keep telling myself it will all be worth it in the end.

I guess the key to saving is to differentiate between the things you need and the things you want. I started bringing my own lunch to work which saves me about £3 a day (I know that doesn't sound a lot, but that still adds up to £260 a year), me and Callum stopped eating out two or three times a week and I can't even remember the last time I bought new clothes, it seems pointless buying nice stuff when I'll be only packing the essentials for next year anyway, which let's be honest, probably won't make it back into my wardrobe when we return in 2018.

As much as I make out like I have no life, I do still go out and do stuff. I guess it's just more in moderation than I used to! Like I said, I used to eat out a few times a week, I would go to London at the weekend and not think about what I was spending on food or drink and I quite liked going out clubbing every now and again. I still do all those things now I'm saving, just less of them. I've also found more things to do in my free time that are actually free: running, blogging, messing around on Photoshop and InDesign (hence the image for this blog) and owning and looking after a small puppy (read about Fat Badger on my other blog here)! I try and keep myself busy, otherwise I'd drive myself mad.

I don't doubt there are people out there who get their parents to pay for everything and would quite happily get them to pay for a trip like this too, and if you're in that position, great. Good for you. Fuck off. But for us, we haven't had that kind of luxury; so we've had to save in an extreme kind of way. But then again, we've had to because let's face it, this trip isn't going to fund itself!

Anyway, we still have 7 or so months of saving to go so we aren't quite there yet. Who knows, maybe in that time I'll have just changed my mind and bought myself a summer wardrobe and an all-inclusive holiday instead; in which case, this blog will be well and truly redundant! 

Hope that helped in some way and wasn't a total incoherent ramble!

The American Dream

Well, it's taken just over a month but we have now got a firm plan for our first month away. At this rate we will finish planning the trip when we are nearly a third of the way through.

Shit we need to focus.
We should not have booked such a big trip.
Aren't we great!

Whilst planning the USA, one thing that has really started to stand out for me is that I am going on an around the world adventure for 12 months, with someone who has a very different attitude to me. I am happy to plan things as much as we can and be as organised as possible, but I have already accepted that things are going to go wrong for us and that there'll inevitably be some things that will be out of our control and that no amount of planning will fix.

Emma, meanwhile, has breakdowns over the current rate of the pound and its stability in the financial market twice every hour. Honestly, there are banks that are less concerned about the pound to the dollar ratio than Emma is.

I don't think it's the economic uncertainty that has stressed Emma us out whilst planning our time in the USA, it is the enormous cost of everything. We always knew America would be expensive as it is devoid of a travel culture; there are taxes to pay on hostel/hotel bookings and public transport isn't always easy, convenient or cheap.

By making America the first stop on our route it has made us very aware of how much money we have to spend on this trip as a whole and how much of that whole is being swallowed up by a hungry USA.

But in times like this there is only really one thing to do, roll up your sleeves and cross out places on the trip you would have liked to visit in order to keep that easy life you strive for.

As after all:

Who was it that decided to elongate our trip and visit double the amount of places in America?

Emma.

Who was it that argued against it? Because it was all going to cost too much?

Muggins.

Who gave in just to have an easy life at the time?

Muggins

Who now has to deal with the fallout of all of this?

MUGGINS.

Essentially we may now not be going to Tokyo in an attempt to balance the books as Emma is a Diva America is turning out to be hella expensive.

All joking aside though, America is costing a lot more than I thought it would, it sure isn't like in the movies where people travel the country, dreaming of making it big with nothing but hard work and determinat- oh MY GOD WE'RE JUST LIKE GEORGE AND LENNY

anywho......

Starting to see why planning is taking us so long. 

I think what we have to remember is that cheaper days are coming; once we get into Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos we can re-claw some of that money.

AND NOT as Emma suggested by skipping our injections and travel insurance.

In her mind, booking an expensive hotel in Vegas is as she wants to have 'The Vegas Experience' is a fan-TAS-TIC idea. 

HOWEVER, buying injections and travel insurance which could save your life for £100 is suddenly TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE and probably something we should skip altogether. 
You do see what I'm dealing with here, right?

So now it's official - and by official I mean not only have we booked our hostels it has also been written in pen in our 2017 year planner - I can share with you our plan for our 30 days in America:

Day 1 - Fly to Boston
Day 2 - Boston
Day 3 - Boston
Day 4 - Travel to New York
Day 5 - New York
Day 6 - New York
Day 7 - New York
Day 8 - New York
Day 9 - Travel to Philadelphia
Day 10 - Philadelphia
Day 11 - Travel to Washington
Day 12 - Washington
Day 13- Washington
Day 14 - Washington
Day 15 - Travel to Los Angeles
Day 16 - Los Angeles
Day 17 - Los Angeles
Day 18 - Travel to San Francisco
Day 19 - San Francisco
Day 20 - San Francisco
Day 21 - Travel to Las Vegas
Day 22 - Las Vegas
Day 23 - Las Vegas
Day 24 - Travel to San Diego
Day 25 - San Diego
Day 26 - San Diego
Day 27 - Travel to Los Angeles
Day 28 - Los Angeles
Day 29 - Los Angeles
Day 30 - Travel to Peru in South America, thus ending our stay in the United states of America.

Now, that is a lot to digest and whilst incredibly exciting, the planning for each step of the journey is time consuming and quite a mentally tiring task, especially when you know you still have to be up the next day for work.

But time ticks by regardless of our wishes so we may as well crack on planning, South America my friend you are next.

Luckily it shouldn't take too long as South America is like America, but South.

Planning America

You're damn right I made this.

Over the past week or so, we've been putting a lot of time into planning the first part of our trip, America. 

Since doing this, one thing in particular has become very clear, very quickly:

1) America is fucking expensive.

I guess we always knew the States was going to be pricey, especially when you compare it to places we'll be visiting later on in the trip, like South East Asia and South Africa, but I never quite realised the extent of it. Hostels on the East Coast are around £30 each a night and that's not even including the taxes on top. We've budgeted about £1000 each a month to survive off of and it doesn't take a mathematician to work out that £30 x 30 days in America equates to £900 on accommodation. Swell. But hey, we'll find a way to make it work...

Anyway, in an attempt to reel back in some cash I logged into my Couchsurfing account to see if there were any hosts in the Boston area we could shack up with for a couple of nights and it turns out that the answer to that question was a resounding no. The first host I clicked on had amazing reviews and didn't seem like the kind of person who would murder you in your sleep and burn down their own house to hide all the evidence looked nice enough. Merry little thoughts of making a friend-for-life in Boston, who could show us around the city were already swimming around my head. It was the solution to all our accommodation problems! It was all so perfect...that was up until the very second I clicked on this guy's profile and discovered that he was a nudist whose ideal guests would be "fellow gay nudists". Well, fuck. 

We were in too deep.

After not much deliberation, we aborted the Couchsurfing route.

Don't get me wrong, I think Couchsurfing is great, but I guess I just want the certainly that we'll have somewhere to stay every night without having to worry about whether or not our host will bail on us last minute, or if their house is a shit hole, or if they don't even own a couch, or if they end up being an ex-convict (unless its Michael Scofield, of course). IN SHORT, I AM ALREADY TOO DAMN STRESSED FROM PLANNING THIS TRIP AND I DO NOT NEED TO WORRY ABOUT STAYING AT A STRANGER'S HOUSE ON TOP OF EVERYTHING ELSE.

Ok?

Ok.

We were originally going to stay at a hostel in Boston, but then I came across this little apartment that we could rent for more or less the same price; so we booked that instead. It's certainly not the Ritz and its TripAdvisor reviews indicate that the place has a noisy fridge and doesn't come ready equipped with an elevator (the horror), but apart from that, it looks alright! There is a rooftop terrace which has a pretty amazing view of the city, it's in a good location and we have our own kitchen and bathroom. WINNING.

At the end of the day, I don't really give a shit where we stay because let's face it, it's going to be a pretty tragic year away if all we're doing is sitting around in our room all day, isn't it? 

As for in New York, Washington DC and Philadelphia, we'll be staying in hostels. It's been nearly two years since I stayed in a hostel and I have to say, I can't wait to be doing it again. You always meet new people from all over the world and there's always fun stuff going on: pub crawls, walking tours, days out. Of course, sleeping in a dorm takes some getting used to; as does having to be constantly on-guard when it comes to your valuables and belongings, but it's all good fun and part of the experience.

Not gonna lie, I've found this first bit of planning pretty stressful. Note how I said I, not we. Callum is probably the most laid-back person I've ever met and is somehow managing to take it all in his stride, whereas I am practically pulling my hair out adding up how much this is going to cost us. 

But there's no going back now and I am so, so excited for what's around the corner.