Why Don't We Buy A Round The World Ticket?

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This is a Series of Entires Posted in One Lump, they were written during November 2008



This is something we have wanted to do for a long time, something we have talked about, dreamt about and wished for.
So I am sure have many of you. We want to put 'normal' life on hold, buy a round the world ticket (or 4) and walk away from chilly credit crunch Britain for a year (or more)!
Fresh from the collapse of my small recruitment company, don't worry the only people that lost money was us :-(
Not sure what to do next, having no chance of selling our house in the present market, in fact owning our house at the moment is like watching money walk off down the street possibly never to be seen again, depending on who you listen to.
We have had it on the market and we did have somebody interested, but this leech was just into taking advantage of people in financial trouble (luckily that's not us yet!) - Her offer was amazing for its chutzpah. She took the value the house was for sale at, and then removed the perceived drop in value over the past year and, then, also deducted next years estimated price drop as well and offered us that. My answer to the Estate Agent was a short sharp two words which included three letter F's and an exclamation mark. We never heard from her again, I'm pleased to say.So we intend (hope) to let the house.


We have been ebaying like crazy in an everything must go frenzy, we have given away thousands of pounds worth of items to friends and family, we have sold cars (for a fraction of their value to us) at auction. The kids game machines have gone, The TV's including the big beloved plasma, gone!
We also had to find our wonderful Cat, Tiger, a new trustworthy home.
It's quiet amazing when you start realising just how much stuff we have accumulated, we had 8 TV's, 4 PC's not including the two laptops we would be taking, the DVD's are piled high. We are putting some things into storage, but to put too much. that would just lead to a super large storage bill and what's the point? Other than some books (books and reading are very important items in our family, something we all enjoy). and our antique or collectable glass items, everything else can be replaced with a newer, bigger, better, more 'green' version, when, if, we return.


How do you go about planning a one year travel adventure? Well for most people I am sure lots of planning and research, not for us though, just two weeks ago we were planing on going to Thailand and then on to Malaysia to have a look around with the possibility that we would go and live out that way, when we do finally sell the house.
Then my wife Sofia suggested that we could consider round the world tickets and that was it, the idea was planted and it grew and now look where we are!

So we went on the internet and started planning what I soon learned is called a 'Mature Gap Year' - first mistake was looking on a site that caters to real gap year student types, STA Travel and on their wonderful site you can plan a fabulous trip and it was on that site that a discovery was made. On round the world tickets if you wish to go from say London to New York, you may have to go via Bangkok, Sydney and Las Angeles - but these are regarded as free flights - YES, that's right FREE FLIGHTS, I spent many hours planning many complicated journeys before my wife pointed out that these were for Students or those aged under 26....... Ho Hum!
OK, well on the same site they do also have round the world options for oldies! but suddenly the options of where to travel are much less exciting and free flights seem a thing of the past. Bugger - We did go so far as to get a price from this company and found them and their staff very efficient and until the last minute they were the company we were going to choose.I would happily recommend them, they only lost out on price.
We started looking at a few other companies to compare and I have to say that companies who advertise on the internet as Round the World specialists seem to be in two categories, the frankly useless and the knowledgeable and efficient, with the useless type seeming to be in the majority.
Look If I am going to be spending upwards of £7000 on flight tickets, I want the phone or my email answered promptly and I want them to know who I am and what my call is about if I call for further information. If I send an email, I expect a reply before the end of the following day.
Sadly their were a few companies we contacted that did not give me much confidence that if it all went tits up in some far off place, then, they would be there for us. Some of them could not even manage to answer the phone while we were in the UK!!!!!!!
One other company though seemed to want our business and they were the company who pipped STA at the last minute.


Well we had a plan, we had decided on a route of sorts and we were trying to obtain quotes and get a feel for the companies to decide who to purchase our tickets through.
I won't go into the companies that I felt were not up to the standard that I would expect while planning a Round the World Tour. Suffice to say all of these things are down to personal choice and differing ideas of customer service and expectations, however some of the companies, I would not have trusted to organise a coach trip to the next village!
We narrowed our choice down to two companies: STA Travel and TravelBag.
We decided to go with TravelBag, due to a couple of reasons, the most important of which probably was the fact my Wife spoke to them while I spoke to STA! - My Wife is nice and friendly so probably built a nice rapport with the Sales Consultant.
I am not such a friendly soul, and although I had a good rapport with the Consultant at STA, I did not ask all the right questions and therefore probably damaged their prospects!
So the route was decided and the tickets have been purchased but that's the easy bit.

We are going to have to let our house out to rent for a year, we will have to put some of our belongings into storage (which is not cheap) and I am making numerous trips to the local Post Office with arms full of parcels as we sell everything that is not screwed down.
Believe me our ebay rating is flying through the roof and between the fees ebay, paypal and the Post Office charge I am making pennies on pounds, but at least the items are clearing out fast.
The day of our leaving is coming up fast and yet the house still seems to be overflowing with items we need to get rid of!
It might sound like a great adventure and I hope it will be, but it is not without it's stresses even at this early stage. In fact at times I shudder at the downright scariness of the situation we are in and will be in the future.I know that seems strange but think about it, give up work, take the children out of school, sell 95% of all your belongings, take everything you need for one year in a 20kg bag and set off into the unknown, without hotels or transport sorted out, not to mention the cost of traveling. Believe me the flight tickets will be the cheapest part of this adventure. And when we get back, what then? - No house, no job, no plan! - I am actually trying to turn off the one year from now thoughts because I want to enjoy the moment. The moment is what we are in this for. Life is too short and far too many people put things off until a later day which they believe will come. My Father in Law was a great man, and a real entrepreneur, a business man who started with nothing and over his career made and lost many millions of pounds many times. He had a great life and the money was never important to him, doing the deal and traveling the world building contacts and helping people set up businesses was. He always wanted to buy a yacht and told us of his plans on many occasions but it was always in the future. Now, my Father In law had that Entrepreneurs whirlwind force that seemed to propel him through life at 100 miles an hour, he was hardly ever ill, he seemed immune to flu and colds, he in short seemed indestructible. Yet, he died too early of a cancer that took this strong proud man and in a few short months he was gone, all those plans and dreams of yacthing gone in an instant. All the adventures he planned to have with his five grandchildren stolen from him and of course them. My wife has already had her fair share of health issues and the idea of waiting many years to do something that we may never ever do, just did not seem like a plan we wanted to sign up to. We are lucky enough to do this and so we are grabbing it with both hands. have not written anything for a few days because frankly nothing is happening.
We are just getting stressed as we realise the day of our departure is getting near. The house still seems to be full to over flowing even though we are doing constant runs to the post office to deliver the mountain of goods sold on ebay.
I made a big decision to sell my selection of T-shirts from the casinos and other attractions in Las Vegas, I have actually found this quite liberating.It's very strange my urge to have the T-shirt so that everybody can see that I have 'been there' I put it down to not actually going on a real holiday until I was 23 years old.
I am preparing for life without 24 hour access to the Internet that's going to be strange.
I am wondering how we are going to move around various countries - we cannot just spend unlimited sums of money hiring cars big enough to carry the four of us plus all the baggage, this also means lots of taxi's won't be large enough.
I originally planned to hire a campervan for Australia, New Zealand and America, but I guess having looked at the costs of that option, we may have to try something else!
It's all going to be an amazing time of ever changing plans, highs and lows, amazing sights and some dismal hotels - But over all it should still be a grand adventure.

Well, I have not written anything for days now. Why? Well, all we have been doing is moving stuff out of the house and packing things in boxes. The excitement of a one year world journey is hard to feel when all you seem to be doing is giving away all your worldly belongings to a succession of friends, charity shops and family. It's not that we don't want to give these things away, we do, It's just not really exciting. Last night we slept on the floor having given our bed away. Tonight, the fridge freezer was picked up, the last remaining TV, my office furniture.I have spent days trying to book a hotel for the first leg of our tour in Pattaya, Thailand. It's amazing how few hotels bother to reply to enquiries, but hey, I guess 4 people for one month is no big dealThe pile of paperwork on my desk is smaller, we still to do have items that should have been done weeks ago but we have put off until now, when it's almost too late.It's amazing to think as I sit here now tapping out this on my macbook that this time next week I will be sweltering in the heat of Thailand, outside the house it's bitterly cold and miserably dark. My Father took possession of my Mac Pro which is not only the first real computer he has had but also the first experience of the internet, but with us traveling and my sister working in New York it should make keeping in touch easier.
This week another car has been sold leaving us with just one, our old faithful Honda shuttle.My father will take this car over after dropping us off at Heathrow airport.Of course the English pound continues to do a fair impression of a pile of worthless crap seemingly losing value against every currency anywhere in the world.I can't wait until we actually land so that I can start writing something worth reading only a few days to go.

So today I have mostly been driving backwards and forwards to the recycling centre in a desperate attempt to get rid of more crap!
I have to say that as far as it goes my family certainly helped to keep the economy afloat judging by the amount of worthless rubbish we have purchased over the years.
I am actually finding this whole process very interesting, I really don't think that when we find our new home (where ever it may be) that we will be such rabid consumers.
I have gone from a big screened Mac to a little macbook and you know what - its fine!
The last TV in the house is no plasma screened monster, it's just a little old box that weighs more than solid lead and yet in reality the difference is actually not really that important, after a couple of days we don't really even notice it.
I have shredded boxes of paper, stuff that I have probably taken from house to house without ever having to refer to it, finally it's the bin.
OK. Well I guess it will be a late night filling boxes ready to be put into storage, so I had better get back to it.

Well just two days to go and already we have problems, it seems the Land of Smiles is a little tense right now and the stunningly impressive Suvranabhumi airport has been taken over by the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD).
This has already had a major effect as our Son was due to fly into Bangkok from the Philippines today and of course he could not fly.
I spoke to Qantas today regarding our flight and a very helpful and jolly lady put my mind at rest. It seems that our trip may actually start in Singapore instead of Bangkok which although not ideal as we have already paid for our hotel in Thailand, well you just have to go with the flow, we have to keep positive and be flexible.
The house is almost empty, we are sleeping on a mattress on the floor, their are no TV's to be seen, the only furniture is an office chair and a wardrobe. Thank god for my laptop, at least I have something to watch and listen to.
I can thoroughly recommend listening to The Adam Carolla Show or watching The Adam Carolla Project (probably best found on a bit torrent).
The car is being filled with the last few items for friends, charity shops or the recycling centre.Tomorrow the journey to Heathrow airport and a flight to somewhere at last.The adventure truly is about to begin.From now on we should have Photos, yes Pictures!!!

Yeeey we are off, um well actually not, well actually we are but what a stumbling start to the whole day.
First thing this morning I called the airline (Qantas) to confirm everything was alright based upon the fact our flight to bangkok might have been a bit of a problem, due to the fact planes actually have to land somewhere to let people get off! OK so Bangkok was not going to be our first port of call. Singapore it was, OK good-times.
We decided not to book a hotel due to the fact we had already paid for a hotel in Pattaya where of course we would not be for a while. But we did not want to prebook another one as the way things were going we could never be sure of where we would actually be tomorrow.
So, the final bit of house clearance was done with a quick trip to the recycling centre, charity shops and a friend to take the last few bits and bobs.
And, what's that? A missed call, yes the airline was trying to contact us. I called them back however the line was busy for a long time, wow I hate hold music and information systems. It seems our flight was actually cancelled and that we had to contact them if we wanted to go on their flight to Singapore - It only took about 40 minutes of waiting on the phone to get confirmation. So, finally we really were on our way, except of course we live in England where any road accident means the roads become blocked for at least half a day.
Yep the bloody motor-way was nothing more than a rolling traffic jam and a normally two hour drive took closer to four.Finally though we got to the airport and were up, up and away!
Next stop Singapore.
The first problem I have realized is with my luggage - Not my main check in baggage that's just fine, a good size, easy to maneuver and for somebody like me who has a bit of a luggage fetish, it looks OK.No the problem is my hand luggage or more importantly what it contains.The breakdown is a bit over the top;Three Magazines, Top Gear and two travel magazines. The following books:Next by Michael Crichton a book the size of a small house, Hey Joe by Ted Lerner, Tony Wheelers Bad Lands, May on Motors by James May, The Rough Guide to Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, DK Eyewitness Travel Malaysia and Singapore and The Rough Guide First-Time Around the World.That little lot weighs enough, add to that my Mac Book and a Maxtor 250GB portable drive, assorted leads and a Belkin Laptop Cooling Stand, A camera, a couple of Mp3 Players, a wind-up torch, two packs of cards (from the MGM Grand Las Vegas), Two Dice from the Flamingo Las Vegas and a Casino Chip, a spare watch, a couple of pens, A 2009 Calender from the Sunday Times Travel Magazine and all the details of our itinerary and our travel insurance policy documents.Add in a small package for my Son who we are hopefully going to be seeing in a few days in Pattaya. The package consists of a Book - Diver by Tony Groom, (My Son is in Thailand on a three month Dive Internship) his i-Pod and lead, His Dive Insurance Document and a new bank card to replace the one he lost (stolen or just plain misplaced). I am resembling a mule weighed down to excess.My Son aged 12 is actually struggling with an even heavier bag! We can sort his problem out though by getting him a new main luggage bag as his was full yet well within the weight allowance.

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