Full Circle

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After 365 days of travelling and nearly 70,000 miles, we have finally made it back home to England! We landed back at London Gatwick Airport to an emotional welcome home from our parents, who had come to meet us at the airport and it was so great to see them after such a long time away. We were soon back at Elaine’s Mum & Dad’s house, drinking our first cup of English tea for a long time, and enjoying a good bacon sandwich again to wake us up after our long flight across the pond!

We’ve been back a few days now, and it is only just beginning to sink in. We’ve travelled through 15 countries, enjoying every single one, and most we would return to again as well. Somehow, we have managed to take over 16,000 photos! Without doubt, it has definitely been the best thing we have ever done, and even though we have had stress along the way, selling our home and I left my job, it has all been well worth it. We will remember this trip forever…

It is something we always wanted to do, but never thought we'd have an opportunity to. We can clearly remember sitting in the airport 12 months ago, thinking ‘what have we done!’, but we always thought if travelling and living out of a backpack is too hard, then we can always come back home. Luckily, we slipped into travelling mode straightaway and never regretted a moment… now we can't wait for our next travels, wherever they may take us, after all, even though we have seen so much of the world this year, there is still so much we haven’t seen yet!

We already miss the days of seeing amazing sights and having new encounters everyday, but are also happy to be back to the comfort of home, with home cooked meals and the fact that we can shower without worrying that the water might turn suddenly cold! After first discussing the possibility of travelling almost 2 years ago, we are at a bit of a loss now… we had so much fun planning an itinerary, then so busy getting the flat sold and everything ready, then of course had such a fantastic time travelling… now what?!

We now have the task of trying to settle in back at home, which is possibly the most difficult thing to do! Simon has just started back at work this week, I have to find a job and in amongst that, we have to find somewhere to live… and of course sort out our 16,000 photos which will probably take another year!

Thanks to everyone for reading our blogs, we hope you all enjoyed them as much as we enjoyed writing them. And thanks to all who posted comments or sent us messages, we loved hearing from people, knowing that they were interested in our travels.

We’ve met some amazing people along the way, and made a lot of very good friends, and without them all we wouldn’t have had such a great time.

I guess that is the end of Our Round the World Adventure blog… for now at least!!! We end with a few of our favourite photos from our many adventures… as we dream of our next one.

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Comments

[Ann]

welcome home
Welcome back to the UK, perhaps you should convert your blogs into a travel book and publish it, as it make good and interesting reading which is well illustrated with your fantastic photos. Love to you both from your family up North.