100 days to go…

Celebrating travelling 1 year ago is all well and good but with another trip in the planning, no rest for the wicked! Planning is well underway for our travels to the Carribean throughout December 2016 and leading into 2017. We have lots to arrange also as we take the next step, visiting Abis’ dad and for me, I will be introduced to him as Abis’ first ever partner as no others have met him! So there’s plenty to be nervous about but also much more to be excited for…

Heading into 2017 we will be celebrating in style, we are planning on attending Grenadas’ best New Years’ Eve party which is based at our hotel.

We also have in store;

• Hore-riding along the beach
• Sunset pirate ship cruise
• Zip-lining through St. Lucia
• Climbing the pitons
• Visiting Abis’ family for Christmas
• Caribs’ cliff
• Drive-thru volcano
• Visting Grenadas’ & St. Lucias’ National Parks
• Fish Friday
• ‘Jump’ street party

All this and much much more… We have 5 weeks to soak up the sun and live life to the ultimate fullest.

Realising that our trip is so soon, we have also kickstarted looking into what our plans for the rest of 2017 are going to be and at current, we are quite sure that we’re going to head out to South East Asia, complete a TEFL course and take our chances on the open road. We have begun looking into beginning the course and speaking to contacts who we know that are currently in South East Asia, we are pretty sure that its’ a very doable option for us. Originally we considering saving and completing something similar to ‘Camp America’, however after consideration we questioned the direct link to travelling, although it would be an amazing opportunity. We would be restricted to America and then have nowhere to begin other than returning to the UK which we want to avoid for as long as possible!

TEFL Course…

We are quite excited about our options for the future and are hoping to keep ourselves busy planning and ensuring that we have everything in place to make the transition from part-time travelling to full-time. We also need to keep our blog up to date as eventually we will be looking at creating an income via the website (however that plans out!) There will also be many changes taking place as we’re updating our European posts and coming in 2017 will be our first travel video!

Our purchase of the GoPro camera will enable us to create a video opposed to constantly blogging and sharing our photos, hopefully we will be able to share memories too.

All the best;

100 days and counting…

1 Year on…

Travelling Europe is definitely number 1 in our top five places to have travelled, however hoping to top the charts; St. Lucia and Grenada are on the way! 1 year on from travelling Europe falls dramatically on 100 days to go until our paradise getaway to the Carribean.

So 365 days ago, 1st September 2015, Abi and I were venturing out to Letchworth Garden City train station, making our way via Cambridge to Stansted Airport. Ok, let’s just remember the drama of having to sleep outside from 00:05am until 4am for our train, in the rain… Then getting dramatically lost in Standsted. Dramas aside, we were soon in Sweden debating whether we’d even landed in a Foreign country, expecting sunshine and a ‘holiday’ feeling, we were immediately excited by the realisation of what we were setting out to accomplish. Leading the way, Abi found our hostel where we soon suffered a financial blow when our currency card refused to work and then we lost nearly 200€.

No matter! We were about to embrace the adventure of a lifetime and nothing was going to get in the way of that… Highlighting Sweden was the vibe of our hostel, it was our number one choice by far and one that has excellent inclusives within the price!! (Click here for their website)

Not all those who wander are lost…

Arriving in Denmark was great, bikers galore! No doubt we were soon sodden by the rain, but loving life raving to a Danish rap festival in the City square! Next we found ourselves memerised by the waves featuring throughout the holocaust memorial, emotionally stunned by the sheer atmosphere surrounding the meaning behind faceless stones. Spending the day trekking to ensure we got to see everything there was to offer, we spent the night heading to Prague.

Here we met Denny, a beautiful French boy who we spent the night watching movies in foreign languages, smoking weed and sharing life stories; bliss. Visting the old town was definitely the most rewarding, climbing over what felt like a thousand steps, we turned to see the view. I’ll let your minds wonder… Budapest was the next place on our list, heading out into open waters on the boat trip of our lives (so far…) we witnessed spectacular night-time views of the Hungarian Parliamentary building, meeting those from our hometown to America, we spent the night loving life with some amazing people! Our hostel here was also one to note, minus the noisy nights from the club beneath, it was a very cool ‘bee’ style place! Taking a pit stop in Croatia, we finally got some time to take everything in and sunbathe… Whilst completing my suduko booklet, of course!

Leaving Croatia, Abi and I were VERY excited for Slovenia. Knowing that this was an excellent sightseeing place and that our hostel was very close to both Lake Bled and Slovenias’ national park, we were so excited we spent over 3 hours walking to hostel. The views were breathtaking. The best way to express our feelings towards Slovenia would be to direct you straight to our original blog posts from there! (Click here for part 1 & here for part 2).

How does it feel to sit on top of the world?

Cracking on, we reached Venice; to put it simply we never actually found our own way to the hostel, we ended up hitch-hiking and finding a middle-aged couple pulling us into the driveway… Next stop was Switzerland – Lucerne – this was actually really scary because it was our first time couch-surfing, however Marc was a brilliant host and made us feel most welcome in his humble abode! Paris got us on edge when we were subjected to pickpockets, but to little success for them… We also stood underneath and looked up through the 324 meters of iron lattice, climbing Notre Dame and seeing the bell tower featured in the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Belgium was a beautiful experience, once we’d got speaking to Mara via rugby we got chatting over some beers and soon found ourselves at the Ganesh Festival taking place nearby. Trying out new foods, praying for prosperity and leaving with bindis we had a truly memorable experience. Hitting Amsterdam we got straight into the coffee shops, smoking our days away in Vondel Park and sleeping our final night in the luxury of Amsterdams’ internatinal airport floor.

That’s a whole year ago…

Knowing which choice is the best choice…

Very recently Abi and I have begun discussing our options for 2017; considering that we were originally thinking a move to Europe would be a good shout. However following a conversation with a fellow traveller who we met September 2015 in Antwerp, we questioned whether or not we should head to South East Asia… 

We thought vigorously about how we could manage taking such a huge ‘travelling step’. I suppose for me and Abi this will be the initial movement into full-time travelling so we have looked into securing some way of income. After endless nights researching we came across Camp America, we got deep into their website – click here – and found many options of working and travelling. This planted the seed that this was going to become a reality! 

Random morning walks to catch the sunrise

The following days have consisted of looking through websites and sieving through information for a journey which is suitable for us. We also found some great opportunities and some potential ideas from Bunac. This website also provides trips across various continents and we found that some of these trips also include a TEFL course within them. 

At first Abi and I were rather cautious of the idea of teaching English as a foreign language but after consideration we began to realise that this could be our doorway to working whilst travelling. From this we could save and continue our travels; we understand that this is a very tiny piece of our travelling jigsaw to complete the Earth, however we are determined to start somewhere! 

In turn, putting 2 + 2 together we are currently considering our next trip to be across South East Asia whilst teaching English along the way! 

Although we have many more decisions to make and this is only our first steps into the big wide world, I think it’s safe to say that Abi and I are now in agreement that we will begin a TEFL course beginning in January which can be purchased via their website. This course is also very well-known for its’ excellent amount of support provided to their students, the tutors and support network will even advise and guide you towards finding work abroad. 

Interrail planning; September 2015

Keep checking in to see which route we definitely decide to take, we are very a spontaneous couple and have even considering entering the airport and buying a one-way flight for 2; so who knows what may happen…