I`m not in the same situation, but too i cant really tell why i want to go. To go soon.

I recently try to write down my feelings into an article, hope that the readers can follow my thoughts. There is too an Translate-Button on the right side.

Wieso zieht es euch in der Ferne?

Like i wrote before i`m 40 now, had done some travels by car - but the dream of an extended trip always gets bigger.

I love my girlfriend, have a good circle of friends, love too my job, my career could have develope much worse.

While my friends are saving money for buying their own house or flat or are renting their luxurary flat, are married and trying to start a famillie with kids -I am just dreaming about travelling extended.

I dont even know if I will like to travelling extended - look like i have to try it.

To starting now has some benefits against to start with 30. I was able to buildup a fun-car beyond reason (powerful but with bad fuel usage and it was expensiv) and i should be able to travel to 1to2 years - without to focus be too much about saving money during the trip.

Disadvantages are for shure, that i dont know what the impact will be to my career, but i should be able to find work again in my profession. And for shure, i dont know what experience i have missed, because i didnt start with the age of 25 and with less bucks.

It may be easier after the trip, when you can entry the working level with no money - and on a higher career level -- as starting with paying an credit and to enter again on less well payed level.

But who know where such a trip ends, maybe you will teach yoga in a hat in india, or you will earning money as a fighter in thailand...

If a dream is strong, it will be still there in some years. But you never know what happens - maybe your girlfriend get pregnant and you had no time for travelling - anymore..

Some questions we only can answer by yourself. And sometimes we have to try it out - without to have an answer.

Maybe one point is important, I read about in many blogs of travellers: if you try to run away from yourself, from something in your life - you are mostly not fast enough.

Surfy

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About Overlanding, Travelogues, Equipment
Trans-Africa over the west coast

Debt is a bad idea IMHO. OK, for something you need to survive or makes a better deal fair enough, the endless drudge to pay it off is worthwhile but for anything else it really is a constant PITA. The other thing is it's addictive. I've seen so many people get a couple of grand to buy a second hand runabout to get to their better job. Give the loan providers a few years and people have new cars with the best gizmos but are renting the things on mileage limits with huge payments at the end if you don't take another deal. Run that car 'till it dies and save for the new one and you get all the benefits after the first rung of the ladder.

It's rotten to point it out but you only get one chance with elderly relatives. You can work your **** off and go on your RTW aged 45 with no debt having had all the time you like with people who by then won't be here.

I wouldn't worry about the job thing. If you do something well you can always come back to it in three or even five years. I'm struggling to find a job I'll take right now because the ****ers won't believe I don't want to rule their *****y corporate world and be the next Bill Gates. Burning a few bridges to ditch one suit only makes another one think you must be the dogs doodahs if you can jump ship like that. Talking yourself into a job you can do is easy.

Wait and save IMHO

Andy

If you are replaceable then you don't have much value in the market. Hence my comment about "getting good at what you do". I doubt Ted is at full journeyman BMW certified mechanic level yet. He should get there as that means he could find employment anywhere, worldwide. But if he hates the job so much ... then maybe not.
But your idea of working seasonally is a good one ... let the boss know you only want to work Seasonally.

He could work through the busy months in the UK (May to October?) then could bugger off to Bumfookistan for the rest of the year. Could work.

Seasonal work is really the best (IMO) ... and it's why I liked working in TV. Work 7 months out of the year ... do what you want the other 5 months.

Start looking for a job offshore as previously discussed ;-)

Don't borrow money it's like a noose around your neck!

The fear of debt is usually worse than the debt itself and there seems to be a lot of credit hysteria on this thread - probably a product of our current political class - but there's no need to become sick with a hallucinatory debt fever.

Properly managed debt and responsible credit doesn't have to mean the end of the world. Virtually everything we see around us was built on a system of credit and debt. Indeed most nations are built on this. Britain has been in debt for almost its entire history:

Being in debt does not mean you are morally or fiscally bankrupt. The best time to borrow is now, during a recession, when interest rates are low and financial institutes are giving it away. If it helps think of it as your civic duty to borrow and spend to stimulate the economy, LOL.

Seriously, we all use credit everyday and the sky hasn't fallen in - we are, by and large, more responsible then the ass hats that played high stakes poker in a rigged system, gambling away our money causing the 2008 crash. It's irrational for an individual to rack up debt when you're already in the red, but you're not and your credit rating reflects this.

Life is short, we don't know what's round the corner. This isn't a dress rehearsal, this is the only life we get so we may as well live it now and live it to it's fullest. Carpe Diem Comrade. Not seizing the day may be worse than the phantasms conjured by debt hysteria.

If you do decide to take out some credit do your research, there is usually more than one way to skin a cat. Shop around for the best deals and do not borrow more than you need or more than you can manage.

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www.AdventureVagabond.com Mongolia & Siberia 2012: Adventure Moto Madness

I don't want to be a BMW master tech... Or be anyone else's bitch for that matter. Doing all the work and getting none of the cash.. Or even reward. Our managers and receptionists get all the flowers, wine and chocolates at Christmas. They are the front but we do all the work. I've worked in a few different dealerships in Sales, workshop, customer services etc. I've seen it from all sides.

Technicians are always the highest trained, hardest working, least paid and the only one's accountable to a time card. And they're the only ones who need to spend thousands on their own tools and forced to 'test ride' dangerous bikes in all weathers... Who'd be a techy ???

I've been with BMW for a year now and it's sooo fecking boring. There are only really four bikes to work on. 1200 boxers, K series four & 6 cylinders and the Rotax singles. They always have the same problems and fixes. I dream of those days where I get something a bit different. They are few and far between..
Bolt on some crappy Touratech engine guards, Code some locks for a pannier case, do a 6000 mile service on a GS, build a bike out of a crate zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. I'd love for someone to let me make a custom exhaust or tune their engine etc. But it would never happen. It's non-efficient. oil changes and warranty work pay the shareholders. Not romantic engineering.

Most of the time I already know what's wrong with them before I turn a spanner. R1200 Fuel sensors and RWD bearings, K1600 Switch gears etc etc.


I want to be my own boss.. That is my ultimate goal and I'm putting everything in place to do that. I may go into partnership with someone or base myself at their place. However, I don't want to start that without scratching this major itch I've got for an extended trip to the few places that I've REALLY wanted to go to.

It's 'unfinished business' if you get my drift. I'm quite happy to say I'll only do 2 month trips in the future but having never done anything longer than 7 months, I don't know .....

5 years ago I wouldn't of thought twice. I'd of got the cash and booked a flight. Not even thought twice. As one gets older, uncertainty creeps in. Doors close and people judge you differently. O think you lose that 'bullet proof' mentality. And I think more is expected of you.

I haven't been on an adventure since 2012 when I took a canoe down the Yukon. That was only two months and I was sick to come home.

I had promised myself that I would of achieved A LOT more by my mid 30's.

Hence my haste to just throw caution to the wind, take the loan and sod the consequences...

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Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

Very well said......

The saddest and most depressed people I know are the ones who take solace in the fact that they have money in the bank.. They always say "I never borrow money" , "I always live within my means"... What they SHOULD say is:
"I'll die dressed in grey and have nothing to show for life apart from the money that I'll leave some ungrateful relative.. Who will spend it on a new car and a RTW trip"

Money doesn't make you happy.... Spending it does.... Just don't spend what you can't responsibly pay back.

Taking a £100,000 loan from a Colombian loan shark is one thing. A manageable debt from a bank that you can pay back early without penalty is another.

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Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

Come to Oz mate, you have a home to come to and great paying jobs a plenty or set up shop in the shed ;-)

That might happen one day.... I have decided. I'm out of here at the end of the year... If I take a loan and keep going I'm not so sure.

To where.. Probably back to South America to start with. Then who knows.

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Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

This is one hell of a thought-provoking thread. One of the best reads on the HUBB.

Like others here, Ted, I don't think I can give any advice at all. In a way, wouldn't want to. From what I can judge, my life has been as different to yours as is possible, so there's nothing I can say.

But here are some bits of advice, writings and ideas that have influenced me. Something may be of use.

This first one may speak to you, it has to me. It was written by an organiser/leader of a Scottish expedition to the Himalayas in 1951, 2 years before Everest was conquered.
“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back.
Concerning all acts of initiative, there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans:- that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.
Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.”

It's been said here, if you're running away from something, you'll never run fast enough. But it doesn't seem to me, reading all the stuff you write on the HUBB, as though you're doing that. Only you know.

Also, if you're looking for happiness, there's only one place you'll ever find it - inside yourself.
Only you can decide about that.

If ever you wonder about people who ask why you want to do this or that journey, this might help - "there are those who can feel the reason inside them - and they don't ask."
(Wally Herbert, Arctic explorer)

When it comes to parents, I don't know anything about your situation other than what you've written about your Mum.
This is what happened in my family, in case it helps.
My Dad died first, and it was forecasted by doctors many months beforehand. Turned out, it was likely to happen while my brother was away in Australia on a trip he'd booked a year before.
Our Dad, and our Mum, both insisted on him going. But Dad died while he was away.
That was very sad for my brother but he returned for the funeral, and we all survived and still agree (my brother and I, and our Mum at the time) it was the right thing to do.

Much later I started spending the winters somewhere warm, on either a Honda Dominator, an Aprilia or my bicycle. My Mum, then in her 80s, told me never to stop travelling on her account. In the summers I'd visit a couple of Moto GP and WSB meetings.

For the WSB in 2002 I went to Misano Italy, mid June, with two close mates. I was on my Aprilia. We arrived the Wednesday before. My daughter planned to fly over on the Friday. I picked her up from the airport, to hear the news my Mum had died the day before, Thursday. Friday was my birthday.
With 2 good mates and my daughter with me, and my brother back home and history 'sort-of' repeating itself, we all agreed we would stay, enjoy the event, put my daughter on her plane on the Monday and ride home, maybe a little faster than we might otherwise have done. Exactly as my Mum would have wanted. And it came to pass that we all survived, and were probably closer for it.
Maybe something there will chime with your situation with your Mum. Maybe keep a cash reserve in case you need to fly home, for whatever reason.

Can't think of anything else that hasn't been said.
Whatever you do - keep writing about it.

Ken

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TTR250 - London to Cape Town

I didn't realise we were more or less the same age! You seem wise beyond your years!

What I've realised as I approach 40 is that what I thought my life would be like at this age, and what the reality has turned out to be, are two VERY different things. There's nothing wrong with having dreams, life would be dull without them, but you can put too much pressure on yourself to be something you thought you should be, rather than accepting things as they are, and being the happier for it. This is meant as a generalisation, and not specific to your circumstances.

Personally, I am quite content in my profession. I should, when I retire, get a lump sum along with my pension, and this is what I will use to set off into the bright blue yonder. I'm also lucky enough to be able to travel a fair amount during the year, if not quite as far as I might like. Personally, I don't want to sell everything / take loans and just go. I like the security my job brings, and I am planning (dreaming) well in advance to take a very leisurely trip in the future; the trick is remaining healthy enough to do so when the time comes!

As with all things in life, we are all unique and make the best decisions for us. What I want probably is the polar opposite of the desires of others, and vice versa.

I've enjoyed reading the above posts, and hope you have a great trip, however it's funded; all the best!

I should keep my mouth shut, but I've never been very good at that.
My concern would be borrowing a ton of money, then having a wreck or something and being a wage slave the rest of my life. I can see selling everything I own, including the 401K and then Bugger off, but borrowing to do it is like selling your soul.
An old man's perspective

Ted,

Plenty of good comments about whether one should borrow from the future to pay for one's dreams now so not much to add there. Have fun with whatever you finally decide.

Having said that, there is a pretty big gap when you mention what you are planning to do when you come back.

If you are serious about starting a new business, unless you are one in a hundred, most new businesses require start up capital, take a while to be profitable, take even longer to be cash flow positive, and take even longer than that to be profitable enough to match the wages you would earn working in a regular job.

The first stage of your plan doesn't mesh with the next stage I am afraid. If you are serious about it, you will need every bit of capital to start and succeed at your new business. If it isn't required to pay for getting things going, then it will be needed to pay for you living expenses while you wait for things to take off, or it will be needed for the never ending list of things required to grow your business to the next level.

There is an opportunity cost of taking on debt now. You are using it for short term consumption as opposed to investment in a longer term income generating asset down the road. Certainly not the end of the world to do so, but be very aware of the pros and cons and include those in your calculation.

Ride safe.

TT, i am 52 years old and have plenty of regrets and plenty of satisfaction with my decisions over the years. Few regrets for what I did do, more for what I didn't. One thing I've learned over the years is that we all know what we want to do, the ones in therapy are trying to get someone else to tell them they should do it. You already know what you want/need to do. Best of luck! I wishing was 34 and footloose. I know where I'd be...