The bus is calling

Its almost three years since we got back from our year and a day circumnavigating the globe, and finally we are preparing once more to be off on our travels with kids. That is said with a very large sigh of relief, but also some trepidation.

Last time, the kids were 4, 6 and 8 … this time the youngest is nearly 8 and we have a tween on our hands. Last time we could go leaving the house behind as somewhere to come back to; this time the bricks and mortar are being sold to fund a lifetime of travel with no plan (or financial possibility!) of return. Last time, the kids were just full of excitement and, to be honest, were young enough not to know what was in store as we took them to places from Manhattan to Mongolia, Paris to Peru. This time, they know exactly what they have to leave behind – friends, school, home and 48 tons of toys. Each.

Last time, we had a small inheritance to play with. This time? Yes, you guessed it, we don’t.

But the time is right, in fact it’s probably a year overdue. How hard is it to fit back in to what people call normal life after such an adventure? Maybe, for some, it’s a breeze. It certainly seems so for the kids. But for those of us who are somewhat longer in the tooth, its been hard to the point of downright impossible. We did of course throw ourselves back into the everyday necessities of jobs, feeding the kids and playing house, but it has been somewhat half-hearted at best and depressing at worst. The house began to take on an unloved look as that’s how we felt about it. Why did we need all these ROOMS? All this stuff? We’d lived in gers, campervans, train sleepers, tents and more one-bedroom hostel rooms than we can remember and now suddenly we had all this bricks and mortar. We missed the proximity. Most of all, we missed the excitement of moving on and waking up to a new horizon and a new set of interesting faces each day.

The plan has to be less ambitious and more long term this time around. We have to educate the kids for at least the next six years ourselves and, for their sakes, could do with them getting some sort of qualifications along the way. After all, we’ve made the decision to divorce ourselves from the rat race, but they may want to rebel and head right back into it. We don’t plan on flying anywhere unless we absolutely have to. This is not just from an environmental point of view, but a financial one. We need a home that roams.

So, with the house on the market and having quit my job, we are painting or selling everything that doesn’t move (and sometimes things that do, sorry kids). We are furtively and hopefully looking at great big buses in which we can live, travel, spend winters on the beach and summers in the mountains, teach the kids and make enough to fund our adventures.

Of course, all the fears are here – what if the house doesn’t sell? What on earth do we do then? Why did there have to be a global economic downturn JUST when we wanted to sell up and go?

But the bus is calling. And we hear it, loud and clear.