Chasing time, not money: our flashpacking journey

The daily grind of corporate life had us ‘existing’ not living. Working long hours, commuting, earning a salary, paying taxes and putting money aside for retirement – it seemed a never-ending cycle.

We are in our late 50s, just two of the four million baby boomers in Australia and 450 million worldwide.

We began to ask ourselves if we really could keep this pace up for another decade. We worried whether, at the end of that time, we’d still be healthy enough to follow our travel dreams.

Then one of our sons took a gap year and we stalked him with some envy via Facebook as he travelled through South America and Europe.

We put all our fears aside and consciously stepped out of comfort zone. A few years before, we had downsized from a large family home on the Northern Beaches of Sydney to a two-bedroom rental apartment. We then downsized again to half a garage of storage and left on our own senior gap year. All our worldly goods were packed into a 70-litre travel bag.

Our first epic one year round the world, flashpacking adventure started in February 2013. Travelling to South America, Europe and Asia we travelled:

• 11,602 miles (18671 km)
• visited 21 countries
• stayed in 72 different accommodation
• flew on 20 planes
• travelled on 65 buses
• rode on 18 trains
• sailed on 14 ferries
• bumped around in 11 Tuk Tuks
• flew in two hot air balloons over Turkey and Myanmar
• trekked for 4 days/3 nights to Machu Picchu
• Sailed on a steamer down the Mekong River
• Survived the Devils Throat Jet boat ride at Iguassu Falls
• And many more adventures along the way

All on a daily budget of AUD$165.

We had such a blast. So, keen to share our hard-won knowledge, we created To Travel Too – a name inspired by our goal to travel with you (too) to exciting places around the globe. Our website will be launched early 2015 before we head off towards Ecuador and Mexico. In the meantime you can follow and particulate in our open forum for like-minded travellers via our Facebook page.

Since our return in February 2014 we have been house sitting around Sydney. House sitting has given us the opportunity to live in suburbs that we have never lived in before, caring for pets and homes and meeting their wonderful owners, many who will remain firm friends. This strategy has had a major impact in reducing our living/existing costs. We estimate we save between $150-185 per day. Imagine the $$ savings and imagine how that converts into an increase in your savings, we estimate this is an equivalent to a four per cent increase in our balanced investment strategy. Our house sitting experience this year has enabled us to currently secure two house sits, a month each in Ecuador and Mexico in 2015.

In 2015, we hit the road at the end of February and head towards Central and South America. We estimate we will be on the road for a few years, with no fixed plans on where we will travel too, how long we will stay and what we will do. The goal will be to reduce our costs to AUD$100/per day, which will be the equivalent to the current couples aged pension for a year.

But we do know we will be chasing time, not money.

Do you want to travel the world? Where would you go if you could? Or have you been on a similar journey? Tell us all about it below!