Planning, preparing, packing

 Can we go?

We first dreamt up this plan back in March 2024 when we were trying to come up with a way to have a better work:life balance right now, plus a route to early retirement in the future.  I'm very fortunate that my employer offers a variety of different flexible working options (part-time work, job sharing,  20 days international working per year) but when I mentioned the option of a 12 month sabbatical, Lee Ann was all for it! First step for me was getting approval from my boss, and for Lee Ann to discuss with her business partner.  Both conversations went brilliantly and project sabbatical was officially launched. 

Where to go

Next we created a high-level plan of where we wanted to travel to.  We'd both done a fair bit of travelling before we met, and between us can tick off an impressive number of countries, but one place remained at the top of both of our bucket lists - Japan.  We'd considered it as a honeymoon destination but felt two weeks just wouldn't do it justice.  Canada was another top pick (especially after watching Race Across the World) , as well as Thailand for the January weather. Taiwan was recommended to us by one of Lee Ann's clients, and we also wanted to revisit The Alps.  Worried we didn't have enough mountains in the plan, Lee Ann wanted to add trekking in Nepal.  She then mapped out the sequencing to maximise our hiking options in each country.

That was our early plan.  Several months later we were forced to adapt it after Karen's breast cancer diagnoses and,  following successful completion of her treatment plan, we decided we wanted to stay a bit closer to home for the first leg (the Himalayas will have to wait).  We also had to delay the start of the trip by one month. You are pretty limited on hiking options in Europe in February / March time so Madeira became an easy first choice.  

What to spend

When working out our budget we found www.budgetyourtrip.com super helpful. It gives you an estimated daily cost for meals, transport, accommodation and activities based on real data uploaded by other travellers.  It even lets you choose a travel style: Budget, Mid-range or Luxury.  Whilst we have been known to wild camp, bothy & bunk house when bagging Munro's in Scotland, if given the choice we are luxury all the way! However, we've got to make our savings pot last a whole year so expect to hear more about our budget accommodation adventures....

I use a personal financial planning tool called Pocketsmith to keep track of our income & expenses. It's linked to your bank accounts and lets you categorise your transactions and set up budgets to track against.  Its fully customisable so I've added sabbatical related categories allowing me track our daily spending per country.  Will be interesting to see what comes out cheapest. 

What to pack

This is by far the hardest thing we've encountered as part of our planning and prep.  Lee Ann was a chronic over packer when we first met but she has improved massively thanks to my ruthlessness (going on holiday with  my washing-obsessed mum also helped).  Our aim was to travel as light as possible but we also had so much kit to fit in: yoga mats, hiking gear, running stuff, plus all our electronics, toiletries and medications.  Doesn't leave much room for regular clothes, and any non-essential items? Forget it!

Lee Ann spent a whole Saturday afternoon having a practice pack, meticulously trying all her items on to make sure they could be multi-purpose and match enough other items to justify their place in the case.  Thankfully, with the exception of trousers, we can wear each others clothes so my case is mainly made up of the things Lee Ann wanted to take but couldn't fit in. So our strategy:

• pack things that can be used for multiple activities
• stick to a monochrome wardrobe to maximise matching options
• pick things we can wear (and like) of each other's

We've both opted for a case over a backpack (only time will tell if this was the right decision).  More space in a case, but more cumbersome to move around and manoeuvre between different modes of transport.  I really don't recall even a fraction of this analysis and pre-planning when I went backpacking in my 20s:  a few t-shirts, pants, bikinis, hoodie, and a copy of Lonely Planet flung in a backpack and off I went. 

What to do

It's so exciting having an entire year to play with and the whole world at your feet (well, maybe not the whole world as there are over 60 countries where it's still illegal to be gay so they're 100% off the list). A full 12 months away from corporate life is such a privilege and I don't want to waste it.  I've decided the focus areas for my sabbatical are: 

• health & wellbeing
• adventure
• freedom
• next career chapter

We've already got some aligned activities booked in (yoga retreat in Madeira and 4 day coastal hike in Portugal) and I'll spend a bit more time working out the rest later. In the main we wanted to be outside as much as possible, preferably in the mountains or by the beach, taking each day as it comes and living life at a much slower pace. Number one priority is our health & fitness.  I'm intrigued to find out how easy its going to be to maintain a predominantly plant-based diet without a big Sainsbury's at our disposal every day.

Right, best get back to the packing....