We quit our jobs and sold everything to travel the world - Here is why

So why The F@#k did you do it?!

The idea came after so many talks about the disappointment of our lifestyle. Working full-time (nah, even more… we were working 50 to 60 hours per week), having absolutely no time for ourselves, deeply consumed by the unsatisfaction of our jobs (and our life in general), feeling the pressure of a society that chooses the way we have to live, it became just too much.

I can’t deny that the pandemic played a huge role in this decision. The desire to start travelling again, discover new places, live again… we missed that a lot.

The stories on the internet were too many: “Couple leaves everything behind to travel full-time”, “Family chooses to quit jobs and travel the world”… I mean, the first thought was: it HAS TO be fake. How could people do that? And with kids?! It surely required a lot of courage.

But we did want to change our lifestyle so badly, and in the end, after so many talks, we got to the point where we asked ourselves: “Could we be more unhappy than this?”. The answer came fast: NO.

So that’s when we decided – no, we were determined – that if there were people out there who actually succeeded, we could do it too.

Quitting our jobs

So, we had to decide on the first steps.

“Should we really quit our jobs?” – we considered it. “But how could we live?”.

We didn’t have much savings; most of our earnings were spent on rent, bills, taxes, and the few weeks a year we spent back home to visit our parents. So losing our jobs was a risk we were not ready to take (yet).

Instead, we chose to start an online business (that’s it, the birth of Kikka’s Voyage), increased our work hours (to our full-time job, we added the time to dedicate to our new job), and hoped that soon enough it would have given us a decent income.

In the meantime, we used our savings to buy a second-hand van, converted it all by ourselves (with a veeery low budget) – that was soon going to be our new home. I honestly can’t describe how difficult that period was – working at our regular job, working at our new business, working on our van – it was insane.

It took a whole year.

But when we finally got a stable income out of our business and finished our van, here it was: we were so impatient to finally taste the freedom.

The new beginning

The day we finally quit our jobs was not an easy one. We were happy to have taken that decision and worried about what would have come next.

However, we decided that it was too late for second thoughts.

So I started to put (almost) all our belongings for sale – it was essential to downsize our things, as we were going to have limited space in our van. Realising how many things we kept in our house and barely used gave us a big shake. At some point – especially when you start travelling full time – you realise how many few things you need to carry out a comfortable lifestyle.

The day we finally moved to our van was one of the best of my life. Realising that we were absolutely location independent was huge. And still, waking up every day in a new place is one of the things I love most about this life.

The feeling that you can go (almost) everywhere and take your home and your job with you is priceless.

Affording the lifestyle

We knew we could afford an easy lifestyle with the website earnings. Obviously, we were not earning a huge amount of money, but it was enough to live, especially considering we would soon have lived rent-free.

We lowered our expectations and decided to live entirely by the day. Living in the present without even knowing where we would have been the day after – or the same evening – was incredible.

The truth is that, when you start the vanlife, it’s up to you how much money you need. If you choose to travel to an expensive country, visit a new city every day and go to camping sites every night, £3.000 a month will never be enough.

We have a good lifestyle, take our time to explore new places, avoid super expensive restaurants, and only visit camping sites when we really need to – and we can get by with £600/£700 a month. Both of us.

That’s way less than we were spending living home – with the difference that now we are living our dream of travelling full-time.

Truth be told: regrets?

We’ve been “vanlifing” full-time for two months now – and I’ve never been happier.

The feeling of living our life to the fullest, jumping into new experiences every day, exploring new places, new cultures, living in contact with nature, or just moving to a big city when we need it, is why I would choose this life again.

I do have one regret, though. I wish I had done it earlier. I wish I wouldn’t have settled all these years for society’s expectations. I wish someone would have told me: “If your dream is to travel, you can do it”.

And that’s what I want to leave you with today. Remember that life is limited, but your possibilities are limitless. You don’t need tons of money to travel the world – you just need to be determined to realise your dreams.

Digital nomads have become very popular in the last few years. And the reality is that if so many people did it, you could do it too.

I wrote an entire article about how to become a digital nomad, have a look at it here!

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