If you have a house rather than completely sell up try downsizing to a flat. Nice to have roots if you plan to return.

I was an Engineer before I went away Backpacking for 18 months, was not so easy to return. Companies offered me work but I was not interested in the Rat Race.

Once you have travelled you will not want to go back. On route you could find alterative work, I trained and worked as a DiveMaster.

Your choice, keep some roots back home or SAVE SAVE SAVE and stay away as long as you can. My next trip I plan to make my life on the road.

Well, I found out last week that the company I work(ed) for has gone into liquidation.

I was meant to be returning there in the Spring to pay off my travelling debts as it was really well paid but now i have no job to go back too. SH*T !!!!!

On the possitive side, this means I have no limit to my travels now and have decided to slow down even more, lend some cash from my old ma and stay on the road for a couple of more months.

Ill now only just be leaving Argentina (where I started) when I should of already been back at work

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

Hi,

Not sure if anyone's still looking at this thread. Hope so, coz I need some inspiration.....

Been riding for 30 years. Currently running an FJR1300.

Question 1 - would you keep that or trade it for an 1150GS?

Next, I can think of a million reasons NOT to do a big trip on my bike including;

• An 82yr old, widowed father who I see at least twice a week and is becoming increasingly dependent on me. I take him shopping. I take him to the doctors, to his hospital appointments. I do his washing. I cut his hair. I mow his lawn. I look after his ever-more delapidated house (or I try to). I have power of attorney so I look after all his financial affairs.He's had 2 heart attacks and three strokes and is on at least a dozen tablets a day, for the rest of his life. I could no more leave him for a week than fly to the moon.
• I'm 47yrs old, married, with 2 kids aged 14 and 13yrs - every single penny goes towards keeping them fed and a roof over their heads - a situation that I cannot see changing for at least another 10-15years.
• We have a monster mortgage, at least 4 credit cards - 3 of which are 'maxed-out', and an overdraft on our overdraft. How on earth do I suggest to my wife that I'd like to go away on the bike for a month or more?
• I'm a police officer and, where I'm currently working, a 'career-break' is simply not an option (we've already been told that all leave for Christmas 2009 has already been booked!)
• My wife is menopausal - her hormones are checking out, whilst my 13yr old daughter's are just kicking in - it's like World War 3 most days in our house (a good reason to cut and run, but I genuinely fear for their safety if I wasn't around to keep them apart)

But, apart from those reasons listed above, there's absolutely nothing to stop me!

C'mon folks - I'm just an ordinary guy - like 99% of you on here. How the f*ck do you EVER get to escape and rack up some big miles on your bikes?

Hmmmmm hard one there.

You certainly do have a lot of responsibilites at the moment and with absolutely no offence meant, you need to sort out your financial situaton before going on an expensive trip. Thats for sure !

This guy your looking after, there is an infastructure in place in the UK to look after this guy. You seem very tied into this situation which is very good of you but you cant let it control your life..

As far as hormonal women and kids are concerned, thats a reason to go on a trip in itself.. Everyone needs a time out.

Remember, travelling doesnt have to be expensive. You could camp your way around most of Europe or stay at YMCA's etc. Chop in the FJR1300 for something more economical and cheaper. Im sure the cash left over would pay for your trip in itself. Anything bigger than a 600 is completley un-neccessary and usually totally impractical to travel with anyway.

It all depends where you want to go, what you want to do and more importantly, how determined you are you realise a dream !!

If your just looking for us to get yourself and family into further debt and abandon your wife and kids for a bit of a jaunt then I dont think we can help here !!


Oh, and how would you chop in an FJR1300 for a GS if your already self- confessed, SKINT !! ????

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

Most of the folks on here who travel a lot don't have dependent relatives .
They are young and fancy free , or middle aged and uncluttered with children , or [semi]retired "empty nesters".
Sounds like you will have to wait a few years mate , at least you have a regular job and can plan ahead a little .
Get rid of the borrowing ,that's the real noose round your neck .
In the meantime take short trips and enjoy your dad's company, he won't be around for ever !

__________________
Blessed are the cracked, for they let in the light. - Spike Milligan
"When you come to a fork in the road ,take it ! When you come to a spoon in the road ,take that also ."

For the wise words.

You're all right of course. With my current financial commitments, planning anything other than a Sunday morning ride out is madness.

Guess I'll just have to keep watching the DVD's and count the days to retirement!

I wouldn't quite give up yet. But with those commitments, I wouldn't be planning something for 2009 yet either.

Just work towards taking some longer and longer rides. Ease into it. Start out with an overnighter Sat to Sun. Then a long weekend, then a week, etc. Believe me, it won't fully satisify the longing for a RTW trip, but it scratches the itch a little bit.

As I indicated before, I am not intent on waiting for retirement to live some of my dreams. No guarantee I will make it that long. But making sure my family is well taken care of is definitely a priority. At the end of the day, though, my wife and kids do much better with a happy daddy.

Well Dodger

It seems from what you say that you have too many commitments to do RTW - you'd never relax if you did go - but can you get, say, 3 months off somehow and do a big trip instead? And RTW isnt the Holy Grail of travel, as Ted Simon once quietly pointed out at Horizons Ripley one year- remark which seemed not to have been heard by many.

Myself, I prefer many longer trips to the RTW experience, wonderful as that would be. I'm thinking of places like Samarkand, Tashkent, Timbouktou, Syria, and so on - as well as my regular trips round Europe, especially the new larger Europe.

Just a thought......get yourself down into South America for example...now that would be tasty!

I'm a tad older than you, but started my family a bit later. I made the mistake of planning a big trip before the youngest could be left alone, relying on grandparents and her developing maturity. When the latter didn't happen as quick as I hoped I replanned. Then she started having/causing problems at school (possibly partly my fault) so I replanned again. She seems OK now but I'm not willing to risk anything yet. Those plans are now on ice until she turns 18. I'm hoping she'll be at university then, but if not I was living alone at that age so she can learn. Harsh, maybe, but I don't want her "growing up" like some of her friends, who look likely to remain dependent on their parents for the rest of the parents' lives. The phrase "to grow up and leave home" does capture a certain truth.


I was probably quite evil in a past life, as I have two daughters. You have my sympathy. Can anyone explain when the mood swings start though; Mrs MarkE's mood swung once and I'm still waiting for it to swing back!

I admitted I was being selfish, but persuaded my wife that as the only male in the house I needed "man time" I take up to one week, on the bike and agree to check in daily (some areas however have very poor mobile coverage, honest!). All I have to do is remember to bring back some sort of bribe for my wife and promise to remain faithful - not difficult as living with three women means I don't really want to seek more female inputs to my life (my daughters made me a misogynist!). This year it will be a run across France to Trier, along the Mosel valley (very slowly), then onto Cologne for Intermot before returning via Utrecht to visit friends. It's not the big trip, but that is still planned.

You refer to 2 kids but only one daughter - would a father & son weekend be wrong? Again,. it is not a big trip, but it will help scratch the itch. Tie it in to school work; I took the elder daughter to a few stoneage sites for a weekend - it fitted her school project and we had a great time.

On this subject of the modern British family and it's current tendencies:
The best quote I recall on this was from an acquaintance of mine as he went to live abroad following his divorce. Regarding his grown-up kids (in their late teens from memory) --


"I've given them a good education and good manners, the rest is up to them".

__________________
Dave

You always wonder why the f*ck you ever came back. I do. I worked in Thailand for almost a year, teaching scuba diving on Koh Tao, a tiny island north of Koh Samui. I earned barely enough money to live on, and mostly subsidised it with money i had in the bank in England. And never in that year did i get out of bed in the morning miserable, bored, fed up with life...never! You can worry about how it will effect you when you're old, and take the safe route of being comfortable in retirement, when having done nothing with your life. My dad has enough money, yet at 64 all he does is work, because he has nothing else to do. That is not going to happen to me. I would rather take the risk now, while I can, then wish i had when i cant. When you get old all you want is to be dry and warm, and have food on the table..... thats enough. So what if you have half a million pounds in the bank when your 70.... its only going to someone else.. eventually.
So I'm gonna go and do it while i can.... sod the future, I'll deal with that later.
I took this view on life when, on new years day 1997, i got a phone call telling me my best friend had dropped dead... He was 25.
You never know the future, so if you want it, do it, and f*ck the consequences.

I've enjoyed reading everyones contribution to this thread. Its nice to know that real people are out there traveling, or planning to travel, and its not just the rich guys. To the rich dudes, more power to you, I'd be doing the same thing if it were me. Anyway I'm in my early 30s, got a wife, kids, and a plan. I'm active duty military, which has allowed me to travel 13 European countries on motorcycle so far, which now caused an ADV travel addiction. I can waste hours just thinking about my future RTW trip. Very non-productive, but at the same time it helps me put up with all the crap that I get to deal with. While I'm not thrilled with my career (wont start complaining), it will allow me to retire at the age of 45( I still need to work), my youngest kid will just be starting college, and hopefully my investment that I've dedicated to this trip will come back from the -45% that its worth at the moment. This RTW trip has stopped being a fantasy, and is now a goal. Best of luck to everyone.

Tim

It is like anything in life, it depends where your priorities are. Traveling is top on my priority, so I get to travel while I'm young and healthy.
The nice thing is that once you have traveled for a year or more on a tight budget, you can eazily start any kind of job anywhere in the world earning little money and you will be used to spending as little as possible. You do not need that new car or bike, you dont need to have 10 sets of clothes, you dont need to have a 2 or 3 bedroom house. . . . You see what I mean.

Johan