Hi everyone, I've spent all week reading this fantastic thread and have finally finished! Not that fussed about the 'how do you do it' side of things right now, as we are already 6 months into hard savings with 6 months to go to our big trip (Africa, South and Central America for at least 18 months starting July 2008). However, it's been really intersting to read how others are doing it, and see the similarities (or not) to our situation, as only a short time ago I was wondering 'how can we do it!!'

Really, a point comes in your life where you decide it's time to go and suddenly nothing else is as important anymore. You reassess what you're doing in your life and what you really need to spend money on (or really, not!), and start saving! For us, that turning point was the 2008 HUUK meet when we realised we had 12 months left working in the UK, that was plenty of time to save up and finish the bike travel preparation we'd already been doing to equip oursleves better for smaller trips, hubbie was ready for a career change, and we could celebrate 10 years since our 1999 world backpacking trip! We've been saving so well that our original thought of 6-12 months is now at least 18 months. If we didn't have a shed full of stuff stored in Oz, we wouldn't have a tie in the world and there wouldn't be an endpoint! Such is life (and yes, we're looking for ways to sort that out but it's looking unlikely...)

So my only addition was to suggest people look into Antarctic service. I know both Oz and UK employ tradespeople to work on their bases throughout the year (I'm sure USA and others do too). I've had personal experience working in the Oz Antarctic, and the tradies there got a great deal - zone tax break, no living expenses at all, usually 12 month contracts (sometimes longer). Guys I worked with were either single and making enormous pay-offs on their house loans, or had a family at home they supported and still raked it in. If you're single and wanting to save for a big world trip, it's definitely an option! It's not just tradies either (electricians, carpenters, plumbers, diesel mechanics) but also station leaders, communications officers, electronics engineers, physicists and meteorologists (they could never get enough people for this job right across Oz!). Us poor bum scientists usually go as volunteers or PhD students and make no money

Good luck to everyone who reads this and makes the jump into the uncertainty of the travelling life!

Tam (sorry for the essay)