I was asking the exact same question about a year ago. And now I'm living in a truck parked up in Morocco and shipping to south america in July.

I'm also 44, and I quit my job. I'm not going into personal finance but some stuff is easy to work out. There has been quite a few threads on it, but the way I figured it, was a budget of just under $100 per day covers everything. Some days we spend less than $10, but then we have to allow for heavy stuff like shipping, insurance etc. Then take a look at what you can put together and are willing to put into a trip, and that will decide how long you can go for.

The more shipping, or big mileage days adds up the cost - diesel is out largest bill. For a bike, it's different, but then we dont have any hotel bills. We've spent exactly 1 night in a hotel since we set off last year, and that was just so we could stay there with friends.

We cook all the time, buy local, only have a drink once a week or so. We eat out maybe once per week. Sounds awful, but actually it's nice!

I was in a job where I could take a nice holiday every year, and could pay into my mortgage as fast as I could. As soon as the house was paid for, life changed a lot as there were no more nooses around my neck. I was never a rich guy, but always careful with money.

now, I have the house rented out and 90% of the rental income comes into my bank account, and that goes a long way to keeping us going.

Hope this helps someone else to make the jump, we're not sorry!

Merv.