To consider selling our house and travelling the world with two toddlers?

[travellingwithtoddlers]

DH have been discussing the possibility of doing this for a while. DH is incredibly unhappy with his job at the moment and is considering quitting and having a break to de-stress. I am a SAHM and we have two toddlers aged 1 and 3.5.

We don’t need to sell our house to use the money to travel (we have savings we could use). We are considering selling our house, lots of our possessions and our cars in order to reduce our responsibilities here at home and putting things that we want to keep into storage.

Ideally we would spend some time in SE Asia, Australia, the Middle East and perhaps return home after 12-18 months. We would then look to buy a house again upon our return.

Is this idea great or am I just swept up with the excitement of planning the trip? We can afford to support ourselves for the trip, but it would use all of our savings. We would be returning purely to a deposit for a house (from the sale of our current house) which would be approx 40% of the value of the sort of house we would like to buy (if this makes any difference!).

Also - does anyone have any tips on places to visit?!

Unless you have other income you won't be able to buy quickly on your return. You'll have no employment and just as importantly no employment history which you'd need to qualify for a mortgage. You'd need to rent while you found jobs, got through any probationary period and work long enough to show you have secure employment. You wouldn't be able to get UC because the house deposit would be past the exemption stage post sale and you might need to use a chunk upfront for rent as you'll have no recent history or secure job to show you can pay. Then you'd need to live off it till you had an income. If you can live with family in the location you want to be in that will cut down on the money you'll need to use from savings aka your deposit but it won't remove the issues with securing a mortgage. You'd also lose a chunk of savings/deposit to pay stamp duty.

Don’t sell the house. Rent it. Then absolutely do it. Amazing thing to do.

Have you been away with your babies before?
I certainly did not feel like it was a break or a holiday when I went with my DC at 10months.. it was just parenting in a different location with all my usual conveniences not with me.

Anyway, there is a travel influencer on Instagram called wanderlustchloe who has documented her trip to vietnam for a month with her under one year old baby.

Sounds like an amazing idea! I have travelled alot and occasionally see families travelling with toddlers. They backpack and take their kids around and it works well for them.

Whats your financial situation? Do you have an income? Renting your home out while you're away seems to be a great source of income and a missed opportunity not to.

This. Do it before school’s an issue. What a wonderful adventure.

One option might be to start off in an Airbnb then buy a second hand camper van to travel round in, then finish off in an Airbnb and sell the camper van. Move on to next country and repeat. A work colleague did that in America. Did a six month road trip, brought a van on the east coast, sold it on the west coast.

Unless you're very relaxed with using babysitters you've never met, etc (I'm not that relaxed myself), your kids will basically not interact meaningfully with any adults except their two parents. For over a year!

I think you're imagining that this odyssey will open their minds and build their confidence but in reality I think it'd do the opposite. Their world will shrink to just the nuclear family. That would likely hold back their vocabulary acquisition and other learning.

Do you know what area you want to move to when you come back? Can you buy there and rent that out while you’re gone?

I would concentrate on Australia, buy a camper van, travel round in that for a year. Beautiful country with so much to see and do. Sell it at the end. Kids always have access to their things and facilities, familiar food, western standard health care (free for emergencies for British people) English speaking etc. You can get 12 month tourist visas.

You could do a few weeks either end in SE Asia if you wanted.

As a counterpoint to the boring miserable no spirit moaners on the thread so far - if you’re in a position to do it without undue risk, which sounds like the case - go for it and make memories that’ll last a lifetime. Imagine the photos to look back and tell the kids about in years to come.

Don't even think about renting your house out. The way things are going you probably wouldn't be able to get it back within a year or more on your return. Read about s21, s24 and rental reform bill before renting anything.

We did it. Ours were 4 & 2. We travelled for a year. USA, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, China, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia.

We kept our house and rented it out. After returning we sold it and moved to Australia.

Financial suicide - absolutely. The loss of a years earnings, cost of the trip, cost of moving to the other side of the world and then the financial deficit (superannuation gap here in Australia). We are probably still not financially recovered 15 years later. Do I care - not one actual jot!! Would I do it again - 1 million times over and over.

It was the best thing we have ever done. A life changing family experience. Travelling with small children was far less difficult than I ever expected.

Editing to add: our children absolutely loved every minute of the trip.

I think the point about your children missing the chance to build secure relationships with other adults is a very important one. It will potentially be bewildering and stressful for them.

Your children are people with their own lives too. Not just extensions of you.

I live in Asia and have travelled SE asia. I definitely wouldn't reccomend it with toddlers due to humidity, crowdedness etc

Ha! In my experience nothing could be further from the truth.

Children are much much more flexible than we give them credit for. My children grew and changed irrevocably on our trip. Vocabulary and learning was just part of day to day life. I totally attribute this trip to the fact that our oldest now speaks five languages, fluently. They learned to communicate in different ways - playing with local children on the beach where nobody shared the same language was a great learning experience.

Our children didn't just experience a nuclear family and we didn't use a single babysitter.

Every day they were surrounded by new and interesting people (adults & children). We would often stay in places where other families were staying. Shared mealtimes, shared tours. In the USA we hired an RV and travelled for 2 months from East to West. There were a few families doing the same and wed regularly intersect.

Travelling did not limit or distress our children in anyway.

I would buy the house in the area you want to move to first, then rent that out and go

This.

This sounds like my dream trip! But I worry about the long term financial effects. Does your littlest remember the trip?

That's lovely that it worked for your kids. All children are different and with different personalities, and yours must be uniquely suited to this setup.

But my eldest, and the other kids I know, would find it jarring to build a friendship with a family and then not see them again, or not know for sure if she'll see them again. And then, were this to happen repeatedly, she'd start to withdraw and not bother to build a friendship next time.

I think that is more common.

No - they turned 2 halfway through the trip so no memories at all.

Our older child turned 5 just after we set off - they remember heaps.

Sounds amazing, although I would probably rather do it with slightly older kids , just because they won’t remember it, especially the youngest.

Having travelled extensively and had 2 children (after travelling) you are crazy to do this. It won't be the holiday you think. You never know what's ahead and you're taking away you're financial security just when you need it most.

Sounds amazing but I think you need to plan as much for what returning looks like as going. I have lived overseas extensively and repatriation needs planning. Where will you live on your return , have either of you got desirable skills so getting another job is easy what is the school situation like. Make sure you have a big financial buffer for this as unless you have relatives with a big house and lots of room it is expensive. Also renting your house is no guarantee you can walk back into your house unless you have a break clause and notice and know when you are coming back Last time we came back from overseas we couldn’t get into our rented house for 6 months because of the rental contract notice

I would rent out your house but I would ABSOLUTELY 100% go on this adventure. In terms of where it is hard to narrow it down but SE Asia is always a delight, cheap and good with kids for a safe adventure.
The kids may not even remember it but it will be a most wonderful experience for them and change their world view in a way you can’t imagine. Reset you and DH life and give you breathing space to plan the next step.
get all the vaccinations and decent travel insurance, don’t plan to go tomorrow fast or over plan it and just go. What an opportunity