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?!

I think it sounds amazing. I’ve been taking my children on holiday at least twice a year for 11 years; starting when the eldest was 10 weeks old.

I would absolutely do it OP.

Personally, traveling with small children is my idea of hell. I tolerate it only due to distance from family. Have you done many (any?) long distance travel with the two of them?! If so then you are a braver woman than me!

What an odd POV 🤔 we have travelled a lot and met little families travelling together and they were absolutely delightful, confident children. Go for it.

you couldnt pay me to go back to the gulf. Of all the places for a prolonged visit, Dubai and Abu Dhabi? Hard pass. And yeah with two toddlers this all sounds hellish to me.

I think it sounds like a great idea, even if you were to travel only around the UK and Europe it would still be a great idea.

Do you know where you want to settle when you come back? If you're unsure of that, you could try a few different places during your break. Regardless of what you do, I think you and DH having that time away from work with your DC is brilliant.

Same thread the other day just with a middle aged couple with grown up children - everyone was like YOURE AN IDIOT DO NOT DO IT! MN isn’t really the place to ask for serious life advice 😄
I’d love to do it in theory and think you’re living a lot of people’s dreams! But in reality I’m a shit traveller and my 3 kids just love being comfy at home tbh.

Sounds like a good age to do it though - my oldest is at the age he just wants to hang out with his friends and play sport and he’d miss that terribly.

I think go for it, but don’t sell your house… that’s a big risk IMO. Rent it out instead

I think there must be a compromise here - especially as the main motivation seems to be your husband isn’t happy at work. I definitely think travelling with a young family can work (particularly if you’re confident travellers, quite laid back etc) but it just seems so risky to potentially throw away your long term financial security to do so. And that’s without touching on other practicalities others have raised that hadn’t occurred to me either (like having a UK address for school places, not having a working history for a mortgage etc on return).

It sounds like you have a decent chunk of savings so why not use some of them to potentially help DH with the job situation (is it the job itself or the industry he’s in, could he retrain etc) as running away then coming back to the job won’t help. You’ll have great memories but he’ll still be in the same situation only without the financial cushion/additional pressure to get you back on your feet (just thinking about how much it would cost to buy a new fridge, bed, car etc all in one go!).

The rest could be used for a shorter adventure where your money could stretch further (as you could treat yourself a bit more without having to think about how are we funding another year of this!). Maybe 6-12 months? In terms of route I’d fly out via somewhere like Malaysia and spend a couple of weeks exploring (it’s one of my favourite countries and the food is some of the best in the world). I’m pregnant with my first and I think it’ll be our first big adventure (although might test the waters with France/Italy first where we speak a little bit of the language and can get home much more easily). I’d also consider adding in Singapore. Then fly to either NZ or Australia (I’d go to NZ as it’s smaller so easier to explore - plus having travelled round it before I loved how many parks and trails you could detour to on your way to places, definitely made stretching your legs much easier). Have a base on the north island for a bit then head south. You could then head back via a different country in Asia or essentially go round the world and come home via the US. I wouldn’t go to Dubai as (mumsnet cliche I know) I find it really soulless and can’t get past the modern day slavery (plus it’s incredibly expensive, wouldn’t want to spend an extended period of time there whilst also having the financial stress of needing to sort a home out on return - you could go for a couple of days to break up the flights though, much as I don’t like the city I’ve had a few stopovers there and a nice hotel pool has been very welcomed inbetween long haul flights!

Have a look at 'travelmadmum' on Instagram.
This is exactly what her and her husband did with 2 young kids and then she fell pregnant with twins. From what I can remember they sold their house in London and off they went.
They've been literally around the whole world with their children

@travellingwithtoddlers I would absolutely do some trips or one massive trip like you suggests. But with two toddlers, or even one, that sounds like hell! I genuinely don’t think I could even face the flight… but maybe that is just me 😂 I’d definitely do some trips though to clean, hotel based places.

If your finances can cope I would definitely go for it - you can always come home early if it doesn’t work out how you planned. Better than having regrets of not having tried. We did a 6 week road trip in Europe when ours were the same age and although I look back with fond memories it was really hard at times and we considered more than once coming home early.
Definitely don’t sell the house. It will be a pain renting it out (insurance, tax returns etc) but not half as much as having to sort something else for when you return. As others have pointed out if you are out of the UK for more than a certain amount of time and have no income getting a mortgage will be harder and will take longer. On your, return things like the cost of car insurance might be higher because you’ve been out of the UK so you might need to factor that in.
Our trip got delayed as one of the kids got really ill with a middle ear infection. We’ve also had more than one occasion where we’ve needed a doctor while we’ve been away. I would definitely go to places where medical care is easy to access. I would go to Australia, plan the first month and see how it goes.
Good luck!

Oh god, yes, travel. There will be good times and horrible times like at home.
But you won't look back and regret it.
Fabulous for the kids!
However I would also rent out the house.

I would do it with the kids, but it depends on the kids! We take month long “backpacking” trips with our little one. Change cheap hotel every 2/3 days and travel quite quickly. It’s all gone really well but he doesn’t care about a routine and goes with the flow.

She’s clearly not.
OP we have travelled with our 3 month old to SE Asia last year, it was the best experience for us.
I recommend Koh Samui ( or anywhere within reach of good hospital in case of emergencies)
You’ll be able to find reputable childcare there should you want to use it
As someone already said this is absolutely doable, with 2 toddlers though don’t rush - staying in 1 place for a bit longer will be better than changing location each week
Enjoy :)

Taking the opportunity to travel sounds amazing. Does it have to be this extreme? I would look at a shorter duration 6-12 months planning to get back and settled before your eldest starts school. Assuming this would cost less it gives your H time to sort out work once back, which he'll need for a new mortgage.

Oh and why Dubai or Abi Dhabi? you couldn't pay me to go there.....

I haven't done an extended travel with mine but we did take them many places including China and Hong Kong before they were 5.

They don't remember any of it.

It was do able and they enjoyed some of it and hated others.

I enjoyed the travel as while childcare might be same shit different location some locations are very interesting,

Some SE Asian countries do not have any thing approximating western healthcare - for example I was on a business trip to Laos recently and the arrangements for if I got ill were helicopter to Thailand who actually have hospitals.

So get decent healthcare.

It had no long term impact on the kids at all. So don't do it for them.

I would worry about the kids not having a home, familiar environment, any familiar people apart from the 4 of you. They won’t see you having any normal social interactions unless you speak the language. It seems like a strange experiment to perform on young growing minds.

We can all have opinions OP but you need to hear from people who’ve actually done it. Have you checked out YouTube? There are loads of people who make a living documenting their travels, bound to be some with kids.

This. Kids are adaptable if they’re allowed to be. You know your children better than anyone else. If you think they’d thrive on an adventure like this they probably will. If you had the kind of kids some posters seem to have you wouldn’t be contemplating it.

My DH travelled a lot pre kids, he thinks he likes the whole carefree, sleep on a bench, rock up on a beach, bag the cheap seaview but the mind certainly plays tricks on him.
Modern life means everyone is very pre-booked organised, the restaurants are booked, the good accommodation is taken.
DH really wasn't at his best parenting small kids, he broke me because I carried the mental & physical load. Whilst he project managed inessential diy, trained for a race hobby and kept up with old friends I was there holding a toddlers hand, bored out of my brain.
If he'd been unhappy at work then he would definitely have gone down your route and I would have been broken without a network of friends to support me.

And Dubai? I don't get that at all. Soft play and mall shopping in a hot climate. Once the novelty of seeing a camel has passed, very quickly your kids are hardly going to be out surfing the dunes in over specced cars.

I would have loved to have done this but not brave enough. Go for it so I can live vicariously through you.
Don't sell the house though, rent it and you may even have enough funds to use towards travelling too.
Sell everything else though (obviously not sentimental things)

If you sell house, where would you live when you get back? The rental market is a nightmare and you won't have jobs...

Yes, as the saying goes 'No matter how far you run away from your problems, there you are'

I would love to do this, but would hate to do it with two toddlers. Surely you will just spend all your time trying to settle them to sleep in different places, finding things for them to eat, stopping them having tantrums, trying to get them to bed in hostels without them screaming the place down? We went backpacking in Europe ( didnt sell the house, it was onlly for 6 weeks) with older kids and it was the best thing I have ever done. Toddlers, I cant imagine anything worse!