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?!

show them the world

They are three and a half and one years old.

Sounds amazing, I wish I’d done something like this. Go for it OP!

Oh OP if you do it please come back and share your tips! This is my dream (don't have kids yet but hope to). I know a few people who've done it (NB they are particularly adventurous people) and they said you need to travel slower because of the kids, but that can also be a huge bonus as you can spend a few months in some places and really settle in. And of course do research into healthcare and get great insurance before you go.
There are risks to renting - you might get a tenant that causes damage to the place that's a hassle to sort out; a problem might arise that is expensive to deal with and counteracts the profits from the year; and of course it's always possible you'll get a lower price in a year than you would now. But if you sell and leave, you'll have the advantage of being chain-free and ready to go, plus you'll have a set budget - the main risk would be finding somewhere to live once back in case buying takes longer than you'd hoped, and the risk of a random rise in prices. If you'd be left with no savings after travelling, this is a concern - but you could put the profits from the house sale in decent accounts earning 5% or so, which may get you more than renting out the house would.
If you start to have a wobble, you could consider a more European focus, where you're closer to home for any emergencies and it's not too expensive if you're not in the main touristy areas. Perhaps keep one of the cars in this case. Personally I'd do that rather than Dubai or Abu Dhabi.

Rent your house, sell your cars & other valuable assets (art, furniture, tech). Don’t pay to store anything, it’s ludicrously expensive, ask if friends and family to store anything too precious to leave with the renters. Fund trip using savings, sale of assets and rental income. Buy a new house when you get home, using old house as collateral. Legging it abroad for two years will make it difficult to get a mortgage (unless you already have one) when you get back. Presumably your income would pause whilst you travel?

It sounds crazy to me. You'd be running away from some stresses but you'll come back much worse off financially, having to rent as there'll be no recent earnings from employment in order to get a mortgage, and still back to the job stresses you ran from.

The DC are too young to understand or appreciate what they experience and won't remember it anyway.

I'm another who's lived and worked abroad in many places, Asia and ME included, with regular stretches of free weeks to see and enjoy some amazing places (at my employer's expense too) but I'd be hard pushed to convince myself that what you're proposing is a good idea for your long term futures.

Obviously there will be plenty of blasé "YOLO!" replies but I'd think long and hard about the end game if you do go on this whimsical trip. Coming back to the same stresses but in a far worse financial position, for the sake of 'making memories', wouldn't be my bag.

I think travelling with a baby is hugely different from travelling with toddlers. Toddlers are very much mobile but have no sense. Every amazing view will be punctuated with trying to stop a determined toddler trying to throw themselves into the abyss.

Apologies, I haven't RTFT.

But one thing that occurred to me was travel insurance - the costs and whether you could even get cover for that length of time if you're no longer resident in the UK.

Having a medical emergency far from home with 2 toddlers is not a scenario I'd relish...

I actually know/have met quite a few people who’ve done this, most of them had school age children and enrolled them in online school and spent up to two year travelling. They loved it but were definitely into alternative lifestyles even when living in the UK (Steiner schools etc).

With younger children is could be harder, as the one couple I knew who had babies/toddlers had a camper van and based their travels in Europe before Brexit - not sure how easy it would be to get any form of travel visa that would cover a year/extended travel exploring Europe now.

Because of this, and the loss of the European health care coverage, I’d be very wary of taking very young children overseas without access to good medical care.

I think it’s doable with older children, though - but it has to be for more than ‘being unhappy’ now and can’t be done in a whim. It needs a lot of planning, decent savings to cover emergency health care for each of you, a back up in case either of your children are later shown to have SEN/NDs or some other developmental need. And you both ned to be mentally and emotionally ‘in a good place’ before you go.

It sounds to me as though DH needs some counselling (careers and personal) before you do anything drastic. If there are underlying issues as to why he is unhappy at work, why you want to move to a different part of the country on your return etc… then those issues will just be carried with you, and could actually turn a fantasy travel adventure unto a full-scale nightmare if he has a mental health crisis when away.

Reins.

I agree with a pp about those posters who say “We did this with our baby and it was great”… Travelling with ONE BABY is entirely different from and IME a hell of a lot easier than travelling with TWO TODDLERS.

Personally i would, life is short and if you would enjoy it then FK YEAH

This.
My daughter rented out her house when she moved in with her boyfriend. ( As a back up plan in case the relationship didn't work out.)
FF 1 year and she gave the tenants loads of notice that she intended to sell.
They refused to move out and 2YEARS later she is still waiting for a court case.
This,despite paying extra for safeguards to the rental company.
It's a nightmare if tenants won't move.
Beware!

FWIW, a couple of months in an air conditioned BnB in Dubai with toddlers is the nearest thing to living hell that I can imagine. And for why? So your kids can get acquainted to complete cartoon series on TV? Because that is all they will be doing there.
SE Asia would be culturally much more interesting. Rent a place in Luang Prabang for a month and get to know the area and the country.

Yes, because the kids certainly won’t remember it.

Clearly haven't met my dc who both grabbed the reins, hauled me over and then sat on me like I was a horse. Then ran off into the abyss anyway. I would love a compliant child!

Agree with all other posts, dont sell rent your existing home out.

If you sell then come back with just a new home deposit , you will not get back onto the property ladder for a while, firstly you will be starting over as a first time buyer, you need to be able to show your recent bills with proof of being a good payer on rent ect, your previous home bills will not suffice, also you/husband will need to of been employed for the last how ever many years is required nowadays on mortgage applications.

Why dont you buy/rent a camper van and do a dummy run across Europe for 3/4 weeks in the summer, (not sure if husbands employment will allow him to take all his leave in one go, or request unpaid leave perhaps?) it will give you an idea of how this will work both being around each other and the children 24/7.

Yes we have. Our eldest has been abroad 11 times.

I have found parts stressful, but overall, I really enjoy taking them away and giving them new experiences (even if they are too young to really remember!).

I find the flights stressful, and also the car seat situation in regards to getting around. But other than that, I’m of the mindset that it’s no more stressful than being at home, so why not be enduring the stress elsewhere?

Libby Purves and her husband Paul Heiney took a year out and sailed round the coastline of Britain with their toddlers - she wrote a book about it called One Summer's Grace - it's a lovely book, and it sounds as if it was a wonderful experience for them all - albeit one with ups and downs, and some difficult times.

Your plan sounds exciting, @travellingwithtoddlers - and if you can afford it, and if your toddlers are good travellers, I think it would be an amazing thing to do.

Would you do some sort of travel blog/potential book, do you think?

We are planning on selling our current house whether we go travelling or not. We are needing to move cities, so will have to pay stamp duty to move no matter what.

Neither of us have ever been backpacking, but we definitely wouldn’t plan on this style of travelling. We would aim to stay in places for longer and to use air b&bs and stay in more tourist-y areas rather than off the beaten track. I definitely wouldn’t be planning on taking the kids to particularly dirty areas.

The suitability of the places for the children is way more important to us than ticking off places from our own “must see” lists for sure. I would go as far as to say the entire trip would be planned around the DC with the aim of visiting areas that are super child friendly.

For this trip, I would be prepared to start our eldest at school late. I don’t feel that she would miss out on too much. It’s why we are keen to go now - if we don’t do this soon, it will be too late once the children are older and need to be in school.

We aren’t running from anything; we are just bored of the UK!

For this trip, I would be prepared to start our eldest at school late.

What will you do if you can't get a school place?

@travellingwithtoddlers Whatever you do, you would be really, really, unwise to sell your house before you go. I see you want to change your location when you come back, but you would be coming back with no job to go to, at least in the short term, all your savings gone and wouldn't be able to get a mortgage until one of you, at least, does have a job - so it wouldn't be the 'quick' resettling you are imagining., for starters and you could find yourselves very much worse off when you return and bitterly regretting selling. Rent it out while you are away and it may help to offset the mortgage payments while you are away

Having said that, I think you are getting caught up in the excitement of all the planning and are not thinking how you will cope with two very small children who will catch all kinds of bugs, at least one still in nappies, the heat, the dirt in many places you are thinking of visiting away from tourist areas.-, the different foods they will have to eat and get used to, the travelling light, washing and laundry facilities etc. etc.

A nice dream for you, but entirely impractical IMO with 2 very small children. Many of us want to run away from time to time, when our jobs are getting us down and also when we have very small children, but your husband should look for a new job (in a new area you want to move to) and do that instead. I do understand how awful it is when you absolutely hate your job, but really, this will not be the fun time away you think it will be and very very bad for your children. They won't remember the time away anyway.

I sincerely hope you don't do this

To be honest, this applies to our life now! We live hours away from all family, and neither of the DC go to nursery. I am a SAHM and we do mix with other children and adults at toddler classes/soft play - but outside of our immediate family, the DC don’t have any meaningful relationships with anybody else really.

We would have facilities - we would rent air b&bs, not stay in hostels like backpackers.

On reading the original title I thought "madness induced by too much watching people's unrealistic on line lives"
But after reading your actual plan...I'd say it's really a long holiday not traveling.
You plan on staying in hotels in areas slightly more challenging and having 1&2 months in Dubai is definitely not showing children or dh the world... it'll be watching cable TV in air conditioning and trips to the mall....
I'd probably say if you want the feeling of "doing travelling" and the kudos of saying " oh yes we took the children traveling when they were babies" ...then why not a motor home round Australia and new Zealand for 6 months ..

I would have to home school until a place did come up. Are primary schools really so full that it’s a possibility I wouldn’t be able to get a place (genuinely asking as I didn’t know this?)?!