Our 100 day anniversary has ticked over, 1 day before my 53 birthday.
So much has happened and we’ve seen so much that our previous life seems an eternity ago.
What have we learnt?
Long term travel vs short term holiday
The two couldn’t be more further apart in comparisons. We had to learn the art of being travelling nomads and not the holidaymakers that we usually were when travelling overseas.
Apart from not knowing what day of the week it is, your time in a country is only determined by your visa’s and in our case, when we have to be in a certain country to start our next house/pet sit.
When to stick to your budget and when to splurge
This is still an ongoing lesson we are learning. There is a fine line when trying to stick to a monthly budget but making the most of where you are in the world and not wanting to miss out on those ‘must do’ activities.
There are often long and involved conversations as to whether we should or shouldn’t do a certain activity and thankfully we can usually come to the same conclusion. We have to weigh up the pro’s and con’s, value for money, could we possible do it cheaper, investigate all options and if it still all seems worth it, suck it up and do it anyway. There is often an opportunity later in the month to make up the shortfall, especially if we have a sitting assignment coming up and we are saving on accommodation costs.
A good example of this was in Borneo. We had to make a lot of these sorts of decisions during our travel around Sabah. There were some islands off the coast of Kota Kinabalu which are supposed to be stunning to visit. Good idea you might think. On further research we found a lot of comments that you had to really search for the fish and coral, beaches had a lot of litter on them and there was a huge influx of tourists visiting during the day. Considering we have seen some stunning island beaches in the past, we decided that as much as it sounded like a great place to visit, we would not spend the money and risk the disappointment when comparing it to islands we’ve been to in the past.
Slow travel is good travel
It is better to stay in one place longer and see as much and do as much as you can than to visit as many places in the same amount of time and only cover off half the attractions.
Believe it or not, it is quite taxing on your mind and body to keep going everyday, moving every few days and even unpacking the basics each night of moving can quickly become a pain.
When you travel like you are on holiday, it takes a lot of time and research to try and find what there is to do at each destination. If you don’t have the ‘down time’ and just stay put for a while, it becomes more of a burden than a pleasure to find your next exciting thing to see.
No matter how long you spend in a place, there will always be someone who says…..’did you go and see this or did you manage to do that’. We do our research before visiting a destination but either time or money restraints will always dictate if we can do it or not in the end.
We have also discovered that good deals are easier to broker for longer stays. We have saved quite a lot of money by negotiating rates right down by staying for a longer period of time.
Compromise, compromise, compromise
If you think that marriage is all about compromise, then travelling together 24/7 takes the word to a whole new level.
We have identified our trigger points…….1. hot 2. tired 3. hungry (or hangry). Combine these three things together and when things aren’t going to plan and patience is called for, it can be a recipe for disaster.
Recognising the triggers and stopping for a second and laughing about the situation, it is easier to just pick yourselves up and carry on to get things sorted.
House and Pet Sitting
We have found this to be a ‘winner’ on so many levels.
It has given us a chance to be normal. Staying put in in one place, having a washing machine, a kitchen and a TV is an immediate plus.
However, there is more to it than this. We have stayed in some places that we would never have been able to experience otherwise. We have had the fortune to look after some pretty cute dogs and cats and we have been able to really explore our surroundings and found some real gems that we didn’t know existed.
Out house/pet sitting assignments so far in the last 100 days has included –
1. Summit, the Australian Mini Shepherd in Phuket
2. Blonde, Frankie and Jack, Rag Doll cats in Singapore
3. Max, the cavoodle in Penang
4. Our upcoming sitting assignment for 2 cats in Bangkok
Have we been homesick?
Not at all for our old life. We’ve decided that routine is a killer and we cannot believe how complicated our life actually was.
We do miss our family and friends and often reminisce about the get togethers, catch ups, outings and socializing. This is where social media comes in. Regular video calls, FB, Instagram and Twitter ensure that we are not missing out on too much that’s going on back home and we are kept up to date with all the happenings.
Where to next for us?
We have a 5 week house/cat sit in Bangkok coming up, but after that, who knows.
Fortunately we have been granted an extended Thailand Tourist visa which entitles us to 60 days with the right to extend it for a further 30 days. So unless another sitting assignment comes up somewhere, we will be sticking around Thailand for as long as possible.
It’s going to exciting to see what the next 100 days brings.