Where’s Next For Us? A 2021 Update
Talking about future travel plans is just something that makes me all giddy inside.
Seriously, give me half an inch and I’ll take a full mile (and I’ll find it hard to stop.)
When the dreaded 2020 pandemic hit, travel plans were swept away from us. For anyone with a travel bug, this was quite hard to deal with. With talks of variants and new restrictions, it’s a constant underlying fear that I still have today.
Now, as the world is slowly rotating back to its normal state, I’m (just about) able to reload the Skyscanner app and dust off the hiking boots in prep for our next adventures. And nothing brings me quite so much joy!
This post will highlight my past trips and experiences, as well as a look into the future and what 2022 brings.
P.S: Get ready for some old-school photography skills from younger backpacker Jen!
Where have we been before?
Tom and I met in 2019 in New Zealand, but before that, I did most of my travel with my best friend, Matt.
My (big) travels began in 2014 with a life-changing solo trip to the US. Before this, I had travelled around Europe and the UK with family but had never left the continent.
After a cold winter in my university town, I decided I wanted something a bit more from my next 4-month long student summer. I knew I wanted to go further afield, and after some research, I came across the Camp Leaders program to work at an American kid’s summer camp.
A few months later, I was all packed up with my first ever overly large backpack, clueless to what solo travel actually was, and naive about what should actually be in my 30kg+ bag. Regardless, I walked away from my parents at Heathrow with a smile like a Cheshire cat and boarded the plane for my first long-haul flight to Wisconsin.
For the next three months, I worked 18 hour days, learned how to start a fire, toasted smores, and celebrated the fourth of July in my friend’s lake house with Cors Light and red cups. It was incredible.
Not wanting to leave the US without seeing more than just Wisconsin’s landscapes, I decided to spend another month travelling through the most predictable states in the country.
Travelling by Greyhound (yikes) and airplane, I made my way around Chicago, LA, San Fransisco, Las Vegas, Miami, Orlando and New York. It was quite the trip!
I bumbled my way across states not really knowing what I was doing.
I was spending way too much on transport, I had no idea about how to find the right hostels and people, and made a mess of just about everything.
But I had my first taste of backpacking, my first experience of seeing more of the world. This was only the beginning.
When I arrived back in the UK, my mindset had changed.
I picked up extra part time jobs, and saved every penny I had to take trips the following summer.
I had now recruited my best friend to come with me, and our first trip was planned to the classic newbie-backpacker location; Thailand.
After a few holidays in Europe and a bucket full of savings that were slowly declining, we set off for South East Asia with butterflies in our stomachs and again, an overly full backpack. I think I had a 60L, a small suitcase and a hand luggage rucksack.
All for 4 weeks of travel.
We travelled around the country drinking £3 buckets of vodka, buying God awful elephant trousers that swayed when you walked and eating cheap tofu pad Thai. We were laughed at and mocked by the Thai locals (and probably looking back, we deserved it), but we laughed with them because really, we had no bloody idea what we were doing.
(Get ready for some real cringe-fest photos next).
Even now when I look back on my travel journals, my Thailand memories make me smile the most. The innocence and longing to just enjoy myself in an unknown country is just so timeless. They’re just some of my most favourite memories.
Following Thailand, I was in my last year of university and worked extra hours to pick up more cash. Myself and my friend decided on interrailing the following summer, which was going to cost me more than America and Thailand put together (Europe is ridiculously expensive!)
Again, I still don’t think I had truly learnt what it was to be a ‘real’ backpacker, and we still ended up booking hostels and hotels that were costing us too much. We didn’t even end up getting a real interrailing pass. I think we just bought a ticket from place to place.
Nevertheless, over 3k later (on a 4 week trip) and another travel journal packed full of memories, we had spent our summer exploring Croatia, Hungary and Italy.
After completing a couple of trips, we now thought we were experts (we were not), and sat in a pub in Soho discussing what was next on our list. After a few wines, we had come up with our next trip. And it was going to be a big one.
We’d spend the whole year saving to move and travel to Australia in 2018.
Little did I know this was the best decision I’d ever make, as it led to me meeting my now full-time travel buddy.
January 2018 arrived, and I’d still not learned how to pack a backpack. I was weighed down by 30kg and a mini suitcase, and a bag stuffed full of goodies for a 10-hour flight to the other side of the world.
I had my entire family wave me off at the airport, and I felt my eyes fill with water as I said my last goodbyes.
But, as with everything else disastrous in my life, we were not heading straight to Australia (much to my dismay).
A month before we were leaving for down under, I lost my passport, which was needed for my visa. Now, if there’s anything to be said about the Aussies, it’s that they’re hot on visas.
My drunk and disorderly night out was going to cost me entering the country and living out the plan we had so well planned for the last 12 months.
Upon a ton of research, it seemed there was no way I could get a new passport and a new visa in the space of a month. In other words, I was screwed.
With the paperwork sent off and me just waiting for the behind the scene cogs to turn, my best friend and I were forced to revert to square one.
We knew we’d end up in Australia eventually, but we needed somewhere to go first.
We’d both quit our jobs, we’d both had our hearts set on going, and more importantly, we’d spent £500 on flights to Melbourne on January 4th.
Sitting in the front room, we went completely old school and laid out a giant paper map. The question we asked ourselves; where was close to Australia and where could we afford?
We’d saved enough for about 3 months of travel before settling in Melbourne and getting jobs. After research about visas and passports, we decided we needed to plan at least a month of travel before expecting to get into Australia.
It was pretty cool to be honest. I remember thinking how lucky we were to have the funds and opportunity to just plan a trip to anywhere in the world. The freedom I felt that day still sticks with me now, and is one of the reasons I constantly crave travel. Freedom.
After a lot of scribbling and note-making, we’d decided to take the flight to Australia on January 4th, but depart the airport when we arrived at our stop off in Hong Kong. We’d spend the next month travelling the city, Vietnam, and Malaysia.
The month was spent falling more in love with Asia, and brushing up our backpacking skills which left us finally feeling a bit more ‘in the know’ when it came to hostel hopping.
Although things were hardly plain sailing, and my visa issues were becoming more in-depth by the day.
Our time and money constraints were becoming tighter and we really needed to get in the country soon to set up jobs and find somewhere to live.
My prayers had been answered on one sunny Friday afternoon in Halong Bay when I received the news that my visa had finally been accepted. I was allowed into Australia!
Our flights were booked that afternoon and the next part of our adventure was about to unfold.
During my 12 months in Australia, I backpacked the East Coast, ‘holidayed’ in Cairns, Sydney, Byron Bay, and Surfers Paradise, and had some pretty incredible overseas trips to Bali and the Phillippines.
When our working holiday visa was coming to an end, the dreaded thoughts of needing to return home (sorry England, I just wasn’t ready for you again yet), were arising.
Determined to end the trip with a bang, we booked a month of travelling the East Coast (again), and a month of exploring New Zealand on the wonderful and wild Kiwi Experience bus.
Little did I know I’d meet my soul mate in New Zealand, and someone to travel with for all of my future trips (yay!)
Tom and I met in the January of 2019, and by February the following year, we were living together in a one-bed East London flat. Luckily for me, Tom shared the same dreams as I, and our travel plans began to unravel.
After Tom returned to the UK in May, Tom and I flew straight back off to Lake Garda, Italy for our first holiday. Then the dreaded pandemic hit.
The year 2020 really allowed us to refocus our goals, and after watching endless documentaries and travel programs, we made the decision to quit our jobs again and travel as soon as it was safe to do so.
In the summer of that year, we were able to holiday to Spain and travel to some parts of the UK.
As soon as lockdown lifted, we booked flights to Santorini, and spent our summer travelling Scotland, Wales and the Lake District (where my love of the UK really began!)
Where’s next for us?
Writing this in November 2021, our diary is full of trips. With most countries allowing vaccinated tourists in without quarantine, our longing to travel is finally allowed to be fulfilled again.
In January 2022 we’re off to Krakow, Finland in February and Israel in April, before we quit our jobs and jet off living the remote working lifestyle in October 2022.
We’re hoping to head to South America, Central America and the US after this, but we’ll work that out when we get there (and I’m sure a few things will go wrong first).
But for now, we’re enjoying locations around the UK, and spending all of our spare time trying to build a remote working lifestyle so we can continue to travel and earn money at the same time.
All whilst both in full-time jobs in education and property!
It hasn’t always been plain sailing, but one thing has always stayed the same.
I feel my happiest when I’m discovering a new place, culture and way of life.
Free from the routine of the 9-5 life, free from the burden of the mundane everyday world, and free to live on my own terms.
Jennie Wanders is my getaway to continue living the life I’ve always wanted to live. Living to meet new people, experience different cultures, and create new memories.
And it’s something I don’t think I’ll ever outgrow.
