Answering The Whys of Our Trip

You have probably seen and been envious of those people who are able to just pluck themselves out of their mundane lives and travel freely with no worries. That's not us. Not exactly. Our decision was never made on a whim. We just never really told anyone about it.

Anyway, with any seemingly radical (or extraordinary) decision comes a series of questions on the principles and considerations behind it. Since the 2nd post seems harder to write than our 1st, it's probably appropriate for us to explain ourselves on 2 of the key WHYs.

Q1. Why travel now?

The most compelling reason would be time and money. Then again, I strongly believe in fate: that there’s always a certain time and reason for everything, and this world trip just happens to fit nicely into our bigger plans in life, like a jigsaw piece. Like I said earlier, this was planned for since 10 years ago, although plans do change, but not to too big an extent. The biggest change for me was finding Leann. I guess I was lucky she shared my dream.

Still, everything that I have done, right down to the proposal, travels and wedding were guided and timed accurately by a larger picture for the future. In other words, if you look closely, it was all meant to happen now: our current but temporary financial freedom, the house in 2016, the need to build a resume that I could still rely on when I returned, SG50 (I'm patriotic ok) , our families' current stable condition, and the serendipity of cues and signs that somehow point us in this direction. Aug 12 also marks the day I stepped into EY after leaving the army in 2013. I initially wanted to make this my last day of work in EY (that's another story).

But we knew, deep in our hearts, that the rat race cannot be avoided. How I wish I was more wealthy, or more talented such that my skills would grant me a high-paying job anywhere I went. We had to come back eventually. And despite the risks that we were taking, we still craved for stability in our lives.

Then again, we know that the risk will be well worth the effort and all that we have put in.

Q2. So.. Why 200 days?

If anyone bothered to count, we will be on the road for 201 days. #200daysinabackpack was coined after booking our one way-tickets out after national day and netting it off our estimated return date of Feb 28, not knowing it was going to be a leap year in 2016 (Hooray to 1 extra day! Good news to us, but not always good news to the working peeps)

We didn’t change it to #201daysinabackpack, simply because I have a small preference for nice whole rounded numbers. If you haven't noticed, I proposed to Leann on the 1600th day, and we got married on our 2000th day as a couple. (See our wedding site here)

Oh yeah.. I guess I didn’t really answer the question of why 200 days (why not more? or as my relatives would ask, less?). So here's why:

We think 6 months is the bare minimum to execute a world trip. (Obviously so wrong about it. Truth is, even a year isn’t enough. Our itinerary doesn’t even touch the African, Antartic and Australian continents, and just barely scratched the North American continent surface. Frankly speaking, no amount of time is ever enough)

We are limited by the fact that we need to return when HDB decides to give out the keys, or we run the risk of losing our house. Even then, HDB will only give us the keys after reviewing our ability to repay the HDB loan, judged based on 3 months payslip, which we obviously wouldn’t have since we wont be working. So although TOP is still scheduled for 4Q 2016, we predict it will come earlier (looking at current progress). Thus, we need to come back early, tell HDB to wait while we find a job and prove our worth.

We are limited by cash. Leann finally became financially free since January 2015. And although I was well paid by the SAF back then, a lot of money went into funding our travels and wedding last year. The budget we have is actually sufficient for a year of travel if not for our desire to dive in the Galapagos Islands. If you have not heard of it, google it. Or just.. well.. trust us on this. We have had friends who have dived there and claimed it to be the most magical place on earth.

On a side note, my mum’s birthday happens to be on 1st March.

So after putting in place all these considerations, the answer was simple. Plus the idea of a round number like 200 just made it feel even more perfect. Good vibes you know? And yes. Its pretty obvious that I am a Paulo Coelho fan.

Love,

Vik and Leann