The term "gap year" is traveler slang for an extended trip abroad. It refers to the extended gap in day-to-day living that occurs when you decide to take time off and travel extensively. It can be seen as a gap in a resume or the gap between paychecks, but to us it is the window of opportunity that extended travel provides.

We are both travelers at heart and this year is the opportunity to see the many parts of the world that have eluded us. We figured that if something is this important to us, there is no reason to put it off a day longer. Since we had a honeymoon coming up, this seemed like a great way to celebrate our marriage and go on a very significant honeymoon. Plus we will have some incredible stories to tell our children!

We have a relatively loose itinerary. The Round-the-World plane ticket has five fixed destinations and departure dates. These are Samoa, New Zealand, Australia, Thailand, and Chile. That itinerary is not flexible or changeable and we have a few other set dates like our Antarctica and Galapagos trips and any treks we prebook. But beyond that, we are playing it by ear.

As the trip progresses, things start to fall into place. We got the tickets to Bhutan sorted out, the various flights to parts of Australia, and the South Africa tickets while we were in NZ. Once we get to Chile, we will start trying to sort out itineraries and connections for South America.

The first seeds of the possibility of an extended honeymoon started sprouting months and months before the wedding. Once we decided it was something we were going to do, the whole thing grew and evolved pretty quickly.  What was originally a month or two in South America became a side trip to New Zealand or the Himalayas...and so it became an entire year of adventuring in all the corners of the world that we wanted to see.

A lot of our trip planning was dictated by finances. Some places in the world are inherently more expensive to travel in than others. We opted not to go to Europe at all because we determined that it would cost too much. But travel in South America is relatively inexpensive, so we would focus a good chunk of our time there. We opted for two months in New Zealand and only a few weeks in Australia because we would be in NZ in the off season so we could rent a campervan at cheap winter rates and live out of it; thus saving tons of cash. Because of its size, Australia would involve lots of plane flights from point to point as well as car rentals and hostels/hotels - so we opted for a brief time there.

The single biggest hurdle was money, how in the world would we be able to afford to take a year off.  Brice had recently sold a car, since he was walking to work, so we had that cash tucked away in the bank with all of our other savings. We then started focusing all of our energy on saving money, getting rid of the home phone, not eating out, not buying anything that wasn't needed for the trip. After sufficiently tightening our belts, we started unloading things on EBay. Anything that had not been used in the past few months got sold on EBay - turns out that its as much fun to sell as to buy! As the departure approached, we sold Naomi's car, Brice's Yamaha R6, donated the old Jeep, and crossed our fingers on a good tax return.

The Round-the-World tickets themselves, which would have been a major expense, were a very generous wedding gift from Brice's folks of a whole lotta frequent flyer miles.  It worked out to be an incredible deal - it takes 80,000 miles to fly from Baltimore, MD to Santiago, Chile, but 120,000 to fly around the globe with 5 destinations and plenty of rules & regulations.  Another one of the big pieces was the house that we own. It was absolutely necessary to rent the house out for the year that we were gone to cover the mortgage. The weeks leading up to the wedding were filled with packing up everything we own and either donating it or storing it. By the time we went down to TN for the wedding, the house was empty and we had tenants lined up to rent it.

The other key was the Honeymoon Registry. We built a special website to allow people to help us along on our trip and used that for a wedding registry. All of the generosity of our friends and family were essential in making this trip possible. You can see all of those folks that helped us along by going to our Sponsors page. If you want to take a look at the registry and maybe help us out a bit, check out the HoneyMoon Registry

By the time the wedding was over, we were unemployed, homeless, and vehicleless (except for the Ducati of course). We had every possible penny saved up and ready to fund us for the next year.

We realized after all of our planning, saving, and selling that anyone could do an extended trip with enough planning and effort. You can travel in South America or South East Asia for $10-20 a day. A few thousand dollars can go a long way in many parts of the world. Its just a matter of setting your mind to making it work! We think everyone should go abroad at least once in your lifetime. 

How can you live out of a bag for a year?

They are very big bags! If you want to see what gear we are starting out with, take a look at our Gear. As far as not having a home, or a normal life, only time will tell how it goes.