As neither Greg nor I did the kiwi ‘OE’ as youngsters we always said we would travel when the kids were grown. Seemingly quite suddenly that dot on the distant horizon was a fast approaching intersection. There is a great temptation to stay on that nice smooth highway, say to yourself there’ll be another opportunity further on but spurred on by seeing others face similar choices and go either way, we decided- we were going to take the unknown path, figuratively and literally.
So we started painting some broad lines on a blank canvas and ended up with a 3 step plan; 1 Sell the business. 2 Sell the family home. 3 Get on a plane.
Step 1 – Sell the business
For more than 20 years we have distributed Cookie Time products to retailers in Auckland’s CBD and inner suburbs. It has been an amazing business to be involved in with inspirational people and it has grown with us as well as grown us, challenged us and supported us. Buying the business was the second ‘scary’ life changing decision we ever made, the first being buying a house in our early 20’s when our peers were partying and traveling. The choice to travel now is our third life changing decision and we are both sure it will also totally the right decision. Back to selling the business, in the last year or so as we have become more plant based in our diet (thanks to our amazingly inspiring daughter) for the first time we have found ourselves disconnecting slightly from the Cookie Time journey which adds to the knowledge that this is the right decision both for us and Cookie Time. We set a loose timeline based on traveling to the northern hemisphere 2019 for their spring, summer & autumn ( staying for a winter Christmas is growing on us) and worked backwards. This gave us an ideal ‘sold by’ of the end of September 2018 which has worked out perfectly. I really feel the mind is a powerful tool and if you strongly believe something will happen, it definitely will. Good or bad!
Next step is selling the family home…..
This is a biggie. I had just turned 23 & Greg was 24 when we purchased a 2 bedroom very very neglected house in Mt Albert. It had been owned by Her Majesty the Queen for purposes of railway since 1947 and virtually no work had been done on it in that time. Over the last 31 years we have renovated every square inch. It has grown as our family has grown and now the kids have moved out it really is too big. There are rooms I only enter when cleaning but there are so many memories in every space. Off setting that, on a practical side, there is a lot of capital tied up that could be better utilised. So the plan is sell and use the capital to purchase two smaller easy maintenance properties, one with the bones to become our next home and one solely as a rental. Both will be rented out while we travel.
Step three – Travel
We set a travel time to take in the Northern Spring, Summer & Autumn
Over the last few years we have discovered we like to holiday in our van, exploring out of the way places with our home on our backs, so to speak. More luxury than camping, more homely than backpacking. You can cook your own meals and eat out when you choose. You can stay another night or move on easily and be more impulsive about where to go. So the broad plan is to fly in Germany, buy a motor home (more on that challenge later) and hit the road. We have a general itinerary to work within our visa requirements- very general as in it’s March/April : head northward to Norway & surrounding countries, maybe catch the Northern lights. April/May: putter across Central Europe May/June: explore down Adriatic Coast. June/July: shoot up to Latvia and follow the ERA Peking to Paris rally down to Paris. July: exit Europe and spend 3 months in the UK. Then back into Europe to explore Spain, Portugal, Italy. Assess if we wish to stay for winter.
Google has been great. Decided we really wanted to get a left hand drive van so when driving in Europe we’re correct placed. When driving in the UK it’s familiar rules just a left hand vehicle. Decided we want as small as possible, one that from the outside could be any other van, not screaming ‘tourist’ to everyone. Because we are going to be living full time in it, we want a fixed bed, wet room and a separate sitting area. Bonus is this gives us the ability to take passengers and have a spare (single) bed. Eliminated buying a van in the UK because you can only take a UK registered vehicle out of the UK for 3 months in any 12 month period. Germany has the best selection and the best price. You can take a German registered vehicle to UK for 6 months, longer than we need. The downside is it has to be registered and insured by a resident or company. Currently putting feelers out for someone who can help. We would obviously pay in full for the van and pay a bond, greater than the excess, just in case something goes really wrong. Also get an Auto Club membership to help us on the road.
