So I’ve got some cash stashed away, no kids or mortgage, and a job that may be ending in the summer.
Has anyone on here gone travelling in their mid 30s, and if so, where did you go and for how long?
I did some Eurotravel in my early 20s but nothing since.

Yip.
Did a tour of Spain’s and Portugals beaches with surf boards and windsurfing gear (took 7months) Then spent 2months watching the Americas Cup in Valencia. All gear in a Renault Traffic Van, a small camp bed and gimble for “luxuries”. Found some epic places and more epic people along the way. I took my time, never drove over 50mph because I didn’t want to miss anything, anything at all. Stopped off in some wild remote areas, lay-bys in Cities, small streets in Villages, wild open landscape beaches with just me on, and the ubiquitous Tarrifa with its throng of drop out Germans and Dutch windsurfers.
Got sunburnt to a crisp, bleached hair, surfers tan, a huge smile, lost a load of weight, broke windsurfing gear and lent/borrowed stuff, ate with Village locals in tiny cafes in remote places, drank wine with Paul Cayard in YCV in utter splendour and got lost in extremadura on the top of the vast flat planes. Burnt the wiring loom out in the dashboard of the van (soaking wet sails dripping water into the heating vent!) got that fixed by an old man wearing dungarees and a NYC baseball cap in Sagres on a beech miles from anywhere..
Cost me nothing more than the time I devoted to it, spent just over £8k all in.
It wasn’t life affirming or life changing, it was just a random journey playing ping pong in a van all over the Spanish/Portuguese coastline.

If you’ve the time and cash, all that’s stopping you is your own limitations..

If you go, post pics.

I did this in my late 20s. It meant that when I came home again ( actually I had to buy a new home) I started from scratch with nothing having spent all the profits from the house I sold.

You will need twice as much money as you think.

I drove a 1961 BSA from Glasgow to Moscow via Austria then onto Finland nordkapp and back to Germany and then back to the UK 13 countries in 13 weeks and 13 000 miles. Then I spent 5 months in south america.

Had to restart with nothing but debt so won’t now be mortgage free until I am 57.

Did a bit in my 20s and 30s. Mostly Africa. Great fun. Really relaxing time. Did and saw some amazing things, met loads of people on the way. All done on the cheap. As tj, it put me back a bit on settling down but no regrets there. Now married with a mortgage but we still travel a bit too. Done some extended trips to Australia and SE Asia recently. Age is pretty irrelevant. My dad travelled on and off his whole life from touring the eastern bloc in his youth to a road trip to cape town in his 60s

Had a good friend who took a year out skiing in his mid 30’s – New Zealnd, Argentina (I think), Europe (St Anton). He had been made redundant from his job in finance and used some of his pay off to fund it. Went back to similar work on his return (harder to do today)

Me I have not done quite the same although have had a couple of periods of gardening leave between jobs I have used for travel.

Just do it.

I have plenty of travelling planned for 3 years time when I retire. Shame about the 30 years of working in between mind you

I had my meltdown at 50. Two blissfull years based in Havana and wandering the Caribbean resulted.

I have plenty of travelling planned for 3 years time when I retire. Shame about the 30 years of working in between mind you

Ditto.
If it hadn’t been for those pesky kids…

🙂 If it hadn’t been for spending all my capital when I was 30 by going travelling I could have retired at 50

Mrs and I did 4 months or so, bridging family things in India and NZ – a 10 leg round the world ticket was cheaper than two returns. Mrs was finishing a contract, I asked for and got the time off unpaid, we had savings and no house (just renting a couple of rooms in a house share) or kids.

Roughly a month in India – family bits then off travelling around by rail. Then flew out to Singapore, overland up through Malaysia into Thailand, over to Australia and spent a month in a campervan down the east coast, then NZ and back via a week or so on the west coast of the US.

Was a lot of fun, the second half way more expensive though. Didn’t plan a lot, just knew where we needed to be for flights and made the rest up as we went. Wasn’t hardcore travelling on a shoestring but wasn’t lavish luxury travel either.

Highly recommend doing it if you have a suitable gap in your life for it. Trouble is now we need to wait 16+ year until we can do similar again!

I just came back from 3 months in India and Nepal, kinda running away from the reality of breaking up with my childhood sweetheart/wife of 18 years. Getting back home skint and then having to face up to that reality has not been easy, at all.

I had an incredible adventure/experience though. In some ways I wish I’d travelled on my own when I was younger but not sure I would have had the confidence/awareness to do some of the stuff I did recently.

tjagain – Member
If it hadn’t been for spending all my capital when I was 30 by going travelling I could have retired at 50

D’ya think you’d be the same person now, if you hadn’t taken the time to travel back then?

Op, get it done fella!

ulysse – I’d be pretty much the same person. It wasn’t really a learning experience at 30. I’d be in a different place tho for sure – both literally and metaphorically

Therefore I’d say it was a good thing, and the experience was meant to be, to shape your life as to the now

go for it. so far in my life it has been the stand out experience for me. really opens your mind and outlook on things.

Wife and I went travelling in our mid-thirties… blew what could have been a hefty deposit but don’t regret it. Drove all over the US and Canada, plus a month in Australia. It was meant to be a whole year but after 8 months we’d run out of desire to keep going (and were low on funds) so we came back…

I’d done it once before in my twenties while single and it was a very different experience. In our thirties we really weren’t up for hostels, backpacker buses or drinking every night, and instead we had rented cars, motels and national parks.

We were pretty lucky to be in the position to go, in that we were both earning quite good money beforehand, and my wife had a flat we could live in (and later sell) when we got back. It’s fine to be back to square one when you return from travelling in your early years… not sure we could have coped with being skint and homeless at our age!