Why would you do such a thing?!

Here are just a few of the reasons we're doing this:

• To see friends and family and significant places that we won't otherwise see, much more cheaply than on lots of short holidays
• For all four of us to get a better picture of the world
• To get a break from the pressures of school, work, etc., and remember the joy of learning and experiencing new things and challenges that sometimes gets drained out of us by all that
• To get to spend lots of time together at a stage when many young people and parents seem to get pulled apart
• To learn about world religions, global politics, a wide range of natural habitats, and what shops, streetstalls and markets are like in different countries
• To spend time in places where racism plays out differently than it does in the UK, to see what that's like for us all
• To get the chance to really rest after working too hard for a while
• To see rainforest, swim with dolphins, make new friends, see how old human cultures are, see how fast-changing they can be ...
• To have time to regularly play guitar, juggle pois, talk about the way the world works, learn new things for the fun of them, be physically active, write this blog ...
• To spend money we've earned on something we really want: this has been a great motivator to save, to be in charge of and to earn money - all things we've wanted to get better at