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Be part of it
Welcome! This is the first blog post of our world tour.
We are happy to take you with us from Step 1: Planning.
Natalie and I have been together for 5 1/2 years (as of 03/22). Since the beginning of our relationship, we have only used our yearly leave and overtime for vacation. Sometimes two weeks, one, or even a long weekend, was enough for us to pack our bags or head for a closer destination. We love travelling and getting to know new people and cultures.
Neither of us has spent a more extended period, more than three weeks abroad, but the desire was always there. That's how Natalie became more and more inspired by social media. After a few conversations, we decided: we wanted to start a world trip!
Now that we have made our decision, the question is, what happens next? What happens to our jobs, our flat and especially our beloved cats, Marlie and Pablo?
Fortunately, we could both take advantage of the opportunity to be released without pay until the end of December 2022. So Joel, our good friend, moved into our flat as a subtenant. Vero, Natalie's cousin's best friend, took in our cats.
As you can imagine, the road to these solutions was not the easiest after some problems, rejections and disappointments. But we felt very comfortable with the answers.
In terms of travel planning, there is not much to tell. Unfortunately, due to the ongoing Covid pandemic, we decided not to plan for more than three weeks.
So we booked two nights in Varna (Bulgaria), five nights in Istanbul, two nights in Bangkok and four nights in Phuket.
The last days before our departure showed us again what a big step we are taking. I was still working until 23rd February. Natalie took a month off work to make preparations. We have reduced the fixed costs to a minimum. We cancelled contracts that we don't use abroad. We have half cleared our home and put our things into my parents' house.
We said goodbye to our parents and friends and our two cats.
I, Lukas, have to say that I was close to tears and miss my two little ones very much. But now we were ready to go. We packed our backpacks on a trial basis to see what we could take with us. In the end, almost every backpacker will tell us that we have far too much (Natalie: 17kg, Lukas: 18kg). But more about that in another article.
We finally took off on the morning of 25th February and flew to Varna, Bulgaria.
Goodbye guys!
Off to Varna: