G’Day we are Jayne (the author) and Vaughan (corrects my spelling mistakes!) Aussie married couple who have been travelling full time on and off for more than 20 years.
So, who are we really? We are 40 something addicts of travel, adventure and all things outdoors which includes diving, hiking and nature as well as being lovers of history, culture, food and wine. What we don’t like is fancy shopping, nightclubs, theme parks (well Vaughan does) or anything that involves expensive package tours and glitz. As much as we wouldn’t say no to the occasional spoil in a 5 star resort we are mostly budget travellers, aiming to make our savings stretch as far as possible so we can travel for longer but not so budget (we are too old for that!!) that we sacrifice comfort and enjoy the occasional splurge, so I guess that puts us in the category “flashpackers”
Let’s start from the beginning…
About Jayne
I’m what the Aussies would call a “pom” I hale from old blighty, I spent the first 30 years of my life growing up in Shropshire, a rural county bordering North Wales. I graduated with a BSc in Computing Science then ended up in the South East of England as most IT Professionals do. I’ve always loved travel but never really could afford to until I started work. The idea of doing a backpacking trip when I finished my studies or travelling and living abroad really excited me. I started to investigate different visas for Australia, I fancied Australia because I hate the cold and I love wide open spaces, the outdoors and beach life and Australia has it all. I decided to go for a permanent residence visa, back in the mid 90’s they were cheap, it cost me 200 pounds! After working some years in London after I graduated I was awarded my Australian residence visa and in 1998 I quit my job, packed what little stuff I had into storage (mum’s house) and took off on my first solo backpacking adventure with stops in Hawaii, Cook Islands, four months in New Zealand landing in Sydney almost 6 months later. I spent the next 18 months working my way around Australia with a quick visit to the UK in 1999 and a stop in South East Asia on the way back to Australia. It wasn’t until March 2000 that I decided I had enough of living out of a backpack and doing crappy jobs, so I decided to finally put down roots and get a proper job and so ended up in Melbourne and that is when I met my life long travel partner.
About Vaughan
Born in Melbourne, I spent most of my childhood and teenage years growing up in country Victoria, I didn’t really travel much, our holidays when I was young consisted of family camping trips. My first overseas trip was a family trip to Bali when I was 14, I never went overseas again until I met Jayne. I spent most of my youth enjoying the great outdoors and engaging in my passion for scouting, over 20 years later I am still involved in the scouting movement, when I’m home I am a Cub Scout leader. I met Jayne in 2000 and found we both share the same passion for the outdoors and have done many camping and hiking trips together. In 2003 we were married and since then my travel experience has grown from 2 countries to over 70. I love history especially English history, 2002 was my first trip to England and it was one of the best trips I had done. My other passion is beer! I aim to try as many different beers as possible on my travels, so far I have logged over 300 unique beers in “untapped” and that is only from May 2018 when I first learnt of this app (feel free to friend me!).
First World Trip 2013/2014 (1 year)
Having spent the last 13 years living a normal life, we had got married, we bought the house, we had the pets, we had our holidays and we both had 9-5 jobs. It was great to have the stability and we enjoyed it but in the back of my mind I always yearned for another extended trip. One day in early 2012 I said to Vaughan “Fancy taking a year off to travel the world?” and so, the wheels were set in motion, we put away as much money as possible over nearly two years, I asked work for a sabbatical, Vaughan put in his resignation and October 2013 we were on a one-way ticket to Beijing. Over 12 months we visited 29 countries over 5 continents fulfilling some amazing dreams like an overland trip through East and Southern Africa, a visit to the Galapagos Islands and hiking the Inca Trail. It was an incredible adventure where we saw some amazing places, had unforgettable experiences and met some wonderful people most of which are now lifelong friends.
Second World Trip Jan 2017 to August 2019 (2.5 years)
After returning from the first world trip, in the first month we were happy to be home, back in our house and earning money again, spending time with friends and family but it wasn’t long before the realization of daily grind began to set in, a 9 to 5 office job sucked especially one I no longer enjoyed. It prompted me to make a change and try something different and follow my passion so I studied part time for the next two years a Cert III in Travel and Tourism. We also decided that we wanted to do another trip, so once again we saved hard and in 2016 sold our house and in early 2017 quit our jobs and had one way tickets to Buenos Aires.
This was a trip with no specific end date and it started with an epic trip to the 7th Continent, ANTARCTICA.
What we thought might be an impossible dream, wasn’t! we saved hard and made it happen and even though its the most expensive trip we have ever done we have not regretted it one bit. Our 11 day cruise was with the company I now work for! Chimu Adventures.
During 2017 in addition to Antarctica we spent 3 months exploring Argentina, southern Chile, Easter Island and Uruguay. We ticked off some high bucket listed items like Patagonia, the W Trek, Easter Island and Iguazu Falls. In April we popped home for 5 weeks to off load all our heavy winter gear and get our visas organised for the next leg of our journey. We went to Japan, South Korea and Mongolia where we picked up the trans Mongolian/Siberian railway and journeyed one month across Russia finishing our epic rail journey in Finland. The Trans-Siberian has been a lifelong bucket list item for Vaughan. Our European leg took us through the Baltics, Malta, Greece and the UK. Winter was approaching so we escaped to Southern Africa for a couple of months, hiring a car and driving from Cape to Johannesburg. We then journeyed from Vic Falls to Johannesburg via the Kruger, Swaziland and Mozambique on an overland truck with Nomad Africa. We returned to the UK to spend Christmas with family.
Our Travels 2018
After seeing the new year in with a bunch of friends in Budapest we escaped the cold once more with a 5 months trip to Florida, Cuba,Mexico and Central America. Returning to Europe end of May via Atlanta and Boston. June was a big month for us as we took a trip to the Netherlands in search of a motorhome that would be our house on wheels for the next 12 months or so. By the middle of June we had found “Matilda” and we took an incredible journey with her for 5 months covering 17000 kilometers around Europe and the UK.
When it turned colder in November we put Matilda into storage and headed towards home stopping first for 3 weeks in Indonesia to Scuba dive Komodo National Park and spend some time in Java and Bali. We spent 7 weeks back in Australia spending time with family and friends and doing a house sitting job on the Sunshine Coast.
Our travels of 2019
End of January 2019 we set off again stopping in San Francisco to visit friends before heading to Mexico City. It was then back to our favourite Central American destination Costa Rica and south to Panama. March took us to Colombia for 3 weeks then back to Europe for a few days in Madrid before embarking on a 2 week G Adventures Tour around Morocco.
We then headed back to the Netherlands to pickup our motorhome Matilda and spent the next 4 months seeing more of Europe, this time France and Central Europe. July was a sad time for us as we had to say goodbye to Matilda and make our way back home via the UK for two weeks to see family and friends and finally landing back on Aussie soil on August 3rd.
Where are we now ?
Living on the beautiful Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia and both back into full time employment. Covid came along and like most of us have been grounded but it is not all doom and gloom, we bought another home in early 2021 and it has kept us busy with renovations. Not being able to do international travel until recently gave us the opportunity to explore our own back yard especially our new home state of Queensland.
Our plans for the near future is to explore more places closer to home like the South Pacific Islands and more of Asia as well as our own back yard. Our other goal is to work hard to pay off our mortgage and boost our retirement fund ready for when we do retire where we can enjoy more travel on a wider scale. For now though we are content with smaller trips which we can fit around our work life. Being back home also means I can dedicate more time to this blog and document our amazing journeys we have taken over the last few years as well as new journeys to come…
About Blue Planet Nomads
I originally started this blog in 2014 but found overtime I could not keep up with it especially while travelling. I have decided to revamp it and build it up again. I’m hoping over the next few months I can blog all our amazing journeys and provide helpful tips and information on the places we have been and the activities we have done.