What! We're leaving London!? An update on our 2018 plans

“If we don’t do it now, we’ll never do it"

This was the sentence that defined a major change to our life almost three years ago.

While we were living very happy lives in our hometown of Melbourne, making our way up the corporate ladders and doing all the normal adult things, we'd felt restless and unsatisfied. We wanted to travel, work on our business, and share the wonderful, fascinating, and sometimes challenging stories we encountered along the way.

After years of talking about how much we wanted to drop everything and travel, going on mini-adventures as often as we could, and pining over a life that looked very different, we felt we couldn't put it off any longer.

So, we chose to wander.

We booked a one-way ticket to Singapore in 2015, with no plans except to wander our way through Southeast Asia, the subcontinent, Africa and Europe before eventually settling in London for a couple of years. Long-time readers will remember that decision basically birthed this very blog, and was the start of us throwing caution to the wind and being open to wherever the world, and our blog, took us.

That next year was a blur as we traipsed our way through 28 incredible countries with our homes on our backs. It was hands down the best thing we've ever done. We were also fortunate that we were able to build great relationships with brands early on and collaborated with a couple of our dream travel companies while we were on the road.

That said, it quickly meant that after long days of exploring, we spent long nights in our hostel rooms catching up on emails and edits. It was hard work and we pushed ourselves to exhaustion, running on the adrenalin of a big adventure most of the time.

Travel inspo: our favourite experiences from 12 months on the road

LANDING IN LONDON

Roll on a year of burning the candle at both ends, we landed in London burnt out, a little over travel, and ready to spend nights on the couch watching Netflix and exploring our new home. In our final month of travel, Mim had landed her dream job managing content at Intrepid Travel and started three days later, while Mark decided to manage our blog and business full time.

We threw ourselves into enjoying our new city; navigating the tube, playing tourist, and also enjoying having our own room and a kitchen again. We made brilliant new friends, caught up with old ones, and even tried to get along with the weather (spoiler: we didn't!).

Fast forward a manic 18 months, which saw Mim leave her job to go freelance, Mark go back to a marketing manager role at a travel company, some epic travel experiences, and lots of late nights for us both as we tried to manage jobs, lots of travel and new clients, and trying (and failing) to have a social life.... and we knew something had to change again.

going it alone: why you should travel solo at least once in your life

So what does all this mean?!

Well, we're so, so, so excited to tell you guys that we're BOTH going full-time on The Common Wanderer from the end of April!

When we first landed in London we weren't quite sure what The Common Wanderer's future looked like or whether it had any potential to become our full time business - but we knew we wanted to keep pushing at it no matter what.

When it got to the point that we were turning down amazing work opportunities because of our full time jobs, we knew it was time to repeat our mantra ("if we don't do it now, we'll never do it"!) and take the leap.

From early May, you can expect to see A LOT more from The Common Wanderer. We have a bunch of really exciting travel projects coming up, and we can't wait to transform this space into what we've always wanted it to be: an inspiring and beautiful travel resource for you guys.

But that's not all.....

where to next? our 10 best destinations for travel in 2018

We're leaving london!

On yet another dark, dank, gloomy night walking through Clapham Common a couple of weeks ago, we were feeling pretty miserable.

Winter had dragged on for what felt like years, it had been raining incessantly, and on the rare occasion we even wanted to brave the elements we were so snowed under with work we could barely leave the house anyway.

To be honest, between travel and work, we really haven't been able to make the most of living in London since we arrived here - and paying a lot to live in a city we weren't really enjoying was starting to feel pretty depressing. That old restlessness had begun to gnaw at us both again.

So, when Mark casually said, "I'm kinda over this.... do you want to leave?" as we traipsed through the freezing park, well, the decision was made.

Which is why we're moving to.... Croatia! From early May, we'll be spending 6 weeks on the island of Hvar focusing on our business, before becoming semi-nomadic again through Europe for the summer... hooray!

We can't wait to get back to our happy place on the road, and begin sharing our adventures with you guys again just like old times (only better!).

Watch this space - and if you're around Europe this summer, let's meet up!