Tail Pipes into the Sunset — Take Vacations - you can always make money but you can't always make memories

WELCOME TO OUR BLOG

Hi there!

We are an everyday working couple…with a huge desire to travel,not just on holiday for 3 weeks once a year, but all the time, whenever, wherever ….. we simply want to ride off into the sunset and see what the world has to offer.
You’ve heard that before, right? Been dreaming about it for years?

Well, we have too … but something changed this year, something happened which made us decide to just do it! Now! And we are …

This page is the start to our dream life and will log our story on the go … We hope you come along with us to enjoy the ride!

See you on the next page … Richard and Jacqui

Sometimes life is about risking everything for a dream no one can see – but you.

ABOUT US

DOWNSIZE AND TRAVEL – An Update

Well, it’s been a while since we made the decision to downsize and travel. That meant sell up everything and give up our home!

AND THE ROLLER COASTER RIDE BEGINS

And what a roller coaster ride it’s been so far! Life threw a whole bunch of curve balls at us. A family illness created a delayed start initially. We changed our minds about how to go about it at least a half dozen times … tried to second guess ourselves on how to go about selling our stuff and whether it was the right thing to do?! When we first tried to sell our belongings … guess what? Nothing moved .. it seemed no one wanted anything we had! Could we just leave it all behind? No … as we needed the money from the sale of our goods in order to do what we had planned.

CHANGE OF MIND … WHICH WAY TO GO?

So then we changed our minds and decided to keep our place and simply rent it out while we were away. That didn’t work at first either because again it seemed that no one was interested! Then 2 months down the line, we found someone … We were now 4 months behind our original planned Thailand trip and 2 months later than the date we had planned to have sold up and headed to Europe on the PC!

Unfortunately due to unforeseen circumstances, only 4 weeks into the let, things went horribly wrong. We could not have predicted what happened and in the end we could not fix it! So we were back to square one!

HELPX

In the meantime we had discovered HelpX and this seemed the way to go because with all the hiccups and holdups we had getting to this point, we needed a way to get going and keep going without much outlay beforehand. Just one day prior to the renting plan falling apart ….we accepted a HelpX position in the Pyrenees starting in 2 weeks time and the one thing neither of us will do is let someone down when we have made a commitment! We had to come up with a plan … fast!

WERE WE COMPLETLEY INSANE?

We were tearing our hair out and beginning to doubt our sanity but we were determined not to give up on our dream just yet, although we could not actually see a way around the latest situation. We had lost so much time already and now had to rethink everything yet again! After a couple of days looking at each other in despair we suddenly said …. “let’s just leave. Go back to our original idea of selling up and leaving our home!”

But now we had no time to sell our stuff because we had the HelpX booking and were under pressure for time.

HOW WE DID IT …

We rented a garage and moved everything into it in a week, put up our trailer tent on a caravan site and worked our last week from there. Packed it up on the Sunday, put it in storage which we had to pay for upfront until the end of October, (money is now a serious problem because with all hiccups and delays and not having enough time to sell our belongings, pay for the move and for storing our goods and our tent … all our savings towards our travels were gone!) … but we got on the bike and headed for the overnight ferry taking us to Le Havre.

GETTING THERE – in a hurry

We needed to be in Foix by Tuesday lunchtime! We had Monday and 4 hours on Tuesday to do 1020kms! It seems we were definitely going to have numb bum syndrome!

But we had to do it …. It was the start of our new lifestyle and we could not mess our host about. This was going to get us moving on towards our goal of travelling Europe on the Honda pc800 for summer and beyond! We were and are determined it is going to work. Sunday 17^th June 2018 was the first day of the rest of our lives … We simply had to go!

ABOUT US

We are Richard and Jacqui Heitmann … we met only 3½ years ago. Surprised everyone and got married in September 2017 …

Hi, I’m Jacqui, a South African now living in the UK.

I guess I’m what you would call an entrepeneur. have had many careers over the years but mostly to do with nursing/caring, catering and sewing of some sort. I have wanted to travel for many many years. In fact, everyone I knew heard about how one day I was going to ride off into the sunset and live a life of freedom travelling the world and not have to wake up to an alarm clock and do mundane daily tasks until the day I die!

Haha … I must have driven them crazy when I got on my soapbox with my favourite subject!
I did try to talk myself into dealing with the solo travelling idea and I actually did go off on my own a couple of times. Had some good adventures too but then I just reverted back to the rut of work work work, (the comfort zone?) … because I really wanted someone special, a soulmate, to share the experiences with. An experience shared is pleasure doubled … isn’t it? But I had begun to think that I should accept that I was just not going to get that bit right.

And then in stepped Richard … my superhero! My soulmate!

I came home from a trip to South Africa visiting family at the end of January 2014 to find I had a new neighbour. I never saw much of him as he went to work early and came home late but a couple of weeks later, he walked past my door and introduced himself.

That was it for a while, we greeted each other as neighbours do. Then one day we were outside, as were a couple of other neighbours, and we started chatting. Summer was coming and as everyone does in England, we were chatting about sorting our outside space so that we could get into the sunshine and enjoy the all too short summer time. Between 3 of us who were singletons, we decided to create a communal area that we could share to enjoy some company in the long summer evenings and weekend BBQs.
Oh … probably need to explain … we live on a residential caravan site …hence the communal garden space!

In the end it was only Richard and I who spent most of that summer’s evenings together. We became very good friends and in a fairly short space of time things moved on from there! We are obviously a tad more than friends now! lol … I’ll let Rich take over now.

Hey everyone! My name is Richard

I am a motorbike mechanic from London.
I didn’t ever have any ambition or drive to travel or do anything out of the ordinary day to day stuff. Until I moved in next door to someone special. That all changed when I introduced myself to Jacqui. We became good friends, spending more and more time together. Well, long story short, we are now very happily married and have an insane love of travel after a couple of really good holidays.

We often talked about doing and seeing so much more but, as always, work got in the way until now. We decided to do something completely out of our comfort zone after these words from my gorgeous wife … “people survive, we will make a plan”! So, with that … full time employment – Seeeeeya!!

Now I can’t wait for all the people we are going to meet and the places we are going to see and all the bits in between. Maybe we will see you along the way … Come and say Hi!

RESOURCES

Top Class Accommodation

HOW TO GET CASH BACK FOR YOUR TRAVELS

THE TEAM

Richard

Moth

Known as the M.O.T.H. (Man of the house), in charge of all things motorbike, servicing, repairs, necessary accessories and making sure we ride safe, takes most of the photographs, manages our instagram account and is my awesomely amazing husband.