Wherever we go and no matter who we talk to we have never had anyone ask why we travel. It appears that most folks understand the desire to move about and visit new places. What we are always asked is how we do it. What people really want to know are answers to the following questions:

• How much money do you need to travel?
• How do you get the time?
• What is the best bike to use?
• What do you do when you encounter difficulties?
• What do you take with you?

The approach you take to traveling is a very personal decision. There are many options. Some people work until they have enough money to get on the road for a specified period of time and travel until their funds are exhausted at which point they return to work. Our approach is different. We traveled by motorcycle a lot while we were working but our travel was confined to the United States, Canada and Mexico and for brief periods of time as our vacations and budget allowed. We’ve known that we wanted to go traveling full time and have worked toward that goal for many years.

So, what you really want to know is how we managed to escape the day to day drudgery of work, eh? We don’t think we have done anything special. We have known for a number of years that we wanted to do this but we did not know how to go about it. This all changed in 1994 when Jim met a chap named Rich Beckett. Rich and his wife Donna are sailors. They had been working on a plan that allowed them to go cruising which would include a sail around the world on their 42 foot sail boat. Their plan has been to reach a point were they could weigh anchor and go sailing leaving the world of work behind. It seems this is quite common activity amongst sailors and is just now starting to see an increase in numbers for motor bikers. Click here for Rich and Donna’s web site.

Jim has always admired people who have talent, like artists and scientists. Now we can debate what is and is not art but for the purposes of this discussion lets just agree that there are people in this world who are able to come up with brilliant ideas. Jim’s claim to fame is that he has never had an original idea in his life but he has been helped a great deal by those who have. Rich Beckett is one of those people and he provided a great deal of information that helped us get our lives organized and develop a plan that would let us achieve our goal of going traveling full time.

Rich convinced us that the first thing we had to realize was that we had skills that were in demand in the working world and that we could make more money by setting up our own business rather than working for wages. Rich was right. The next thing he suggested was that we spend a little money for the things that we did not know or do well, like accounting and bookkeeping. His philosophy was that we should concentrate on that which we do well and hire others to do the things that we did not do well. He was right again. It is very easy to fall into the trap of thinking that it will be cheaper if you do everything yourselves.

So, we put a little risk in our lives and took advantage of some fortuitous events. Jim was offered an early retirement from his job which he took two years before he met Rich. He was recruited by a company who is the leader in his field. After two years of working for them and two employers later he met Rich. It was at this point that he created his own business.

Three years later the company Verna worked for was engulfed and devoured by another company and she was told that her job was no longer in the San Francisco, California area, but in Dallas, Texas. What with Jim having established his company she took the buy out that was offered and joined him in his business. The business was a consulting business and now it had doubled in size in three years!

It turns out that this was the best thing that ever happened to us. Rich helped us understand that we had skills that were in demand and that we could do much better working as consultants with our own business. He also helped us understand that we needed to develop a single mindedness about our dream of traveling around the world by motor bike if we hoped to accomplish our dream. He was right again.

What Rich really did for us was get us to evaluate what it was that we wanted to do and then develop a plan that we could use to achieve our goal. After many years of hard work and maintaining a single minded focus that allowed us to accept delayed gratification as acceptable we achieved our dream.

One of the things that we have done may be a tad too radical for some. We have sold everything we own. Well, we do have some things stored, but all of the household furniture, appliances, electronics - you know, all the things you have in your day to day lives have been given away or sold. Including our house. Yes, we can truly be classified as homeless. It is amazing how much money is devoted to the support of a house and day to day life.

We did keep the house for the first two years we were out of the USA. We quickly learned that it was more trouble than it was worth (Rich had warned us about this) and returned and sold it. Yet another good decision. The next thing we needed to do was determine how much money we needed per day to live on the road but that discussion is best left for the Affordable Travel section.

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