Meet the couple making the most of their mid-life with their Workaway adventures!

So where are you now? Tell us your travel story!

We're currently housesitting near Nice in the south of France, it’s a beautiful spot. We’re about a year into our travels; we were on holiday in Sri Lanka in December 2019, just before COVID hit. We only had a month there, and when we left we already wanted to go back.

We didn’t want to escape reality exactly, but we realised there's got to be more out there . We started looking at the places we wanted to visit, and the list was getting quite long! So we thought…

How can we make this happen? We basically got rid of everything; we kept our house and rented it out, but all we have left of our belongings are two plastic bins in Kara's parents' shed. It’s just going to be boxes of mice by the time we get back!

We realised that you don't need to keep things, it's just stuff. I don't think people really believed how long we were going for either. But they believe it now!

What did your family and friends think?

It was funny, no one was being negative at all. But my family definitely didn't understand the extent of what we were doing until it was done. They were all saying have a nice holiday ...

They were not expecting a whole eight years or so! The biggest surprise has been Mike's son, Jack. He's been the most supportive of what we're doing, which is really, really cool.

He's in his early twenties and he is travelling himself. I was apprehensive about going to the other side of the world and leaving the kids at home, but we've been really lucky with that. He's going to meet us in Europe next year.

Do you think you’ll do a Workaway with your kids?

Yes, we have actually done one with Jack in New Zealand, to get his Workaway profile up and running. We'll probably do another with him!

He's very encouraging of what we're doing, especially now he’s done some travelling himself and knows how much you learn and grow. We have had an amazing opportunity, we’re super lucky.

How do you get around?

In Morocco, we didn't have a vehicle. We used public transport, but we found it a little bit restricting. Being a bit older, we wanted the security of being able to pack up and leave straight away if things didn't go to plan.

You also see a little bit more when you have your own car.

Yeah, we have just bought another vehicle here in France, and yesterday we drove about 5 or 6 km for a walk. We went through some bushes and stumbled across some old ruins. Those little moments are the reason why we're doing Workaway. After you’ve finished your hours helping the host, you’ve still got half a day to go and explore the local area. 

How do you make sure you stick to your budget?

I wanted to make sure that however long it took us to save, we travelled for longer. So if we took two years to save, I didn't want to travel for six months and that’d be the end of it. 

Did you travel when you were younger? How would you compare it to travelling now?

We didn't travel when we were younger. Not like, you know, backpacking.

Yeah, we've done holidays, but I think the longest I’d ever been away for was six weeks. This type of travelling is very different … we're basically old backpackers, without the backpacks!

We’re a bit more in the moment, a little more sensible maybe … just having a few more years on younger travellers, and knowing how to do certain things, means you've got a bit more common sense behind you... most of the time!    

So from your experience, Workaway is not just for twenty-somethings?

Definitely not, no.

One thing we didn't realise beforehand is how important it was to connect with people. I think the hosts we've had have been amazing because they have travelled themselves. 

You're in their homes and their lives, so you can't help but connect with them. We've found a lot of hosts who are travellers that can't travel at the moment. They're inviting people in to get that essence at home, so they can still see the world without travelling.

We’ve seen beautiful places, but it's connecting with those people when you're in their home and they're cooking you food, which is just … yeah, it's amazing. You can’t go to cafes and restaurants with our budget, it's not something we do often. So when you actually have a home-cooked meal from someone, oh, it's the best.

What would your biggest piece of advice be to people who want to start travelling the way that you do? 

Just do it. A lot of our friends said, ‘Oh, I wish I could do that’, but they can! In fact, some of the hosts that we've stayed with have spent a long period, at least a year, travelling the world with multiple kids.

It is possible, anyone can take time out of their normal life and the kids out of school to just go and explore the world. It's all well and good to say, ‘Oh, do it when the kids leave home, or when we've got a bit more money saved, or when the house is paid off’. But you never know what's going to happen.

Tell me about some of your favourite destinations or experiences!

My favourite would be when we went to the Sahara Desert. It’s been on my bucket list since I was a kid. 

I don't know what mine is! We’ve been to so many, and you start thinking about it, and it might not be the place, but the people …

Do you have a favourite host?

We met and we just clicked. His profile said he had a wife but she wasn’t there when we arrived, so at first, we didn’t believe she existed. We thought he had enticed us there under false pretences! We did meet her in the end, it was very funny.

Oh, no one had anywhere to go because of the lockdown. So he was just like, come in! We were there with two other Workawayers, so we got to connect with other people from around the world, which was really cool. Being in lockdown, you were sort of isolated, so it was nice to be with other people. He was one of our first Workaways and he cemented the idea that there were cool opportunities to be had through the site. He’s been hosting for a long time, he is just an amazing man who had some awesome stories. 

We could say so much about all the hosts that we've had, they've all been wonderful. That's one thing we didn't realise is that when you're travelling, you actually say goodbye a lot. You make these new friendships, then you actually have to say goodbye realising that you're probably not going to cross paths again. 

Having an online presence means our actual family can also follow what we're doing… and know that we're still alive! A lot of them don’t travel, so they get to see the world vicariously through us.

Do you ever plan to stop travelling? Have you got an end date in mind?

Not an end date. If we stick to our budget, we've got about another seven years. Workaway has turned a potential two-year trip into six to eight years, so it's really given us both the means and a purpose to travel.

There is so much to see and do, and every place you go you're learning something new , which is amazing. 

Yeah, that's something that we hadn't really anticipated the extent of. We're not the sort of people that can sit around still for too long. We had been renovating our own home before we left, and we’ve used those skills and continued to share them with other people.