#backbackers

I suppose this whole journey really began the first time me and Anthony met in June 2015. Our first date went on for 8 hours and we didn't stop talking (or drinking for that matter!) One of our immediate shared interests was a passion for travelling, we'd both spent time in Australia and had an interest in doing some more exploring at the some point in the future. The idea kept coming up, a dreamy conversation on date night, a 'what if?' while on our first holiday together, a 'maybe one day' while sipping coffee before work. But life always gets in the way and before we knew it we were in full time jobs with a house to pay for and the dream seemed even further away than ever before. Until Christmas 2017. December 2017 saw Anthony, a Sports Therapist and Events Co-Coordinator in a Theatre and myself, an Assistant Manager of a Restaurant, working million hour weeks and barely having time to say 'hello' to one another. Christmas Day came and we spent a wonderful happy day with my family (my Auntie's Christmas Dinner is THEE best, even though i'm sure that's what everyone says). Sometime over Christmas and Boxing Day the topic of buying a house came up, we discussed it with my family like any young couple would, as a serious option for the up coming future. However something in my brain had slipped away from bricks and mortar and was seeing sunsets and beaches, waterfalls and mountains. The two days ended far too quickly and we hopped back in the car for the drive back to Birmingham. As we drove along I googled visa's for various countries, Anthony being over 30 provides some visa issues for certain countries, especially if you want to work. I quickly discovered though that we had options, LOTS of options all over the world, I just needed Ant on board because I wasn't going anywhere without him. So, I asked him the question, did he want to move out of the house, into a backpack and try something new before it really did just become a dream?
The fact that I'm writing this from a beach house in North New South Wales, Australia should give you a pretttty good idea to what his answer was.
And that is how all this began.