Alright, so here I am. Sitting in my flat in Hamburg. What should one do with life? There’s so many fascinating things to do, but one of them seems to beat all others: travel!
For uncountably many years (okay, not that many, but quite a few) I have known that travelling is one of my most favourite pastimes. I have done a few trips, from three-week excursions to China to nine-month travel-and-work trips to Australia, and each and every time I came to love the freedom that travelling brings. Just getting out there and seeing the world…

So, this plan has been forming in my head for a while. The main goal is to travel for a very long time and see as much as possible, with as little planning as required. Plans don’t work when travelling, you always end up meeting someone that tells you about this very cool place that you must see and suddenly you’ve spent 2 weeks somewhere you didn’t know had existed and all previous plans are rubbish now.

Working for money as you go is perfect for the just-out-of-school type, but only works in few specific countries (Australia, New Zealand and Canada usually). For what I have in mind it’s not really an option. I certainly want to travel cheaply; I couldn’t care less about luxury hotels, and I’m happy to work for food and lodging for locals or cool projects (both of which are easy to find on the Internet, e.g. through helpx.net).

I would like to travel in my own car because of the flexibility it gives me - when the above-mentioned person tells me about this beautiful lake 2 hours from here in the middle of nowhere, then I want to be able to go there easily. And camp there easily. Travelling in a car means I have to start in Germany, but why not? Flying is bad for the environment anyway. Being in Germany, if I want to travel for a long while I kinda have to go east, so naturally the idea of the Silk Road, this ancient network of trade routes, comes to mind. As I said, little planning is intended, so deviating off is perfectly fine, but generally: go east on the paths the forefathers have taken. :)

The idea’s quite simple.

1. Save money.
2. Buy a used car – preferably a 4-wheel-drive.
3. Equip that car with a bed and things you need when you live in a car.
4. Learn how to repair said car.
5. Go drive east until you can’t.

And meanwhile, write about it. Why? Mostly because I want to. I like reading other people’s blogs, I like to be able to keep all friends and family up-to-date, and just maybe someone likes what I do.

The plan for this blog is to document my journey; first on the way of getting ready-to-go, and then the actual traveling. It seems to me many people want to do something similar: drop out of everyday life, get out there into the world and see it. What I don’t see very often is literature or blogs on the specific how’s. How do you plan for this? How do you finance this? What are the hurdles you come across?
Other blogs either document their actual travels, which is fantastic. And some blogs write about the planning, but in a very general manner. So this one tries to follow the entire way of getting ready to go, and then the rest as well.

On a trip to Tanzania I have met a Swiss couple who has traveled for three years. They have spanned this planet, but used flight as method of transportation. That’s too quick for me, I like travelling slowly. They could tell me that they’ve spent roughly 20.000 Euro per person for the entire trip. Let’s break that down. $$\frac{20000 , \text{Euro}}{36,\text{months}} = 555\frac{\text{Euro}}{\text{month}}$$

Now that’s not very much. I live off more right now. Actually, my rent is more than that. My theoretic road leads east from Germany – things get cheaper there. With a car I save on accomodation and flight tickets, but in turn I burn some through gas. Frankly I have no idea how much money I need, but then again this is supposed to be an indeterminately long trip, so I just go on until I run out of motivation or money. So I’ll just take the 20.000 Euro as a starting point.