We sold our house to travel the world with our kids — taking just one backpack each

Parents Katie and Josh realised they could have a better standard of living abroad (Picture: Josh/SWNS)

While many of us have dreams of seeing the world, they’re often overshadowed by the responsibilities and ties of everyday life.

However, this family sold their home to fulfil their goal of travelling full-time, taking their children on a globe-trotting adventure with just one backpack each.

Josh and Katie, both 33, got the ‘travel bug’ when they spent a year in Australia in 2015, before they had their two kids, aged seven and three.

But it wasn’t until this January, while on holiday in Mexico, that the pair, from Sheffield, South Yorkshire, decided to up sticks for good, after realising they could ‘get so much more for the same money’.

Although they originally looked at emigrating to Australia on a sponsored visa with Katie’s original trade as a hairdresser, the ‘amount of hours’ she’d need to work put them off, leading them to research cheaper destinations.

‘I didn’t want to work five days a week and not see the kids,’ the mum says. ‘In places like southeast Asia, you can stretch your money… We just want the simple way of life and to spend quality time together as a family.’

Katie wanted to give her family ‘the simple way of life’ (Picture: Josh/SWNS)

In April, they put their three-bed house on the market, managing to sell it in just 24 hours. And after selling their possessions, they left the UK for Thailand on August 22 – with no plans to return.

‘We’re taking four backpacks and that’s literally it,’ says Josh, an exterior cleaner. ‘Everything we own we sold.’

Josh and Katie estimate they’ll spend between £1,500 to £2,000 each month funding their new way of life, with roughly £500 a month going towards accommodation and a daily budget of around £35 per day for everything else.

In contrast, the couple’s monthly outgoings back at home was close to £4,000 – almost double what they’re spending currently.

They now spend around £500 a month on accommodation in Thailand (Picture: Josh/SWNS)

So far, they haven’t got a route worked out and Katie is ‘pretty chill’ about where they’ll go next, commenting: ‘It’s the unknown to us all, but that’s what excites us.’

Her only major worry was missing loved ones back home, but although it was difficult saying goodbye – especially to her mum – she felt ‘fine’ as soon as she got on the plane.

‘If I could pick them up and take them with me, I would,’ the hairdresser says.

Saying goodbye to loved ones in the UK was difficult (Picture: Josh/SWNS)

In terms of their kids’ education, the couple – who share videos of their travels as @‌4backpacksmanymemories on TikTok – plan to mix remote teaching with taking them to ‘learn other things’ outside of mainstream schooling.

Josh explains: ‘We’ll be following Oakwood Academy – a site who are supplying us with online resources – and we’re having a private tutor checking in with them weekly.

‘I’ve actually got a friend who’s done this kind of thing before. They were spending £1,500 to £2,000 per month including accommodation, food and activities which is considerably cheaper than what we pay now.’

According to Katie, the children are ‘thriving already’ in their new routine.

‘It just feels surreal and it’s an adventure,’ she says. ‘Even now, we don’t feel like we’re thousands of miles away. It’s like “god, we’ve done it, we’re here”.’

The family are scheduled to move onto their next destination in southeast Asia on September 29, but are currently loving the ‘free’ life where they are and haven’t got anywhere booked.

Katie adds: ‘We know that as long as we have each other we can conquer anything.’

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