Well, last day in the UK, so thought I'd kick off the blog with a pre-travel entry.
Rucksacks are packed, mine weighing in at 11.6 + 5.3kgs, and Brandons at 14.6 + 3kgs. And I'm sure they'll be a fair bit heavier when we return !

Its been 6 years since our last trip back in 2013, we both turned 40 last year, just had our 20 year anniversary, and 2020 is a new decade, so thought it was the perfect time to have another trip !

We thought our last trip of 10 months was a bit too long in terms of being away from home, all the planning and logistics involved for a trip of that length, living out of a backpack all that time, both leaving our jobs, plus having to rent out the house etc.

So this time we are doing two shorter trips in my 3 month sabbatical from work.
5 weeks in Colombia & Guatemala, 10 days back home, then another 5 weeks in the Philippines.

This way they are nice short trips which are more manageable, we can take different things for each trip, and means we are covered by our existing travel insurance and house insurance.

We only thought about doing this in November, so its been a busy few months planning the trip and booking flights, tours, accommodation etc to try and make it as smooth as possible once we are out there.

Its always a bit nerve-racking doing a backpacking trip, especially to places like Colombia & Guatemala - the safety aspect, and language barrier. But we loved South America and heard even better things from other travellers about these 2 countries, so fingers crossed it goes to plan and we fall in love with these places too.

The Philippines just look stunning, so we're looking forward to exploring a few of the 7,000 islands, seeing the countryside, landscape, and doing some diving in the turquoise seas.

I'm not sure its quite going to be long enough (or relaxing enough!) to make us chilled out bums, but hopefully pulls us away from the daily grind and constant to-do lists ! We can reset, recharge and re-prioritise life plans ! Well, thats the plan anyway !