I've always regretted never doing my Big OE (Overseas Experience, for those not schooled in Kiwi concepts)...

Yes, yes, yes -- I know many of you think we've travelled a lot already. And it goes without saying that I'm grateful for that privilege, and aware how painfully it contrasts with the enforced "stuckness" of so many human beings in our era.

Nevertheless, the OE hankering persists.

You see, our travel has always been work-dependent, and therefore constrained.

The classic OE often involves work, too, of course. But it's usually a more casual, transient, no-responsibilities type of work, picked up largely with the aim of funding the next stage of travel. It meshes with the overall happy-go-lucky quality of the whole experience.

It's that blithe, easy-going kind of travel that we feel we've missed out on.

A few years ago, conscious of this gap, we started holding "planning meetings". This was back in the days when the Pullman happy hour offered a generous pour and a reasonable price. Ensconced in their comfy armchairs, with a glass of something pleasant to ease us into the post-work part of the day, we cooked up a basic shape for a purpler post-work life.


We did the costings (well, one of us did the costings, while the other drew up ever more exotic itineraries...). We reckoned that if we planned modestly (since we're not exactly made of money), we could travel for a couple of years before "settling down".

Modest travel needs to be slow. But that suits us fine. We have absolutely no desire to hack around the world clocking up "sights" (although I must confess to a bit of a weakness for clocking up countries and territories...).

What we're aspiring to is relaxed travel, sticking to surface routes where possible, taking plenty of time to simply "be present" in places, walking as much as possible, and following whatever path our curiosity takes us down.

Slow is relative, of course, as you don't want to be travelling too slowly through expensive parts of the world. But you get the idea.

Then we started to wonder whether we wouldn't prefer to do at least the initial part of the settling down bit here in Malaysia, where we've lived for five and a half of the last seven years. In order to fulfil that bit of the programme, we need to apply for long-term visas.


It all sounds pretty simple, right?

Well, actually, not so much...

Here are just some of the questions we don't know the answers to at this precise moment:

Will we be granted long-term Malaysian visas? If not, what's Plan B? Can we bust out of the stifling straitjacket of tax and insurance regulations long enough to actually DO any travelling? (Those guys SO like you to be fixed somewhere...) Last year's cancer bowled us another googly. How well do regular check-ups and the unpredictable side-effects of cancer-squashing drugs fit into a mobile lifestyle? How far can we stretch our funds, given that new constraint? What will end up becoming our (much dreaded but ultimately indispensable) "permanent address"? And how can we keep that place as impermanent and sojourner-oriented as possible -- like the tern's rudimentary little scrape on a rock?


I have truly never started a year with so little idea of how it's going to finish... For a control freak like myself, that's terrifying -- but also strangely exhilarating.

So, given that this is an entirely live and unscripted experiment, I thought it would be interesting to document not only the places we reach, but also the way the process unfolds.

My original theme was "contemplative travel". But it rapidly became obvious that this sounded way too serene and managed to describe the way things are emerging.

Instead, this experience is going to be "chaotic travel", "make-it-up-as-you-go-along travel", "can-we-actually-do-this travel".

We've made quite a splashy start. Most notably, I've given up my job. And we've got rid of 2018.

At the beginning of next week, we leave the short-term accommodation we've occupied since September. We won't quite have fulfilled our ambition to walk out with just two rucksacks (but the excess fits in a rucksack-sized storage box, so that's not bad).

I have to say, though, that planning meetings are pretty prosaic these days. They're very focused. They have none of the bold vision, and excited, silly optimism of earlier times. We have already accepted the concept of the impossible.

Indeed, I sometimes wonder if my "purple" has already turned into lilac, or that funny shade of mauve that's so pale you wonder if it's not just plain grey...


But something will be possible. A journey of some sort will happen.

And I'm damned if it won't be interesting, because that bit IS within my control...