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First practice hike
Originally we’d planned on hiking the AT in 2024, but we had a lot to learn! Before we knew quite how much, we realised that in Summer 2023 we had left it a bit late for a decent practice hike. The weather wouldn’t be good enough from late September up until when we wanted to leave for the AT, AND we’d used up pretty much all of our holiday allowance. So the best we could do was a 3-day hike near my parents, down in Sussex. We decided that we’d try to walk half of the South Downs way. It runs for 100 miles along the south coast of England.
We managed to hike 50 miles in 3 days but it was a bit ambitious considering we hadn’t really had time to train, and at the end of August, the weather was pretty hot. We made it though, and we had fun, despite the constant up and downs of the downs. At seven sisters park (white cliffs on the south coast), it turns out that there are in fact 8 big hills to be climbed and descended. So now we call them the 8 bastards, instead of the 7 sisters.
Booking visa interviews
When we went to book our visa interview in November 2023, we were absolutely gutted to find that there weren’t any available appointments until March 2024. Considering we would need to leave in March if we were planning to start in April (and we didn’t feel that we could bank on definitely getting the visas), we eventually had to come around to the idea that quitting jobs, and packing up and renting our house out, was a bit too much to gamble on the off-chance that we did get a visa approved.
We were low for a little while as we got used to the idea of having to put it off for a year, but eventually we saw some upsides. We realised that packing up my house of 15 years in just 4/5 months was probably pretty ambitious, and saving for the best part of a year without any income in a few months almost definitely wasn’t enough time either. At that point, we were just planning to travel for 9 months too, so it didn’t take us long to figure out that with a bit more planning and saving, we could take the full amount of time allowed for a sabbatical: 12 months.
Applying for sabbaticals
Roo had already mentioned to his bosses about wanting to take a sabbatical before, so it wasn’t a shock to them when he officially applied. They were very supportive and everyone above him indicated that they would approve it, but it took a little while for it to become official. As for me, I work part time for a charity, and I hadn’t heard of anyone taking a sabbatical there, so I thought I was going to have to quit my job. I was open about the travels we were planning, and one day one of my lovely colleagues said something like “that’s what the sabbatical policy is for!” What?! Thanks Lesley! I had no idea before that, so I checked it out and found out that Oxfam offer a sabbatical after 5 years too. The thought that I could keep my job AND go on the adventure of a lifetime was amazing. I don’t think anyone really ever uses the policy though, so trying out how to actually apply was quite difficult. After lots of e-mails, I did eventually manage it and my awesome boss approved it.
Visa Interviews
The visa we applied for was a B2 tourist visa, and we booked our interviews for 8am on a cold and wet March morning. We didn’t learn until it was too late, that we could have booked one interview for the two of us, so it was doubley stressful and worrying in case one of us was granted a visa, and the other wasn’t. It would have been a good test of our marriage if that happened!
The prep for our interviews took days of document gathering. We needed bank statements, letters from our employers, proof of close family ties, property deeds, and proof of our intended activities while we were in the states. We made a detailed itinerary for the trail, written up and printed it so that we could look like we knew (and actually start to understand) what we were talking about. It will probably go out the window within the first few days, but we’re hoping it’s a pretty good rough guide for our time there.
Despite our nerves, everything went amazingly well. We were allowed to go in together, and the guy interviewing us was actually a fellow hiker who had hiked some of the AT. He asked us a couple of questions and after days of work, didn’t want to look at a single piece of paper. After a couple of minutes talking, he threw our passports in a box behind him and said our visas would arrive in a week or two. We walked out of the embassy before our interview was even due to begin and couldn’t believe that we had America visas. We were thrilled!
It’s actually happening!
Moving out
We knew a great estate agent who agreed to rent our place and manage it while we were gone. So we started packing up our things and thinning them out. I’d lived in my house for 15 years and never bothered declutterring so there was a lot of stuff to get rid of and too many jobs around the house that we’d been putting off. We definitely never would have been able to do it all in time for a 2024 hike. There were things that we’d stopped seeing and only noticed when the realtor came over to value the place. So we got painting and sanding, and started selling as much as we could on eBay and gumtree. My folks had kindly agreed to store our things while we were gone so we started driving car-fulls down each time we’d visit. It was all really hard going and surprisingly emotional, but it was great to have the right motivations for doing it. At least now when we move back in it will be nicer than when we moved out! We moved out early Jan and lived with my folks on and off between travels to France and Zimbabwe in January.
Life admin
There was so much invisible work to be done to prepare too; tying up as many loose ends as possible before leaving the country. We were saving money everywhere we could, and had landlord and travel insurance to buy, utility accounts to close up, flights and accommodation to book for the US and our pre-US travels, equipment to research and buy, safety certifications for the house to get, and a million other little jobs that filled our minds in between the more hands-on work of fixing up and moving out of the house.
Spending time with family and friends
We also wanted to make sure we spent good time with everyone we love, and just enjoying where we lived. This was much easier said than done around all the prep but we did our best and we’re glad we had gone to extra effort for this now that we’re away and missing everyone already! We have 2 brand new nieces who will be over a year old by the time we get home. There’s never a good time to go away.
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