Leaving behind the hustle and bustle of our city lives and going off-grid is a thought that might cross your mind once in a while. Watching countless videos on social media of people travelling might make you want to quit your 9 to 5 and start travelling.

However, the idea of packing your life that you built in a box and starting to travel is an exhausting task. Questions such as — will I have to quit my job, how will my family react, and most importantly, where to begin? If you are contemplating the same, then this is a sign.

These avid travel lovers have been living your dream. They are living life on the go without quitting their jobs. The Better India collected a few tips and lessons they learned from their travels to set you off on your journey.

1. Take the leap of faith

Leaving a stable home can be a challenging decision to take. But having faith in yourself is one of the first steps to setting up a caravan.

As a kid, Nischay always dreamt of owning his caravan but never had the courage to do so as an adult. His mother, who always motivated him to follow his dream, left him wanting to achieve this, after her death.

Nischay, a professional photographer, decided to follow his passion and built ‘Barty The Van’ in memory of his mother. He has travelled to states such as Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

2. Don’t let your gender stop you!

A common perception among society and our parents is ‘How will a girl do it alone’. Breaking this shackle are two content creators from Bengaluru and Mumbai — Ankita Kumar and Sharanya Iyer.

Their top advice — is faith in yourself. Avid travellers, the duo are still in awe of their achievement of traversing through some of the toughest terrains of Sikkim.

“From getting a vehicle together to getting it to Sikkim and then traversing through one of the toughest states, when it comes to securing permits as well as challenging landscapes—the trip was filled with crazy moments, but it was also incredible!” Ankita says.

3. Choosing the right profession

For the families of Sim, Kartik and their dog, Everest, the idea of living in a van was nothing short of bizarre. “Living in a van gives them an illusion of us being homeless or not accomplished. So we had to educate them a lot on how many couples are out there, living a fulfilling life by exploring the world,” says Kartik.

Besides their safety, their parents were also worried about how they would work. The duo started to look for more flexible roles. “We switched our career away from management roles to more technical ones. From 2018 onwards, we were both working full-time remote jobs in our respective fields,” says Kartik, who is an IT consultant. Sim, meanwhile, works in digital marketing.

What was left for them now was to travel the world. The couple, along with Everest, have travelled to more than 18 countries so far.

4. Choose only the essentials

When moving from a home to a van, there are a lot of things that need to be left behind like clothes, furniture and utensils.

Sim and Kartik suggest starting small when it comes to clothing. Then the couple moved on to the bigger things, calling in their friends to see what furniture, artwork, and plants they could give away.

Finally, whatever is left can be sold online. They then packed their clothes, kitchen items, and other essentials for the road.

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5. ‘Jobs fill our pockets, Adventure fills our soul’

Travel junkies Deepak and Ruchi Pandey have been travel buddies since they were in college. While the life of the couple changed when they had kids, the travel lover in them never died.

To cut their expenses on travel, the couple decided to make a mini home on wheels. They bought a Force Traveller 3350 and converted it into a caravan of their dreams.

How do they find time between their jobs? Deepak has a transferable job, which means moving around the country every two years. He makes sure to use his leaves judiciously and embarks on a trip every quarter. So far, the couple has taken four trips in their van — Leh and Ladakh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, and Gujarat.

Edited by Padmashree Pande.