A UK couple who left their jobs and home to travel the world with their six-year-old daughter say the 12-month trip is saving them thousands of dollars each month compared with life in their Cheshire hometown.
Hayley Trow, 37, and her husband Lewis, 45, told Jam Press that they set a monthly travel budget of roughly $2,530 to $3,795 but found their typical monthly outgoings in the U.K. had averaged about $5,422 to $6,778 — roughly half of which had been rent and household costs. "We’ve budgeted our travel costs to be less than our UK outgoings, traveling midrange, which is crazy — but completely puts into perspective UK living costs currently," Hayley said.
The family began the trip in July and celebrated daughter Nyla’s birthday at Disneyland Paris before spending a month in Italy, where they visited Lake Como, Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples and Puglia. They are currently in Bali and plan to remain there until November, when they will start a campervan tour of Australia. Their 12-month itinerary afterwards includes Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and the Maldives.
The Trows said the comparison in costs was stark. In the U.K., household bills had been about £300 ($406) a month, the weekly food shop roughly £200 ($271), and a typical day out could cost around £100 ($135). In Bali, they said, they secured an apartment with a pool and bills included for about £500 ($676) a month.
The family documented the trip on Instagram and said money was not the original motivation. After a 2022 trip to Australia, Hayley said she and Lewis wanted more time together and for their daughter to see the world. Both had worked in recruitment and said they had spent years advancing into leadership roles before deciding to take a year-long sabbatical.
To prepare, the couple spent seven months planning, moved out of their family home and lived with Lewis’s parents for about half a year to save. They notified Nyla’s school, which they said was supportive, and arranged a mix of online tutoring aligned to the U.K. curriculum and temporary enrollment at a multicultural school in Bali.
"At Nyla’s age, we know it will have an impact on her life and future development as she grows, and we are so grateful to have this time together to reconnect and explore the world as a family," Hayley said. She described trading "boardrooms for Bali beaches" as the best decision the family has made and urged other families with similar aspirations not to delay.
The Trows’ experience highlights a broader trend of families considering location-independent lifestyles as a response to rising domestic costs. Services that support long-term family travel have expanded in recent years. One company, Boundless Life, markets fully furnished family homes, coworking hubs and a place-based global education program that allows children to study in different countries for semesters at a time.
A family that discovered such services while traveling said the model can combine structured learning with cultural immersion. Diana Blinks, a U.S. mother of three, said she found homeschooling hubs useful while backpacking in Portugal because they provided peer groups and the chance to make lasting friendships without losing immersion in local culture.
The Trows said they trimmed spending and changed living arrangements well in advance to make the trip feasible. They described the move as a deliberate choice to prioritize family time and experiences over maintaining a higher-cost lifestyle at home.
"We wanted to make memories now, not ‘one day,'" Hayley said. "When she looks back, she won’t remember us being stressed about work — she’ll remember chasing waterfalls in Bali."
