The hardest part of a long trip is rarely the planning. It is working out where the money comes from.
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Plenty of people have savings that will cover a fortnight and an asset that could cover a year. The problem is that the asset is a house, and houses are slow.
Here is how the realistic options compare, and what each one costs in time as well as money.
Work out the real number first
Before deciding how to fund a trip, you need to know what you are funding. Daily spend is the figure that matters, not the flight.
Southeast Asia comfortably costs around £35 to £50 a day for mid-range travel. South America sits closer to £55 to £70, and Western Europe will take £90 or more unless you are camping or self-catering.
Multiply the daily rate by the number of days, then add flights, visas, vaccinations, insurance, and kit. Gear is the line people underestimate most.
Then add 20% on top of that for wriggle room. Long trips overrun, and the buffer is what stops you coming home early.
The three things you can do with a property
If you own a home, you have three options. They each have their pros and cons.
1. Leave it empty
This is the one that sounds simplest and is quietly the most expensive. Most insurers restrict or withdraw cover on a property left unoccupied beyond around 30 days.
You will usually need to notify your insurer and may need specialist unoccupied cover at a higher premium. Meanwhile the mortgage, council tax, and standing charges all continue.
Empty houses also deteriorate faster than lived-in ones. A slow leak discovered after eight months is a very different repair from a leak caught the same day.
2. Rent it out
Renting covers the mortgage and sometimes more, which makes it the obvious answer. It also makes you a landlord from several thousand miles away.
You will need consent to let from your lender, which is usually granted and sometimes carries a fee or a mortgage rate change. You will also need a valid EPC, a gas safety certificate, electrical checks, and proper deposit protection.
A letting agent will handle the day-to-day for roughly 8-15% of the rent, with full management costing more. Budget for time when the property will be empty, because a two-month gap between tenants while you are in Vietnam is harder to absorb than it sounds.
If you are out of the UK for six months or more, HMRC’s non-resident landlord rules may apply to the rental income. That is worth checking before you fly rather than discovering it from a hostel in Hanoi.
3. Sell up
Selling releases the whole amount rather than a monthly trickle. It also removes every obligation listed above.
The real cost is losing your foothold in the market, and that is a serious decision rather than a detail. If you expect to return to the same town and buy again, renting out is usually the better call.
Where the trip is open-ended, or a move was on the cards anyway, selling turns a slow asset into a funded year.
The date problem nobody plans for
Travel runs on fixed dates. House sales do not.
Trekking seasons are narrow. The Everest region works in spring and autumn and not in between, and the Tour du Mont Blanc is around 105 miles (170 kilometres) of trail that is only sensibly walked between late June and mid-September.
Monsoon season arrives across much of Southeast Asia whether a sale completed or not. Flights get cheaper the earlier they are booked, and many visas run from the date of issue rather than the date of entry.
All of which means you need a completion date you can actually plan around. The open market struggles to give you one.
The average UK sale takes around five months from listing to completion, with roughly 120 days of that falling after an offer is accepted. Almost none of it comes with a firm date attached.
Around a quarter of agreed sales in the UK also collapse before completion. Usually it is not your buyer but somebody three or four links down a chain you will never meet.
When that happens the survey money is gone, most of the legal work is gone, and any removals deposit may be gone too. You lose the season as well as the money.
That is the point at which some travellers look at whether they can sell a house for cash on a fixed date instead, where the buyer uses their own funds and there is no chain further down the line to fail.
The trade-off should be stated plainly rather than buried. You will get meaningfully less than the open market would pay, and for most sellers that makes it the wrong choice.
For a trip with a booked flight and a trekking window that closes, the sums work differently. Certainty carries a price, and occasionally it is worth paying.
Cut what the trip costs
Funding is only half the problem. The other half is making the money last.
Slow travel is cheaper travel. Weekly and monthly accommodation rates are far below nightly ones, and staying put cuts transport to almost nothing.
Shoulder season does the same job for you. Southern Europe in May or October sits at roughly 20ºC to 25ºC (68ºF to 77ºF) for a fraction of August prices.
Overland beats flying on cost almost everywhere outside Europe. Night buses and trains also save you a night’s accommodation.
Earn while you are out there
Remote work is the obvious route if your job allows it. Negotiating reduced hours rather than resigning keeps income flowing and makes coming back far easier.
Seasonal work is the other option. Ski resorts, dive schools, hostels, and harvest work all hire travellers, usually for food and board plus a little cash.
Check the visa position before relying on any of it. Working on a tourist visa is illegal in most countries and the consequences are disproportionate.
Before you go
A handful of jobs are much easier done at home than from a departure lounge.
- Check passport validity, as many countries require six months remaining beyond your return date
- Scan your passport, insurance, and visas and store copies you can reach offline
- Tell your bank, and check which cards charge for overseas withdrawals
- Set up a mail redirect or a trusted forwarding address
- Read the government’s foreign travel advice for every country on your route
- Arrange insurance that covers what you actually plan to do, because standard policies exclude trekking above set altitudes
Frequently asked questions
How much should you save before a long trip?
Work from your daily budget rather than a round number. Three months in Southeast Asia at £45 a day needs roughly £4,000 plus flights, insurance and a buffer.
Is it better to rent out or sell?
Rent out if you intend to come back to the same area and buy again. Sell if the trip is open-ended, or if the admin of being a remote landlord outweighs the rent.
How long does it take to sell a house in the UK?
Around five months on average from listing to completion. The post-offer stage alone runs to roughly 120 days, and very little of it comes with a guaranteed date.
Can you get a mortgage after a long career break?
Yes, though lenders will want to see income re-established, which usually means several months of payslips or accounts. A gap on its own is not a barrier, but applying mid-trip with no current income generally is.
What happens to travel insurance on trips over a month?
Standard annual policies often cap single trips at 30 or 31 days. Longer journeys need a backpacker or long-stay policy, bought before departure rather than once you are already away.
Funding a long trip is mostly a sequencing problem rather than a money problem. Work out the real cost, decide what happens to the property early, and build the dates backwards from the season you actually want to be somewhere.
