Daniel Wallace: BootsnAll Author

Daniel Wallace
BootsnAll Author

Daniel Wallace

My name’s Daniel, I’m 25, English, and I’ve given up a safe job for life at the Bank of England to go travelling around the world. I’m so happy I’m finally doing this; I’ve been putting it off for years, ever since I finished school. I went to University straight after school to try and live away from my parents, and started work after Uni in order to pay off my debts. I’ve been working at the bank for two and a half years, and I’ve been living at home and seriously saving up to go travelling for almost a year.

Why am I going travelling? Because I’ve loved all time I’ve spent abroad before, because travelling for a long period has been a dream/plan of mine for years, and because I feel it will help me develop more into the kind of person I want to be.

What’s my plan? I’m flying to New York on July 20th, make my way to a friend’s wedding in Detroit, flying to the West Coast and spending some time travelling around there, then basically heading south into Mexico, slowly make my way to Panama, flying to Ecuador, then travelling down to Chile and, eventually, flying on to Australia/NZ. I’ve got a working visa for Australia, and I don’t have a plan for what I will do after that, but will probably travel on to SE Asia. I don’t have a RTW ticket, after a lot of investigation I’ve decided to just buy tickets as I go.

I’ve saved up what I hope is enough money, and aim to be travelling for about a year and a half… In truth, I don’t want to come back to the UK any time soon. I’m hoping to find a place/job somewhere that will make me want to stay there for a few years. I don’t want to spend 18 months just sightseeing or jungle trekking, I’m planning to study Spanish, try and find work/volunteering opportunities, and try and actually get to know parts of the world.

Past travel experience:
Working in upstate New York in a Frankenstein Wax Museum for three months, spending three financially disastrous months in Hawaii trying to earn a living handing out fliers for a dodgy nightclub and selling kitchen knives, an autumn studying in Venice as part of my history degree – and shorter holidays to Morocco, Malaysia and Turkey. Upstate NY was fun if a little dull at times, and the manager of the museum really sucked. Hawaii was beautiful, but very difficult to find work, and no one appreciated the British accent (”Hey, are you from the mainland?”). Venice is a pretty unique, wonderful place, an incredible experience to go to lectures each day by water bus, but not always the most welcoming of places, and got a little claustrophobic as the months went on.

Please feel free to email me if you’d like to ask any questions about living in London, planning a round the world trip (although as I haven’t left yet, all my advice could be utterly wrong…) or persuading yourself that giving up a salary and career is a good idea.

Feel free to email Daniel at danielwallace@ekit.com. Click on his name below for links to all of Daniel’s BootsnAll articles. Follow his Asian travelogue on No Place As Home

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