Austin Bayard & Jennifer Watson selling everything to go travelling two best friends story

Both Austin Bayard & Jennifer Watson love to travel and love being close to nature. These were some of the things that brought them together in the first place. So when the idea of travelling full time began to take shape in their heads, they knew that the only way they could start off was by not just quitting their day jobs but also selling the one thing they had worked hard to buy: their house, we wish Austin and Jennifer all the best.

Austin Bayard & Jennifer Watson did what all of us only dream of doing: they quit their jobs, they sold their house and they hit the road. It has been over two years since they actually did the unthinkable and neither of them has any regrets of quitting their job to travel. To this day, Austin Bayard & Jennifer Watson have traveled across 11 states and visited eight countries so far. Like all great ideas, this one too was born on the spur of the moment. But preparing for a life on the road took tad longer — more than a year to be precise.

Seeing pictures of people travelling the world may seem very enticing but there’s always more to the photos than what meets the eyes and Austin Bayard & Jennifer Watson knew it just too well. “Before we quit our jobs and sold the house, we tried to live ‘life-on-the-road’ by exploring places around our home itself. So we started doing budget weekend trips, just to see if we could indeed manage it. Then we stopped going to fancy dining places and we ate at home as much as possible. We did this because we knew we would be living on shoestring budget at all times. This prepared us for the rough life that lay ahead of us.”

The couple also sought inspiration from other travellers who have been living the kind of life they were hoping to live. Travelogues, mostly written by young European travellers, inspired them and gave them the impetus needed to take the plunge. Finally, a year after they had the idea over dinner, Austin Bayard & Jennifer Watson quit their jobs, sold their home and hit the road.

The only way for us to generate funds for a year round travel was to sell the house,” Austin says in an email conversation. “We don’t understand the concept of a sabbatical. So it was very clear from day one that if we had to do this, we would have to quit our jobs and sell our house.”

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