Welcome to Never Ending Voyage

Simon and Erin in the Cook Islands

Simon and Erin in the Cook Islands

We are Simon Fairbairn and Erin McNeaney, a couple who have sold everything to travel the world indefinitely.

In 2008 we spent a year travelling around India, South East Asia, Australia, the South Pacific and the US and we experienced more in that year than we had in the previous ten. We met some wonderful people, saw some amazing places and did some incredible things. It was awe-inspiring and beautiful and frustrating and scary and exciting – it was everything but dull.

On our return to the UK, we found it very difficult to get back into the routine that we’d left. The mortgage, the bills, the car, our accumulated junk, the tedious repetitiveness of the nine to five – having experienced the vastness of the world and all of the opportunity out there, we struggled to fit back into business as usual.

So we’ve decided to head off again, but this time we’re leaving for good. We’ve sold everything we own, quit our jobs, rented out our house and we’re heading out to play dice with destiny.

This blog is all about how we got here and where we’re going.

Our first stop is Rio de Janeiro, and from there who knows? We are planning to spend as long as possible exploring Latin America, and along the way we’re going to try and figure out how to become fully fledged Digital Nomads, making a living as we travel on our Never Ending Voyage.

About Simon

Picture of SimonSimon is a modern day renaissance man. He is a multi-instrumentalist, designer, web developer and writer who loves making stuff happen. He plays guitar, piano and sings, but his first love is the drums. Unable to fit a full kit in his backpack, he has settled for a Martin Backpacker acoustic and can often be found on beaches or around fires singing softly to himself.

He met Erin at 16 and it was love at first sight. He spent the best part of two years doggedly pursuing her until she gave in, and they have now been together for over ten years. After school, he moved up to Manchester where he studied music at University. He joined a band that took him all the way to the Other Stage and a packed out Acoustic Tent at Glastonbury Festival 2005 before leaving the UK to travel for a year.

On his return, he decided it was time to try something new and got a job as a web designer. He believes that design and development are not mutually exclusive, and is equally at home tweaking designs in Photoshop as he is writing code and forming complex SQL queries. Since liberating himself from the security of regular employment, he has been working as a freelance web designer and developer (plug: check out his portfolio here).

When he gets a spare minute, he enjoys snowboarding and writing and is about 80 pages in to his first screenplay.

About Erin

Photo of ErinErin has had the wanderlust from a young age and always dreamed of travelling the world. After she finished her English degree at Liverpool University, she spent a month in Florence studying Italian, then volunteered as an English teacher and worked at an elephant orphanage in Sri Lanka. In 2008 she convinced Simon to follow her around the world, but a year wasn’t enough and has only made her want to see and experience more.

When she wasn’t travelling, she worked as a refugee arts coordinator and set up and ran the successful Exodus project, an arts programme that works with refugee communities in Greater Manchester. Her crowning achievement is the annual Exodus Festival, a huge day-long festival of music, dance and food that celebrates the diverse cultures within refugee communities and regularly attracts crowds of over 10,000 people.

Erin has a passion for languages and can speak Italian and is currently learning Spanish and Portuguese. She enjoys photography and published her first book of photos.

Erin also runs the highly regarded Kerala India Travel, a blog all about our favourite Indian state.

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