Oh thank you so much, I´m flattered! If you are thinking about going traveling I can only highly encourage you to do so! It was the best decision of my life! Gave me so many new perspectives and brought so many amazing people into my life. Before I left my hometown, I was absolutely miserable. No wonder if you´re only surrounded by negative people and only seeing the same things everyday, if you ask me..
Had to laugh when I read your question about maintaining financial security. Not because it is not an important concern but because I just absolutely didn´t care at that moment. When the desire for change becomes so present - suddenly everything seems possible. I thought everything will work out. Today I would actually have the same concerns haha. It did all work out in the end, but let me tell I had some weeks in between those two years travelling, where I was really struggling. I was living in the back of the van of my good friend Leo for about 3 weeks, when I arrived in Melbourne. (You can read the prologue to that in my third Blog post which I uploaded the day before yesterday) Because I burned through my money once again and all the affordable hostels were overbooked. In the end he even got me a job and I found a really nice place to stay! About a year after that, I had a few weeks where I couldn´t pay the rent and was living off of instant noodles. :-D But my housemates helped me out with the rent, begiving that I will land on my feet once more. And those struggles made me even grow more and appreciate the little things.
Australia really is a great country for longer travels. Normally you can get a working visa and find work quite easily. You have to be willing to do shit jobs sometimes though.
If you want to dip your toes in the water first, I can highly recommend SE-Asia. You can book a one-way ticket and leave enough money for the flight back on some savings account. Once you are there, you just stay as long as your saved up money will take you. In 2013 1000$ per country lasted me about a whole month. Not luxury accommodations obviously but decent enough and lots of good food and drinks. ;-) By now, especially Thailand will probably be a bit more expensive, but 1500$ for traveling that country for about 3 weeks should be plenty and give you a higher standard than I used. It´s also a very beginner friendly country. If you want to stretch that travel out a bit you could go to Laos right after for a few weeks. It´s very relaxed and should still be very cheap. I loved Cambodia as well and it was also very cheap but it was definitely the most intense and craziest country I´ve ever been too.
Following you too now! Hit me up if you got any more questions and check out my other two Blog entry’s for some more inspiration ;-)
Thank you for all of this! You're right about the whole financial thing. It seems that everything always works out, even when it doesn't seem to be going that way, and there are others to support us along our journey. I actually traveled to Thailand/Cambodia and LOVED it and would love to return. I look forward to keeping in touch and reading more of your posts!