How to fund a big adventure pt. 1
My story and how much a 10-month run around Britain costs
“How much did it cost?” is one of the questions I get asked most often about my 5,000 mile run around the coast of Britain (second only to “how many shoes did you get through?”).
It’s understandable, as I’d imagine cost is one of the biggest barriers to people feeling able to do big adventures. I think being transparent about the financial side is really important - so that’s what I’m going to try and do in this two-part series. In this post I’ll cover my story and share how much my run around Britain cost. In part two I’ll tell you how I raised that money and offer more general advice, including things to consider when planning your own adventure, ways to cut costs and and some funding suggestions (taking into account everything I’ve learned over the last eight years).
A quick disclaimer before we get into it to say that I can only speak from my own experiences. I think that a key reason talking about money feels awkward is because it’s all so relative. The figures I detail below will be astronomical to some people, but barely a drop in the ocean to others. I’m hoping that these posts will overall be positive though and show ways for “ordinary” people to fund big adventures (even an ordinary person with a terrible credit history, as in my case).
My story
I was 23 when I decided that I wanted to go on a big adventure. I’d finished university about six months earlier and I was living and working in London, earning £18,000 a year at my startup job. My rent and bills ate up nearly 70% of my take-home earnings and, by the time I’d paid for my phone bill and Oyster card each month, I think I was left with about £300.
I had no savings and a stack of maxed-out student credit cards. I thought I’d found a magic hack by letting these cards default, because it meant I no longer had the minimum repayments coming out of my account each month. The downsides to this strategy included completely screwing up my credit score, being constantly hounded by banks and debt collectors via endless letters and calls from unknown numbers and, later down the line, receiving court threats. But for years I just buried my head in the sand, never picking up the phone or opening my post, and hoped it would all go away.
As I think a lot of people who have ever got themselves into a mess financially may be able to relate to, you get to a point where the whole thing feels so unfixable that you don’t even bother trying. Whereas now I might think, ‘oh I won’t buy that thing, I’m running a bit short this month’, when you’re in debt whatever you do or don’t do just feels like it has no impact (good or bad) on your situation. What difference does it make if you go to Pret for lunch instead of taking a sandwich to work, or buy a new pair of jeans on payday, or get a round of shots on a night out or - in this case - run around a country? I felt as though my being in debt was an immovable truth, with my rubbish credit score and accompanying anxiety simply facts of life I had to work around, rather than problems I could try and resolve.
I clearly don’t regret running around the coast. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done and I’ve essentially (unexpectedly) built a career off the back of it. Would it have been better to sort out my finances first and then go on an adventure? Probably, yes, but living in an expensive city on my £18k graduate salary that felt impossible (even though in hindsight I really didn’t owe that much money, it seemed insurmountable at the time). I also don’t think I ever would have ended up going if I’d waited. So while I absolutely wouldn’t promote getting into debt to go on an adventure, I guess in this instance all’s well that ends well.
I think the other important thing to note is that, for most of us, it’s always going to be case of priorities and sacrifices. Even if you aren’t starting with minus figures like I was, taking months off work and spending a large chunk of cash on an adventure is always going to involve a financial hit. If my aim after university had been to get ahead in my career and buy a house as soon as possible, then going for a 10-month run wouldn’t have have aligned very well with that plan.
Equally, although my finances were a shambles, I was in the very freeing position of having absolutely no responsibilities or commitments. I didn’t have any kids, pets, mortgages or long-term partners to consider. I didn’t have a good job I’d been working towards for years to give up. I understand that finding the time and money to go on an adventure gets a lot more complicated when you start to take all of these things into account. People always say that it’s never too late to go after what you want - I’d argue that it’s never too early either.
But anyway, that’s where I was at when I decided to go on a really long run. A bank balance which was very much in the red but an accompanying ‘f*ck it, what have I got to lose?’ attitude about the whole thing.