My Travel Plans: One Bag Traveller

Back in 2019, I packed in my full-time job and packed my bags to travel the world with a company called Remote Year. I spent four months living in four cities in South America and three months in three cities in Asia – and you can read about the first few months of that adventure here.

But then, in March 2020, the world was hit by Coronavirus and all travel plans were brought to an abrupt end. Since then, things have been interesting. I moved back to the UK to live with my parents for six months during the initial lockdown and moved to the seaside in Margate (Kent) for a couple of years as the lockdowns continued. I broke my ankle quite savagely just over a year ago – on the morning of the Euro 2021 Final – which put any further travel plans on hold. In April, one of my clients offered me a job and, within three months, fired their biggest client and made the whole company redundant. As you do.

Then I suffered the loss of my Dad one month ago today. My dad was my biggest supporter of everything I did in life. Be it going to University, finding a new place to live, helping me move all my stuff into a new flat, going to football matches, starting a new job or, as in 2019, starting my own business while travelling the world.

He always, always urged me to take the positives in life, so he wouldn’t want me to dwell on how I feel about him not being here any longer. And one of the last things he said to me was how proud he was that I’d put losing the job behind me and started planning to travel again.

My travel plans

In the aftermath of losing my job, I immediately decided I no longer wanted to work for anyone else and wanted to go back to doing my own thing. In 2019, I started Rob Latham Content, a freelance writing business in which I wrote blogs, articles, whitepapers, social content and more for tech companies.

It went pretty well, to the point where one of my clients hired me full-time. So it made sense to pick it up where I left off in April – and luckily I hadn’t gotten around to closing down the business or the corporate bank account! But I had deleted the website – so I’ve had to buy a new one and start rebuilding it from scratch.

I’ve been working freelance again for around two months, picked up some of my former clients and won a couple of new ones, which is really exciting. But it seems pretty pointless to be doing that in the UK, which I did during lockdown and during my time in Margate.

So I’ve decided to get back on the travel horse. Due to recent circumstances, I’ve yet to plan any further than a few days in Amsterdam and a month living in Sicily through October. But, the long-term plan is to get back out to South America early next year, hopefully going back to México City, Medellín and Santiago, as well as exploring a few other places I didn’t get to like Buenos Aires and Montevideo. From there, I’m considering going back to Asia with a view to going to Australia and New Zealand for the first time.

One Bag Traveller

However, last time I was travelling, I don’t think I made enough of the places I went and the adventures I went on – from sandboarding in Huacachina and climbing pyramids in México to some truly wild football matches in Chile, Colombia and México. I also struggled with things like waiting for checked bags and I wanted to try and do things differently.

So this time around, I’ve got myself a little GoPro and I’m planning to create videos and write blogs on the things I see, the places I go, and the things I do. I’ve also bought a new travel bag – the Adventure Bag from Stubble & Co. – which I hope will allow me to only take cabin luggage on flights and make getting around the world a lot easier.

With that in mind, I’ve created a new YouTube channel One Bag Traveller, where I’ll be aiming to upload videos of the adventures I go on. And I’ve created a new section on this website where I’ll write regular blogs on things I’ve done and general thoughts on travelling the world.

So that’s a quick update on my plans and I’m excited to get back on the road – or tracks, air, or water – to see and document more of the world!

For now, my first video introducing OBT is now live and gives you an overview of my plans while walking my mum’s dog Pepper. Enjoy!