Turning 30 is considered by many Singaporeans to be a sign to try and work doubly hard on establishing your career

Martin and Jacinda decided to take a slightly different route.

A van and a dream

The couple is leaving their life, and careers, in Singapore behind and making their way to Europe, specifically Portugal, in a relatively inexpensive S$11,000 van they bought in Malaysia.

Here they are taking out the seats, to put in a whole load of stuff.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B1aNbGYB9io/

Here is what their accommodations look like.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BzraQAsBAYj/

And all the ingredients they keep in their environmentally-friendly storage boxes.

The dangers present with sleeping in a van in the middle of nowhere had invariably presented themselves as well.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bzt_-9_BQoh/

Thankfully, it was just the police.

Planning and family objections

As expected of a van trip to Europe, there was plenty of planning, and saving involved.

While Jacinda, who's a freelance emcee in her own words, had less of a hassle packing up and vanning it up, Martin's situation was a tad trickier, as he worked in a corporate environment.

Despite his penchant for planning, Martin did acknowledge there was a limit to how much he could plan for a journey like this, as Jacinda recounted in an Instagram post.

"You’ve come a long way to where we are now. Though I was the one who put the van life dream into your head, you were the one who made it happen. Thank you for being the smart to my stupid, for calculating the sums and adulting to make it happen. And even when you couldn’t calculate no more, you decided to wing it and made this leap of faith."

Even though their convictions were strong, getting their family on board was always going to be a bit of a challenge.

According to an interview with 24 Hour Travel, they revealed that Martin's family weren't all that psyched about him taking off to Europe in a van.

His family called him "siao la" for even thinking about the lengthy expedition. They also pointed out that job prospects wouldn't be all that great for someone who had taken off for a few years, and questioned "who's gonna hire" him when he eventually comes back.

To that, Martin replied that "wo zuo gong hen jiu liao" or "I've been working very long already" at which point his mother rolled her eyes.

Martin himself had some reservations about going on the trip so early into their working career, but Jacinda eventually talked him round to it.

One of the impetus for going on this journey now rather than later was a response to a popular Singapore saying about enjoying life only after retirement. Which to Jacinda felt a bit too late.

Check out their really informative interview with 24 Hour Travllers on just how much they had to prepare, and what is needed if one does intend to travel all the way to Europe from Singapore in a van.

Jacinda ended the interview with this quote:

"If you don't like your life, change it."

This was apparently a saying Martin liked to use, but trademark laws are hard to enforce in a van

Enjoying themselves

And while the journey is just beginning, it looks like they're really enjoying themselves.

Here they are celebrating Martin's birthday on the road.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B1hmO9xhZGI/

And here is a well-written post on why they decided to do what they are doing.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B0m2-vghpY5/

"When we used to work full time, we could always only travel 2 weeks max at a time. But even during those short trips, our encounters with the locals made us realise that we actually didn’t know much of the world and her ways.

Maybe cuz having lived, studied and worked our entire lives in Singapore, all we saw was what’s in front of us and all we knew was where we lived."

So here's a trip that is a little longer than two weeks.

"So we MUST go! For the sake of ourselves and the society, we‘ve got to go into the world, take off our tinted glasses and head towards the unknown, physically and mentally. And this time not for only 2 weeks; we wanna really take our time to discover, and maybe from it, find ourselves and our place in the universe.

Also, we go NOW, not when we retire and become more set in our ways. And we will return when we are ready and hopefully can contribute more value to the society."

They plan to travel around Southeast Asia for a while, before heading off to China in 2020, and eventually making their way to Europe after that.

Good luck!

Images from 24 Hour Traveller.

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