The Ideal Home Show could change our kitchens, the Motor Show offered a new set of wheels to aspire to, and the Boat Show revealed us a lifestyle we could only dream about. Now there is a show to change your whole life: One Life Live, opening at Olympia in London next Friday. Whether you want to find a new career, start your own business or move to the other side of the world, the show offers ideas on how you can make the dream a reality. Here three people talk about how they have changed their lives through travel.
DR MARY SELBY
Dr Mary Selby, 45, a mother of six from Newmarket, Suffolk, is about to give up her job as a GP because of her passion for trekking and climbing, particularly in the Himalayas. And the resulting loss of family income will mean that some of her children will no longer go to private schools.
Selby, also a novelist under the pen-name Joanna Bell, dates her enthusiasm for travel back to a school cruise at the age of 14, but the big change started with a family trek to Nepal in 2004. “On a whim I contacted the headmaster of our children’s prep school and asked whether he’d like to come. He said yes, and so did 40 other parents and children. It turned into a happy and successful party.”
A highlight of the expedition, which followed a route through the foothills around Annapurna, was a raging thunderstorm during which Selby and one of her children were blown off their feet by a nearby lightning strike. “It was a narrow escape, but most of the children said later that the storm was the best bit. And everyone agreed that we should do it again,” she says.
Within a matter of months Selby was back in Nepal as expedition doctor on a charity trek organised by the mountaineer Doug Scott, and conversation turned to the untapped potential of school groups. Convinced by the concept, she returned to set up Snow Leopard School Treks, a tour operator specialising in taking school parties to wilderness areas.
But despite an impressive website, brochure and an ATOL licence costing £10,000, the concept has proved hard to sell. Selby is having to accept the fact that the idea has not succeeded, but her life path is now changed for good. She is going to be a tour organiser for Doug Scott’s Community Action Treks, and has signed up to be expedition doctor on an Everest summit attempt in 2010.
As for the rest of the family — her five children aged 9 to 23, have already travelled
to Nepal and Botswana and are going to Ladakh this summer — they’re not unhappy with the situation. “My husband has the travel bug, too. We’ve decided that taking the children around the world is more important than private school.”
CLAIRE LEE
Clare Lee, 35, from Sheffield, had her life changed by an accident on the Greek island of Skiathos.
Ten years ago Lee was working as a holiday tour rep.
It was a job she loved, but while she was on a motorbike holiday with her boyfriend, she ended up in a ditch after a van driver talking on a mobile phone swerved to avoid a pothole. Doctors feared that she would never walk again.
Seven months of rehabilitation gave Lee time to think. She developed her creativity through an Open University Arts Foundation diploma in design. Back unsteadily on her feet, she didn’t feel comfortable in the UK, where most of her schoolfriends had married and settled down, so when a job came up in Oman she jumped at the chance.
It was a design position with a big consultancy: “But in the end I felt there was something missing,” she says. “Nobody cared about the environment, about sustainability. I can’t say that it was all down to the accident, but those issues were becoming increasingly important to me.”
After three years she quit to become a yoga teacher on the Greek island of Rhodes. Three years on, she offers a range of complementary therapies in Rhodes Old Town and also runs a business renovating traditional houses.
Rhodes is now home. The cold, damp British climate would aggravate the injuries from her accident, and the UK “doesn’t give me the sense that I can achieve what I want to do”, she says. “My mother would like me to be closer, but she knows I’m far more contented here.”
Page 2: Nigel Hollington's story, and tips for taking a break
()NIGEL HOLLINGTON
Nigel Hollington, 50, is a teacher at a state school in Watford. Early in his career he did a two-year stint in Beirut, but it was the recent death of his father that prompted him to reassess his life after 25 years of teaching: “I realised I didn’t want to wait until I got to retirement age before trying things I’d never done before.”
He gave up his job, rented out his house and set off on projects with five carefully selected organisations. Rather than teach, he did relief work in Africa and conservation assignments in different parts of the world. Each project cost him an average of £3,000, but “I felt as if I was making a contribution, and I learnt a lot personally.”
Fifteen months later he returned to his old school. “School had been very encouraging throughout. They said that they didn’t want to lose me, and that I should come back when I was ready, so I just fitted back in where they needed me.”
For Hollington, seeing the wider world didn’t result in dissatisfaction with his lot as a teacher, and he believes that the quality of his work has benefited from a broader life experience. But there has been some reassessment of his priorities and he doesn’t think he will remain in the profession for ever. While he was away he had a couple of discussions with his host organisations. “Although I have no plans for change right now, I suspect I will probably end up in relief work in the not-too-distant future,” he says.
Don’t be surprised if your friends fail to show interest in your travel tales — they’re merely envious. From Gap Years for Grown Ups by Susan Griffith (Vacation Work, £11.95).
