Couple ditches 9 to 5 jobs in the UK to travel the world

A British couple have ditched their life in the UK to travel and are now spending their time living in strangers’ homes, tending to animals and working odd jobs as they see the world.

Hannah Bull, 35, and her husband Rob left their jobs and home in Peterborough, Cambs. in January 2022 to become digital nomads after the pandemic forced them to ‘take a pause’ and re-evaluate their futures.

Hannah and Rob, 38, decided to take a ‘leap of faith’ and pick up odd jobs, such as house and pet sitting, to fund their international adventures.

The couple have looked after horses on a ranch in Arizona, taught English to pupils at a kindergarten in Budapest, helped to edit a book in Costa Rica and even had to run interference between feuding chickens in a coop in Montenegro.

The Bulls, who initially planned to travel for just a few years, now expect to maintain their wanderlust lifestyle for the foreseeable future and are encouraging other travel lovers to ‘open yourself up new to opportunities’.

Hannah, a PR and marketing specialist, and Rob have ‘always had the travel bug’ and would go on holiday as much as their jobs and annual leave balances allowed.

They first went on an extended holiday about six years ago after taking a sabbatical from work and spent two months on the beach in San Diego, California.

Hannah claims that trip ‘cemented in our minds that we wanted to do this long term’ and the pair began saving up money to do pursue their dreams. However, they didn’t actually take the leap to quit their jobs and go abroad until 2022. 

‘Covid allowed us to step back and gave us a change in our normal lives and career wise,’ Hannah told MailOnline. Rob had been working in a wedding band at the time and Hannah’s marketing job went remote. 

‘The pandemic forced us to take a pause and really see what we wanted to do, take a leap of faith and just do it. It taught us you never know what’s around the corner and so we just went for it.’ 

The Bulls initially planned to spend two to three years travelling, surviving on their savings, but have now been able to expand their travel timeline by picking up freelance work on a workaway website.

The couple often apply for longer term house and pet sitting jobs because it allows them to ‘live like a local, not a tourist’.

One of their first sitting gigs involved looking after horses on a ranch in Arizona. They had no prior experience with horses, but applied anyway and ‘didn’t expect to be accepted’ for the role.

Another position saw them tending to wild tortoises while in Montenegro. Hannah and their host decided to number the animals ‘to keep track of them and look after them’.

‘We spray painted a number on their shells,’ she said, adding that her host’ husband later pointed out that ‘we were probably making them much more visible to predators’.

The couple also managed a chicken coop during another homestay in Montenegro, during which one of the chickens got attacked by dogs.

‘The chickens started turning on each other,’ Hannah recalled. ‘We had to run interference with the chickens.’

She said the healthy chickens could ‘sense weakness’ in the injured chicken and would peck it and ‘really go for it’. The couple routinely put the injured chicken in ‘isolation to keep her safe’ and even had to tale her to the vet.

Hannah added: ‘The owner loved the chickens and wouldn’t let nature take its course. The vet would nurse her back to health and then the chickens would attack her again. It really was pecking order behaviour.

‘When we left though all the chickens were alive and well.’

But not all of their jobs involve animal-related labour. One of Hannah’s odd jobs in Costa Rica involved helping an American author wrote and edit a self help book on San Soo, a Chinese-American martial arts form.

‘He lovingly called me the “hatchet woman” as I would cut a lot of his words – he had too many!’ she said.

While in Fot, Hungary – which is just outside of Budapest – they helped teach English to kindergarteners.

‘On our first week we had to dress up as Minnie Mouse and cowboy for their traditional festival. Talk about in at the deep end,’ Hannah joked.

The Bulls also stayed with a man that they have hailed as a ‘true Texan’ while in Waco in 2022 on a workaway assignment. They were tasking with helping with the upkeep of his properties.

‘On our last day, he drove us out to his ranch with what Rob thought was a guitar case. Turns out it was a shotgun and we got to shoot empty beer cans for an hour or so,’ Hannah recalled. ‘We then went to a tiny Amish diner for lunch – quite a weird day but we loved it.’

The couple would also regularly volunteer during stays that were longer than one month. They helped out at food banks in North Carolina and Tuscan and in Texas volunteered at a dog shelter.

‘We love doing this as you really get to know a community and we’ve met some lovely people,’ Hannah explained.

Although the couple picks up workaway assignments to help save on costs, Hannah is still working for a freelance PR agency in the UK which has been ‘extremely flexible’ with her travel situation.

Her freelance work also earns a decent amount of monthly income so the couple have not had to touch much of their savings pot. This has allowed them to extend their travels plans.

The Bulls went to Vietnam for Christmas 2023, marking their first trip to Asia. They then plan to head to Cambodia and Thailand before making their way to New Zealand and Australia by the end of 2024.

‘We have plans to stop doing this,’ Hannah said. ‘We want to keep travelling and our not adverse to returning to places we’ve been before.

‘The hardest part is missing friends and family at home, but we have been lucky that friends and family come to visit. Balancing visas is also hard. Post-Brexit we only get 90 days in EU and in America we only get 90 days.’

The couple says that it can also be ‘daunting’ to be pushed out of their comfort zone, especially as arrive in a new country, stranger’s home or new workaway assignment. But they noted it is ‘exciting at the same time because it’s a new adventure’ and ‘keeps adrenaline pumping’.

‘Our best advice is take the leap,’ Hannah said of others interested in a digital nomad lifestyle. ‘Along the way opportunities have come up. Just believe in yourself and your travel partner. 

‘This has exceeded our expectations. We left our home, jobs and family, but we have learned if you open yourself up to opportunities, you’ll be rewarded along the way.’