A Birkenhead father who called himself a “workaholic” has left the UK to take his family on a tour of Europe. Lee Bodell, 47, is paying for the trip by working just 10 hours a week selling solar panels on eBay and has already covered thousands of miles.
Lee had not taken a single sick day in eight years and was working 50-hour weeks as an HGV driver until the pandemic forced him to take time off and stay home. The father of four said the experience completely changed his outlook on life and led him to hand in his notice.
House sold and European adventure begins
Lee and his partner Aimee Bedford, 39, sold their house and all their belongings in July this year before flying to Paris in September. Together with their daughters Matilda-May, 10, and Mila, nine, the family have already visited seven countries in just three weeks, having spent £1,800 on 60-day continuous first-class rail passes that let them travel freely across the continent.
By November, when their tickets run out, they plan to have visited as many European countries as possible before heading to Thailand for Christmas and New Year. Looking further ahead, the family hopes to eventually settle somewhere overseas but plans to “see where life” takes them.
Remote work funds the trip
Their travels are funded by Lee’s remote work selling solar panels for mobile homes through eBay and his own website – a venture that takes just 10 hours a week and earns between £500 and £1,000 every week. The family estimates they have spent roughly £6,000 in total so far, including the interrail passes, and once they head to southeast Asia, they plan to live on a budget of around £1,500 per month.
In May last year, the couple decided to test whether running Lee’s business from abroad was viable and rented a villa in Cyprus for 10 days to “test the waters”. After returning home, they put their four-bedroom property on the market, which sold in July for £330,000, netting them £140,000 in equity.
Living life and taking the hit
Flying off to Paris in September, the family has since travelled through the Netherlands, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Italy. “We’d reached the point where we really felt like we just existing rather than living,” Aimee said. “We had jobs and the kids were attending school all day long and we were lucky if we had two hours with them at the end of the day. We wanted more time to experience life together.”
Despite having no fixed budget, the family chooses to base themselves away from tourist hotspots and city centres, travelling in to see the sights and keeping spending to a minimum. Aimee said: “We do have to make decisions about money like not eating out every night. It’s about being mindful and the things we want to splurge on are experiences. Travelling on a gondola in Venice cost a fortune but we’ll eat in for two days because of that. We’re living life and taking the hit.”
