I admire your adventurous spirit at 75.
I started a similar adventure at 54 and have been to Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, India and Egypt solo. (I also went Europe with my daughter during this time). I love travelling to places vastly different from my own. I met lots of other travellers along the way and this year I am going to Peru and hiking the Inca Trail with my sister. These have been the best years of my life.
Will this be your first travel experience?
I certainly don't have any questions about you having a life-changing journey at 75,
but I am concerned about you borrowing against your home to do it, and expecting to make money from writing. Neither of those is a wise choice.
That's what I mean, just what Kahua writes: pursuing a dream isn't bad, unless it brings you into a financial nightmare afterwards. Make sure you can pay it and don't go away from home to experience misery unless that's also a part of your dream (wouldn't be mine). At your age you need to have some comfort and take good care of yourself. You need to have some backup when you decide to go away from home at your age, just in case something happens.It can be a great experience but it can also became a disaster. Be prepared for whatever comes your way. My meaning doesn't have much value in the eyes of some intrepid travellers, but I even if you are dying to do it think before you start. I wish the best of luck anyway
Nothing ventured - nothing gained. On the one hand Go for it!....on the other...statistically women have a life expectancy of about 84.
That is a minimum of 9 years of living to do.
Just check that "utilising the equity " does not preclude a worry free 84th birthday.
Joy V
Go for it - after ensuring you have what you need to come back to - but don't put too much stock in the "life-changing" part. We are who we are and travel is just what it is. The epiphanies come or they don't. I don't think there is anything magical, per se about travel.
That said, moving out of the hum drum of one's normal everyday life is always VERY good for me. Actually, I don't think it is the travel that prompts me to new understandings as much as it is moving out of the orbit of things and people that become too demanding, suck too much out of me - because I allow them to. When I head off on a trip it's like I can breathe again.
I don't feel that as much now, but a few years ago I was in a job that was sucking the life out of me, a famly member was presenting as an overwhelming emotional burden and I had two teenage sons with all the worry they bring.
So I'd head off on a trip and within a two-three days this big load would lift off my shoulders. My husband would say, "Don't call home." But eventually I would and then for a day or two the burden would settle back on ....until enough days passed and it evaporated.
Now, I quit the job, the parent is dead and the boys are adults with stable lives. So when I head off on a trip it's just a trip. My life is so much less stressful that travel does not present that contrast. I don't NEED that open space in my life to re-think my life.
So will travel be life-changing for you? Only time will tell but don't expect too much magic our you will be disappointed.
As Calpurnia said to her husband that morning on the Ides of March,
"Don't _go+_, Julie, don't +go</i>!"
A small bit of advice from another traveller - don't depend entirely on spiral notebooks, it's a long hard slog transposing them when you get home.
There days you can buy a netbook computer. They're small, lightweight and wi-fi enabled. If you also take a portable solar charger then you'll be ok no matter what the power supply.
Send regular (daily) updates to your own email address.
There will still be places where you'll have to depend on those notebooks, but it will cut out a lot of the back-home boring task.
Oh, and I concur with other posters here. Let out your home if at all possible. No reason for it to stay empty when you could be making more money from it than it will cost you to stay in some countries, plus you'll not be saddled with any debts when you return.
Have a great time.
Another idea - and one which can test the water as far as writing is concerned, as well as making a few $$ on your trip.
Get in touch with your nearest newspaper which has a travel section and ask them if you can do a weekly or fortnightly feature for them. If your writing is any good at all they'll snap it up. Be prepared for them to edit it and take note of the changes they make to your original copy. That way you'll also be honing your skills as a travel writer.