We sold everything and bought a one-way ticket to take our three children travelling

Dani and Tom Wooldridge worked hard to transform a 1970s house into a beloved family home after they bought it about seven years ago.

Dani, 39, a nurse, also ran an aesthetics business while Tom, 38, had a construction business. Three children, a close extended family and lots of friends. A happy life.

Yet in May this year, the five of them sold their possessions and home and bought a one-way ticket heading for Indonesia, with the only things they owned in the world now stowed in backpacks in the luggage compartment.

With Olivia, 12, Morgan, seven, and four-year-old George, the Woolridges are planning to travel the world, with no endpoint in sight, hoping to see every continent.

Five months in, over a video call from the Indonesian island of Lombok, Dani and Tom explain the decisions which have brought them to the shores of south-east Asia.

Both of them had gone travelling for a period of time in their early 20s, a classic gap-year style experience, and had enjoyed taking holidays, particularly to sunny destinations.

Dani says: "It was always a conversation we had but once you start having kids and you've got the mortgage and everything like that it's kind of, oh it's not the right time."

But nearly two years ago, the family took a holiday to Thailand over Christmas.

"We were fortunate enough to have a month over there, travelled round with the kids and obviously they were almost two years younger than they are now, and managed really well.

"It all went really smoothly and it was great seeing the kids experience a completely different world to what we'd all grown up. It just felt so great exploring with them," Tom added.

Dani says that sparked their interest to start researching and meeting other families who had decided to jet off.

"We made lots of lists – lots of positives, lots of negatives," she says.

"Can we do this? How are we still going to educate our children? We had a home, we had our businesses, we had careers. What do we do about all that?"

Once they made the decision, they knew they had to be "100% committed".

Dani thought at first they should rent their house out "so we've got something to come back to" but Tom wanted to sell, and the couple realised they didn't want to leave the responsibility of managing it to people back home.

The boys were excited about the idea from the start but the couple admit it was harder for their daughter.

Tom says: "Olivia was a bit nervous. She'd just started high school in the September and we left in May this year. She was very apprehensive about leaving all her friends.

"Morgan and George do mention their friends now and again but they're a bit younger so they didn't have that emotional attachment as much as Olivia."

When they told their parents about their plans, their initial reaction was "why are you selling everything you've worked so hard to get?"

"Most people have got bets on when we're coming back," Dani says, laughing. Tom adds: "They've all got a year each."

After selling their house at the start of the year, they lived in rented accommodation for a number of months, before heading to the airport in May for the big farewell.

Leaving was "very emotional", Dani says.

"We were very fortunate that we had a lot of family coming to the airport with us," adds Tom. "We'd checked our luggage in, and we got to the security gates, and that was hard.

"We were so fortunate to have a close family and friendship group as well. They're the people we miss and that's what we miss from back home, the people that were in our lives. Not so much the material things we had."

However once the plane had taken off and the goodbyes were behind them, the excitement started to kick in.

"We remembered where we were going," joked Tom. But even though they had both been to their first destination, Bali in Indonesia, before, the culture shock still hit them.

"It's just everything. Your senses are just heightened. It's the smells, seeing everything around, it's so different to home.

"We went to Bali 15 years ago when it was a lot quieter," adds Dani. "People have said how busy it is now, and it was. The first day or two was very overwhelming. Our daughter was still a bit emotional. She was up and down with things and we were all a bit jet lagged.

"We went to Uluwatu first and it has got so busy. Even us walking down a road, I was nervous. Scooters everywhere."

But there were also upsides, Tom says. "The food instantly was amazing. And the people are just beautiful, and so kind. And just to feel the heat on our skin."

They moved to different parts of the island, swapping the beaches in the south to climb the volcanic Mount Batur in the north, and spending time in the cultural village of Ubud inland. They then went island hopping eastwards across the Indonesian archipelago before doubling back to Lombok for a second stay.

"We were moving around quite a bit," Dani says. "So each time it was almost like that feeling of going home because we were packing up, but we weren't going home. I think it took us months to really think, wow, we're not actually going home."

Leaving the UK behind has not meant abandoning education, Dani stresses.

"Even though we want our children to experience the world and have that kind of real world learning, we have said we also want them to have opportunities. So if they want to go to university and be a doctor or a nurse or whatever career path they want to go down, we still want them to have those opportunities," she says.

They have a "huge bag" full of textbooks and workbooks recommended by teachers before they left and they are following the UK teaching curriculum. Olivia has an online maths tutor, who was previously head of maths at her high school in Rhondda Cynon Taf, and had also taught Tom at the same school.

The boys have a tutor who covers the primary curriculum with them and does English and some science with Olivia.

Although the big downside to their journey is missing time with family back home, Dani and Tom say the cultural experiences and confidence the children have already gained from their travels, meeting such a wide variety of people and having the opportunity to live such an outdoor life, outweighs the negatives.

The family is due to be moving on to Malaysia after spending five months travelling around Indonesia, most recently in Lombok for a second stint, where the children have been attending a world schooling centre which the couple described as a "lovely routine" with amazing friends.

After bringing "way too much stuff" with them initially, they have given away possessions to locals they have met along their travels and refined it down to two large 120-litre backpacks for the parents and two 100-litre rolling packs including one filled with educational materials.

"The kids will have virtually nothing on their backs, just maybe a really small backpack to get on the plane," says Tom.

"We thought the kids would be excited at carrying their backpacks. Yeah, they're not onboard with that," laughs Dani.

Among the things they have planned for Malaysia is visiting an orangutang sanctuary in Borneo and another longer stop at a world-schooling centre to give the children more chances to spend time with peers.

Then they move into Thailand, where both Dani's mum and Tom's parents will make separate visits and after figuring out a good location to celebrate Dani's 40th birthday, will move through Cambodia, Vietnam and the Philippines.

With all that, they have the next year "roughly" planned out. They have allowed for contingencies and emergencies – Tom has already had to fly home once for a funeral – but don't have a firm destination in mind yet once they leave Asia, barring a likely brief visit home to catch up with family.

"We're going to do as much as we feel we want to in a continent and then go to the next one," explains Tom. "Just keep going for as long as we can, and want to. If at some point we don't want to then we'll have explored a lot of places to pick somewhere to stop."

It is, in many respects, the bucket list to end all bucket lists. But if they had to put one destination at the top, what would it be?

For Dani, it's to go on an African safari. "I've always wanted to see Africa and I've never been. That's always been on my list."

Tom says: "Tahiti is coming to my head. That's with my surfing background. The place looks beautiful. And we will be going there. I'm 40 next December so..."