Quitting their jobs, selling their house and car, and arranging for their 8-year-old daughter to take a leave of absence from school... After this year’s Spring Festival, 35-year-old Zhai Feng and his wife Hongyan made a move that many found hard to understand. On October 9, Zhai Feng will head to Malaysia’s port city—Langkawi—to purchase a second-hand sailboat and spend six months learning sailing and navigation skills. In March next year, he plans to set sail with his wife and daughter, taking the first step toward traveling the world.
The couple are both travel enthusiasts
Tall and slim, with flowing side-parted hair and wine-red glasses... On the morning of the 8th, in a slightly worn rental apartment at Yanzhou No. 91 Hospital in Yanzhou City, 35-year-old Zhai Feng was methodically packing travel items into a large backpack. Travel magazines, various-sized maps, and travel photos were scattered everywhere—these vibrant items stood in stark contrast to the shabby furniture in the rental home. “We’ve almost got everything ready. We’ll take a train to Beijing early on the 9th, fly to Kuala Lumpur, then transfer to Langkawi. We should arrive at our destination on the 10th,” Zhai Feng said with a beaming smile, full of anticipation for the trip.
It’s his first trip to Malaysia, and Zhai Feng has a special mission to complete. “In August this year, I spotted a second-hand sailboat on a global sailing trading platform, priced at around 300,000 RMB. I’m going to buy it this time,” said Zhai Feng, a worker at the Yanzhou Workshop of the Jinan Signal Section under the Jinan Railway Bureau, who has been a travel enthusiast since he was young. From a self-driving road trip across Thailand to riding motorcycles with friends to Nepal... Over the years, he and his wife Hongyan have turned one dream after another into reality through their own actions.
“We’ve gotten used to the feeling of being on the road. Arriving in a completely unfamiliar environment and adapting to it has made us realize how beautiful the scenery along the journey can be and how vast the path of life truly is.” For over a decade, Zhai Feng and his wife have spent nearly all their savings on travel. “Compared to the joy we’ve gained along the way, we think it’s absolutely worth it.” Each journey has made Zhai Feng and his wife less content with the status quo. “The small size of the city and the uneventful life made us feel that reality was like a black hole,” said Hongyan. She and her husband increasingly yearn for a simple life and the realization of colorful dreams.
Quitting jobs, selling house and car for the trip
In the summer of 2009, by chance, Zhai Feng attended a photo exhibition held by Zhai Mo, known as “China’s first person to sail around the world in an unpowered sailboat.” At this exhibition, he suddenly realized, “So even ordinary people can travel the world.” “After returning home, I looked up a lot of information about self-navigated sailing online and learned that many people abroad have realized their sailing dreams.” From then on, Zhai Feng also started to dream of sailing. When he shared this idea with his wife, who also loves traveling, they were surprisingly in complete agreement. But some practical issues soon presented themselves: sailing requires a lot of time, and both of them are railway workers, making it impossible to find the time; sailboats are high-tech products that often cost millions, so where would the money for buying a boat come from?
In Zhai Feng’s words, he and his wife were tormented by these problems for over a year. “We thought about giving up, but we just couldn’t let go of this dream.” After careful consideration, Zhai Feng took a series of surprising steps. In September this year, he resolutely quit his job and spent his days at home studying sailing techniques online. After discussing it with his wife, they sold their 120-square-meter house and private car, raising a total of 400,000 RMB. Through an international sailing trading platform, they finally settled on a second-hand sailboat and, after repeated negotiations with the owner, set the price at around 300,000 RMB. They are steadily moving toward their original goal, getting closer to their dream step by step.
Zhai Feng has already made a detailed plan for the next steps. He will spend six months in Malaysia learning sailing skills and obtaining the relevant sailing certifications. In March next year, he will sail the sailboat back to Shandong, pick up his wife and daughter, and take the first step toward traveling the world.