Hannah Cauldwell, 30, left her job as a secondary school French and Spanish teacher in 2022 after feeling “trapped”
A teacher has traded her classroom to travel the world where she has scuba dived with sharks and trekked up volcanoes, and says she has “no regrets”.
Hannah Cauldwell, 30, left her role as a secondary school French and Spanish teacher in 2022, finding the classroom environment “too restrictive”.
In the same year, she embarked on a masters degree in translation and travelled across Japan and South Korea during her studies – an experience that gave her the “travelling bug”.
After completing her degree in 2023, Hannah journeyed through Jordan, Egypt, Iceland and Nepal, spent months in Asia canyoning in the Philippines, hiking around an active volcano in Indonesia and couch surfing in Taiwan.
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She has also had the thrill of scuba-diving with sharks in Mexico and hiking around Mont Blanc, with her fiancee Cas, 38, a photographer, joining her on many of these adventures.
Now employed as a travel co-ordinator hosting group tours for WeRoad, a job she describes as “the best job in the world”, Hannah said she can’t envision going back to traditional teaching and urges others to “just go for it”.
Speaking to PA Real Life, Hannah said: “I wouldn’t do anything differently.
“Before all this, when I was younger and went abroad on my own, I don’t think I had a very strong sense of danger and luckily nothing happened, but I think you always need to be aware of who you are with and where you are.
“But apart from that, I think all my experiences were learning experiences. If you can, just go for it, you won’t regret it… I have no regrets.”
Hannah finished her postgraduate degree in education in 2019 and started teaching French and Spanish at a secondary school from 2020.
“It was really hard doing that during the pandemic because it was a big school and the year groups were in their bubbles, so we had to keep moving around,” she said.
“I found it a bit too restrictive, but I started doing the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, supporting that in schools, and that was way better. I thought maybe I need a job outdoors or something different.”
Hannah said she made sure her class sat their exams before submitting her resignation in 2022, a decision which left her feeling “so relieved”.
That same year, she started a masters in translation at the University of Surrey with hopes of working overseas. During the course, she travelled alone to Japan for five weeks and in South Korea for one week and “got the travelling bug”.
“In Japan, I went solo hiking and made friends with a Japanese lady. I went to a few traditional onsen, which is a hot spring you go in naked,” she said.
“In South Korea, I met up with a bunch of random women from a Facebook group and we went hiking outside of Seoul.”
She then worked a ski season in France and, after graduating in 2023, departed to discover more of the world.
Hannah said she hadn’t put aside “too much” money beforehand because she intended to earn whilst travelling by tutoring and translating online.
In September 2024, she journeyed to Jordan where she experienced canyoning and floated in the Dead Sea, before heading to Egypt to witness the Pyramids and then reuniting with her partner in Spain.
Come November, Hannah had ventured to Iceland and visited Nepal in December. Between January and April 2025, she discovered Thailand, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka.
“We don’t have much money so we looked into couch surfing, and it turns out that that’s quite popular in Taiwan,” Hannah explained of the practice which involves staying in spare spaces in hosts’ homes, often sleeping on their sofa.
“So we stayed with four different families or individuals – we only stayed with women, just because of safety reasons.
“Those people were amazing – they took us out with their families and we went to the beach and went for food and it was such a nice cultural exchange.
“An average accommodation is about £20 a night and we couch surfed for 10 nights, so we saved maybe around £300 to £400. And then in the Philippines, we did really cool canyoning, jumping off 10-metre high rocks and cliffs.
“In Indonesia, we hiked up Mount Ijen which has a live volcano, and you see the sulphur, you have to wear a gas mask and you see the blue flames of the volcano.”
She carried on her ventures in Mexico and the Dolomites, before returning to the UK to work at a summer school and then in August she trekked around Mont Blanc. “Mexico was brilliant for scuba diving – we saw sharks and turtles and a puffer fish,” she shared.
Currently, she is in Albania with her fiancee, which she described as “the most colourful, exciting country”.
On her travels, Hannah came to understand that “everyone wants the same thing” in life: regardless of where she journeyed, people cherished family, a secure home and the opportunity to enjoy themselves.
“In Albania, we’ve had loads of people ask where we’re from, but in an inquisitive way, and it just sparks conversations,” Hannah continued.
“And then in Bali, we were a bit wary about being open as a same-sex couple, simply because of what we’d read and we hadn’t been there before, and then people were just really relaxed about it.
“We stayed in a guesthouse and this man was so lovely, asking how long we’d been together, it was amazing.”
Hannah has relished sharing these experiences with Cas because they both frequently have to “pinch” themselves that they are “actually living this life”.
She believes the journey has nudged them both out of their comfort zones, with Cas undertaking adventurous activities – despite sometimes being reluctant – while Hannah has started working as a travel co-ordinator.
In her role for tour operator WeRoad, Hannah hosts group tours which she declared is “the best job in the world”. “I did some tours in Albania and it’s just been fantastic to experience these countries while meeting people and showing them places,” she said.
“Everyone has been so lovely and there’s a bond between everyone.”
Hannah and Cas make their way back to the UK every few months, staying in one of Cas’s family’s properties, which eliminates the “financial commitment” of maintaining their own home base.
Hannah now finds it hard to envision going back to conventional teaching in the UK, stating that her experiences have underscored how inflexible the school system can be.
“I just think the curriculum at home is so stuffy, even just within the realms of my own language lessons,” Hannah elaborated. “I would try to do really creative stuff, like teaching about Day of the Dead… but that isn’t always well-regarded within schools.
“I think life lessons would be so much better. There are attempts at it with PSHE (personal, social, health, and economic education), but I think children should be learning about everyday skills.”
Since leaving the teaching profession, Hannah has travelled to 29 countries and said it is “impossible” to choose her favourite, but some of her “standouts” so far include Sri Lanka, Nepal and Mont Blanc.
Hannah and Cas intend to continue their travels and hope to explore Argentina, Chile and China.
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