By Sarah Foster

YOU can picture the scene: Helen Carver in the kitchen with her daughter, chatting casually about that night’s TV and what they’re having for tea. Helen pauses, a crazy thought surfacing in her mind. She takes a breath – then just comes out with it: “What would you say if I suggested going off travelling around the world for six months?”

There is a split second of silence, in which Rachel absorbs the question. Then a smile spreads across her face. “Oh my God, that would be fantastic! Yeah!”

Within a few weeks, Helen and Rachel were heading off on the trip of a lifetime, travelling to 16 countries in six months. They faced many challenges and had several mishaps – including going the wrong way down a motorway and having their bank card de-activated – but, mostly, they had the time of their lives.

For Helen, the timing was no coincidence. She was turning 50, had just gone through a painful divorce and had been doing the same job, working for her family’s estate agency, for 20 years. She felt there had to be more to life – but was doubtful she had the courage to find out. A book by Michael Neill, You Can Have What You Want, helped give her the push she needed.

“It’s the sort of book that, as you read it, you start getting these weird and wonderful ideas about what you can do with your life,” says Helen, 54. “As I read the last page I thought, ‘Gosh. I could rent the house out and go off around the world’. I got a bit carried away with it all. Then you start to talk yourself out of it. I just thought, ‘It’s now or never’. I had a conversation with one of my best friends and she said, ‘Helen, I don’t want to be having this conversation in ten years’ time, where I say, ‘Do you remember having that opportunity to travel round the world?’ After that it was a no-brainer.”

While she made all the travel arrangements, once she and Rachel set off, Helen relaxed her role of being a mother. She says it wouldn’t have been fair not to.

“I wasn’t a mum on the trip. We were more like friends. It wouldn’t have worked if I was forever telling Rachel what to do. You do have a completely different relationship when you are travelling like that.”

The pair visited countries which were culturally diverse and, Helen says, enjoyable for different reasons. They managed to meet up with Helen’s other daughter, Nicola, who was on a gap year from university, visiting her in Mexico and meeting her again when she surprised them in Thailand. Part of the fun of the trip was the contrasting experiences.

“I would say every country had its thing,” says Helen, who lives near Darlington. “South Africa had its food and wine, Mexico just had the most idyllic sunsets and beaches; San Francisco was a really buzzy city, which was such a contrast to Mexico. We just did so many different things in so many countries.”

Among the most memorable was New Zealand, which Helen describes as being “like the adventure capital of the world”. She and Rachel embarked on a Kiwi experience tour and ended up experiencing more than they had bargained for.

“A list goes round asking which events you want to do, and it’s almost like you would be a bit of a party pooper if you didn’t do them,” says Helen. “I would say there was me and probably about 50 19 to 25-year-olds, but I wasn’t sitting there saying, ‘Oh no, I don’t think I’ll do this’.

“I was there doing the skydiving at 15,000ft, whitewater rafting over a seven-metre waterfall and hiking up a glacier. We jumped off a waterfall and we posed naked in front of one because it was a Kiwi tradition.”

With every new challenge, Helen felt her confidence grow, which spurred her on to push herself further. “When we did the whitewater rafting it was exhilarating and terrifying, but once we had done that, it was almost like ‘Bring it on’,” she says.

Despite being a generation older than most of her fellow travellers, Helen’s attitude caused her to be accepted – which she took as a huge compliment.

“When we were on the Kiwi trip, one of the guys said ‘Helen, we don’t think of you as Rachel’s mum. You’re just one of the gang’. I think the great thing about travelling is it doesn’t really matter what age you are – everybody is on the same wavelength. You are all open to friendship and camaraderie and having a laugh.”

When Helen returned home, in August 2010, she had the ambition of turning the diary she had kept into a book. Four years on, she has achieved this – and has also channelled her new zest for life into other avenues.

“I’m creating a business around the book, Life Begins at Fifty,” explains Helen. “It’s encouraging people to live the lives they really want to, rather than sticking with the same tried and tested things just because they’re frightened of the unknown, frightened of change.

“There are a lot of people stuck on that hamster wheel, frightened to get off, and that could have been me. The thing that strikes me is that, if I hadn’t taken a leap of faith and gone off travelling around the world with Rachel, I would still be doing the same old thing and thinking that was all that was available to me, but actually it’s a whole new world.”

Having already set up a website, Helen plans to offer experiences ranging from style consultations to motorbike trips, aimed at getting people out of their comfort zones. Her piece de resistance, she hopes, will be organising two-week trips to Asia.

As well as inspiring people to change their own lives, she would like to influence the lives of those who can’t, by raising money for the children’s charity Pencils of Promise.

“My aim is to build a school – so watch out,” she laughs.

When she reflects on the rest of her life, Helen has one overriding aim: to make the most of it. It is a philosophy she is keen to pass on – not least to her own daughters.

“A lot of people live their lives thinking things are important when they’re not,” she says. “We should all be living each day as if it’s our last, because you never know what’s round the corner.

“My role as a parent is to give my children the confidence to do what they want, not wrap them up in cotton wool. That’s what I want to do with my business.”

Life Begins at Fifty by Helen Carver (Balboa Press, £13.79). Available on Amazon.

Visit pencilsof promise.org and lifebeginsatfifty.info