How to Earn, Learn, and Travel
When the wanderlust takes hold, traveling becomes a way of life. Once you’ve glimpsed how enriching it can be in so many ways to immerse yourself in a new culture – from spear fishing in Key West, to taking a mud bath in Costa Rica, to camel trekking in the Sahara desert, your life becomes all about planning your next trip. However wonderful dreaming of far-flung shores and new friends as-yet unmet is, there are without a doubt many practical requirements that need settling before you can put the wheels of your travel plans in motion. Things like working and saving money are the unavoidable practicalities that even seasoned travelers can’t avoid. You don’t have to have endless savings or a lottery win, for certain, WE do not – there is a way to earn and learn while exploring the world, and it all comes down to nailing a few fundamentals before you hop on that plane.
Affording Your Travels
You really don’t need to save up for a decade before having the adventure of a lifetime. It is possible to start a travel lifestyle with a modest amount of savings and accumulate money as you go through a program of mobile study and work. The magic formula is to understand how to live cheaply while you’re traveling, how to secure the best deals on flights (which are the largest fixed cost of travelling), how to find cost-friendly accommodation in any country, and how to find study and work opportunities that you can do while traveling.
How To Live Cheaply
In this rampantly consumerist society, it can be hard to even imagine a life where we don’t spend meaninglessly. But there’s never a better time to start living inexpensively than right now, as every penny you save is money for the travel fund, and these habits will mean you can go anywhere in the world and survive. This is EXACTLY what WE do. Assess your household budget for unnecessary expenses – and be honest with yourself. Do you really need that daily coffee, or those meals out? Do you have a reason not to economize and buy store-brand groceries rather than more expensive labelled equivalents? When you’re travelling you won’t need some of the larger expenses, like owning a car, so could you do without them now? It can be a tough mental exercise to really challenge yourself on what you spend, but once you start to cut expenses it becomes easier. Personally, we ditched our cable bill first, then cut back to ONE car between us, just to start saving more. Another tip? Try to learn some of the local language, because that is a move which will save you a lot of money in some places.
Working And Studying Abroad
You can both work and study while you travel – indeed, this can be one of the best ways to prolong your travels! Distance learning means that you can study anywhere with a decent WiFi connection – so that online mba program for people located in South Africa could be a green light to enhance your career and gain more profitable work. In the meantime, look for seasonal jobs you can do locally or look into teaching English as a foreign language, or translating work if you can also speak the native language, which is a very marketable skill in most countries. Alternatively, you could look into becoming a digital nomad and training in something such as coding or graphic design that you can work on freelance from anywhere in the world. Where there’s a will, there’s a way, and with a few smart moves you could be seeing out the year on a tropical beach.
In addition to the flexibility of online education and freelance work, exploring local internships or volunteer opportunities can be immensely rewarding. These experiences not only allow you to immerse yourself in the local community and culture, but they also add valuable skills and international exposure to your resume. Consider volunteering for environmental conservation projects in the Amazon rainforest, or interning with a start-up in Berlin. Not only do these experiences broaden your professional horizon, but they also provide unique insights into the lifestyles and working conditions of different cultures. Plus, you can still save some of your earnings, by sending cash home through international money transfers. So, a score all around.
We are truly loving our nomadic lifestyle, and are thrilled that we made our dream of owning a home in both the United States and Thailand a reality. We gave up our giant home in Texas and downsized to a townhouse in a lake community, we drive only one car, and we only work when we are in Texas, apart from the blog. It means we can come and go as we please, only work when we want or need, and fully LIVE every day versus just get by. Anyone that is looking to do the same, you should! Don’t let anything hold you back. If you have questions, of course, ask us! We are happy to help!
