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If you love to travel as much as we do, then exploring the world full time probably seems like the perfect dream! A trip to Costa Rica sparked the travel bug in us both. And so we set off to make that dream a reality! We began to save for an entire year of travel! It wasn’t easy and nothing went as planned (just like everything during Covid) but we are finally on the road! 

Let’s debunk some common misconceptions now! You don’t have to be rich to travel the world nor do you have to wait until retirement age before setting off on world adventures! It’s not necessary to travel the world by staying in $2 hostels and eating street food only! All you need to have is a little courage and the right plan to get started. Oh, and you also need this post! 🙂

We created this post to help you follow our planning process from start to finish! It’s not simple, rather it takes detailed planning and focus to make this dream a reality! We hope this post can offer some guidance for you! Enjoy!

Article contents

1. I want to travel the world, where do I start?
2. We saved money to travel the world (so can you)
3. How much money do you need to travel the world?
4. How we increased our income to travel the world
5. We changed our spending habits
6. We travel the world cheap and so can you
7. Our experience of full time travel

1. I want to travel the world, where do I start?

Although cliche, you need to know your “why” before getting started. It is important to have some type of motivation when you want to travel the world. This will keep you going to reach your goal of full-time travel.

Try to write down what you want, this will give you more clarity on where to start. Take a look at the questions below to help you start.

• Where do I want to travel to? (Pick a destination! Or more…)
• What do I want to experience? (A certain activity, such as a meditation retreat or hiking a volcano?)
• How long do I want to travel for? (3 months, 6 months or even longer?)

Figure out your destinations first

Narrowing down your destinations will allow you to start figuring out your budget. There are so many destinations to travel to and even more things to do in the world. This is the fun part of figuring out how to travel the world.

We started our journey by planning to visit Southeast Asia and explore the countries of Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. These places were perfect for our budget and offered all the culture we wanted.

Resource!

• Researching a trip is arguably one of the most enjoyable parts of the journey! Check out this digital nomad website for some ideas on where to stay around the world.

Oh oh… the doubts start creeping in

You will most likely experience weird looks or ‘doubt-statements’ from your co-workers, family and friends. The “Oh good for you, It’s something I would never do though” or the “What about your job?” and the occasional “Hmm.. Isn’t that what students do in their gap year?”.

Some of the people who love you the most will bring up fears about your career or creating a family and settling down. It’s normal and expected. After all, people who care about you want to look out for you. Try not to be judgmental with them, rather explain the positives.

Traveling provides an experience like no other!

2. We saved our money to travel the world (you can too)

Oh god.. the dreaded ‘B’ word. If you plan to travel, you better start working on your budget.

Most people are not writing down their monthly and weekly budgets. When you are unaware of your spending habits, you overspend (trust me, we know). Use your “why” to keep you motivated to make a budget.

This was an eye opening experience for us! When we started writing down our budget and expenses, we realized it was possible to travel long term if we made a few adjustments and changes.

Get a piece of paper, open your excel file or a new Word document. However you want to do it, you need to write it down somewhere.

How we made our budget (6 easy steps)

Step 1: Any income?

This is pretty simple and straightforward. List all of your income. Think about these things:

• Your full-time job
• Your second (or third) job
• Any freelance pay
• Social security checks
• Any other income?

Step 2: The dreaded expenses

Now that you know how much money is coming in, we need to know how much you are spending.

First, start with the fixed monthly bills, such as rent. Then write down the costs that are not fixed such as groceries and eating out. We looked at our card statements from the previous month to create our expense report.

Step 3: Figure out what’s necessary

This step is your discretion. There are certain bills that you must keep, such as utilities and rent (or mortgage). But do you need to dine out every weekend or can you reduce that to 0$? Be honest with yourself and don’t restrict too much.

Step 4: Income minus expenses

This is the easiest step! Subtract your expenses from your total income. What’s left is how much you can currently save each month. You are now on your way to saving for your travel destination.

Step 5: Continue to track expenses

Write down each purchase and track your expenses to make sure you don’t overspend. By writing down each purchase, you can track your budget for the month and keep yourself accountable. Nikki tracks our expenses in her notes on her phone, but used to keep an excel spreadsheet.

Step 6: Get everyone involved before you travel the world

If you are in a relationship and have the goal of traveling together, you must both be committed to the budgeting process. It’s difficult to save money for travel if one isn’t committed. Alternatively, two people who are serious about saving can hold each other accountable and achieve the dollar amount faster.

How much can you save now?

Now you should know the amount of money you can save every month. This is your travel budget. Don’t freak out if the number is really small or even non-existent.

In our case, we had 40% of our income left to save monthly. This was eye opening for us and motivated us to get started saving right away.

3. How much money do you need to travel the world?

Start with a buffer

Most likely, your travels will have an end date. You will need some cash for when you return for things like rental deposits, your flight home and daily expenses to get started at your home base again.

This number will be different for everyone, depending on your personal situation. We recommend to save about 3 months of income for your buffer.

Your buffer money will also be there when you travel, if you have an emergency or death in the family. Setting aside money will give you some peace of mind to enjoy your travels.

Pay off your debt (if you can)

We recommend to pay off most of your debts. But you may need to pay off some debts while traveling. This could be your student loans.

We only maintained some student loan bills for our travels. Everything else was paid off or sold.

You already know how much debt you pay per month. Multiply this amount by the months you want to travel (6 or 12 months). So let’s say your student loans cost $300 per month and you plan to travel for 12 months. You will have to budget $3600 for student loans in your travel year.

Monthly bills on the road

What bills will you maintain during your travels? This can include phone plans and gym memberships (in other countries) and streaming services. For example, we maintain monthly costs with Audible, ExpressVPN, Netflix and some annual fees from our travel credit cards.

So how much do you need? (+ what we saved)

There are websites that give you an idea of how much money you need in a certain country. You can specify if you’re a budget traveler, mid-range or luxury traveler.

Here are a few price points as an example.

1. Chiang Mai, Thailand with apartment, moped and food is around $1500 for one month.
2. Montenegro in Eastern Europe with apartment, rental car and food is around $2,000 for one month
3. Oahu, Hawaii with apartment, tours and food is around $4,000 for one month.

After two years of saving, we left with $43.000 in our savings. We budgeted to spend $1800 per month in cheap countries, such as South-East Asia, but around $2500 in Eastern-Europe for example.

Don’t forget transportation when you travel the world!

How will you get to and from your destination? You can take flights, buses or your own car. All of them have their own costs. Generally, this will be dependent upon your destination. A flight to Southeast Asia from the United States for us both cost $800.00 each.

How much will you spend on transportation? This could vary depending on how many countries you visit.

4. How we increased our income to travel the world

We cut down our housing costs

We rented a one bedroom apartment and never got anything bigger, even though we could afford it. Think about your own situation. Can you move into a smaller place? Is there a cheaper neighborhood? Can I rent out my house? Anything to get closer to your savings goal!

We drove cheap cars

Car payments are overrated. If you are in a large city such as New York, San Francisco or DC, think about ditching the car all together and taking public transportation.

When we lived in Orlando, we drove cheap secondhand cars. Cars that were under $10,000 to be specific. We never had any problems with our beloved Nissan Versa and our old Honda CRV. They both lasted us until we sold them the day before we left to Hawaii.

We spent less money on food

You can shop at whole sellers like Costco or Sam’s Club. Another way to reduce groceries is to cook dishes yourself and meal prep.

Eating out must be drastically reduced! Instead of eating out with friends, invite them over for dinner or drinks. It’s going to be tempting, but eating out can really eat up the budget.

We didn’t take any trips

We kept a budget of $200 per month for leisure activities. This included eating out or going to the beach. Depending on your budget, you may want to reduce it further. Specifically dining out will drastically reduce your savings! You just can’t do it!

And for us, traveling was off limits while we were saving our money.

We worked more

We both worked second jobs for a while, to increase our monthly income. Could you work some extra shifts? Or do some freelance work on websites such as Upwork?

5. We changed our spending habits

Set a travel date

We can’t stress this enough! Set a date for when you’re leaving! It provides an end date for all your extra work and sacrifices. This will also make it real for you and prevents you from procrastinating.

30 day wait time on purchases

For every item we wanted to buy, we wrote it down and waited 30 days! Most of the time, we lost interest in whatever we wanted to buy. So yes, this definitely works!

We write down all expenses

Yes, each purchase that we make will be written down. This has made us conscious of our own spending habits. We used to spend a lot of money on Starbucks. Can you believe it?

Try this out for one month and see what you spend your money on.

We did lots of free stuff

It may be difficult to stop going out to eat or visiting your favorite places! Create new traditions to look forward to at your own home.

Nikki and I created a kombucha and pizza night on Fridays! It was something we both looked forward to every week. Other traditions we had was movie night, taco night and weekend morning baguettes. All of it was done at home and with groceries to save money.

We moved our savings into a separate account

We moved all of our travel savings into a separate account, so it became more difficult to use for useless stuff. Our savings account only allows six withdrawals per month, so we can’t just pull out money whenever we want!

We soaked up travel inspiration

Stay motivated by entrenching yourself in the travel world. There are so many bloggers, vloggers and podcasters who are traveling the world. It’s calming and motivating to see likeminded people traveling the same way you will soon be doing.

It’s also a great opportunity to get tips, tricks and ideas for your future travels. Nikki and I used to spend our weekend mornings watching YouTube clips of Southeast Asia! It kept us both inspired.

6. We travel the world cheap and so can you

We learned about travel hacking

Credit cards can be a great way to earn miles and points for travel. By opening credit cards with large welcome bonuses, you can get free flights all over the world.

Other perks you can receive include lounge access, hotel upgrades and car insurance coverage. We have opened many credit cards over the years, which have given us an amazing value on flight tickets.

Nikki and I spent a weekend on the island of Kauai in a resort hotel with a rental car. The total cost of the trip was around $1500 and we paid $0. Our points covered it all.

Travel Hacking is complex. To learn more, start with our beginners guide to travel hacking!

We choose cheap countries to travel to

Traveling to Western Europe will be more expensive than Eastern Europe. Likewise, 3 months in Japan will be more expensive than Southeast Asia.

Keep this in mind when planning out your future itinerary. Here are five regions in the world to think about visiting if you are on a budget:

• Southeast Asia
• South Asia
• Eastern Europe
• Central America
• South America

We slow travel the world

Generally, we believe slow travel is the most enjoyable way to travel. It allows you to truly experience a new place and travel sustainably.

Not to mention, picking up and moving every week can be expensive! You can save a lot more by settling in one place where you can get a long-term (discounted) stay, find the local grocery store and establish a routine.

Hotels or hostels?

Hostel anyone?

As an American, I’ve always had a negative view of staying in hostels. But actually, you can find really great hostels with authentic experiences. Plus, did I mention they are way cheaper than hotels?

Many hostels also have private rooms for a slightly higher price. You can have all the privacy you need without worrying about the high cost.

Save money with long-term stays

You can hop on airbnb right now and find heavily discounted places to stay for one month. We just recently saw a beautiful apartment in old town Dubrovnik in Croatia for $800 (that’s a steal!) The cost for that place for just a week is $400. By slow traveling and staying longer, you always save more.

7. Our experience of full time travel

How much did we save?

We planned to save one full year for our world trip. But because of covid-19 we couldn’t go on our trip… So we ended up moving to Hawaii. We spent a lot moving there, but we also gained one extra year to save extra for our world travels. 

So how much did we save? Our initial number was $24.000 with a monthly spend of $1.800.

But after our move to Hawaii and adding on that extra year, we left with $43.000 (including our buffer of $7.000).  

How did we do it?

We did everything we described in our post. We made the budget together, started to pay off most of our debts and then saved towards our goal.

Can I tell you… that seeing your savings grow is an amazing feeling? And we weren’t big savers at all. In fact, we didn’t even have $1000 in the bank when we started.

Basically, it takes time, effort and consistency. And you will get there.

A heart to heart, now that we travel the world

It is so hard to stick to our budget while traveling! There are so many excursions we want to do, really nice accommodations we want to rent or travel a little faster than we planned.

We have to take a breather at times and realize that… we are traveling! This is not our yearly vacation. It is important to slow things down and realize that we cannot do everything.

And now that we are full-time traveling, I can say that it is worth every penny and effort from the previous years of planning and saving!

We want to hear from you!

Let us know what your travel goals are. Where do you want to travel? Did you start staving? Do you think it’s difficult, or easy? We’d love to chat with you about it!