5 Reasons Why I Was Able to Travel Non-Stop for the Last 7 Years

I am 34 years old, have almost no savings in my bank account, and I am currently living abroad in the 45th country I have visited in my life (Mexico).

In the past six years, I have had more days off than I worked, and I saw more countries in the last 10 years than most people do in their entire lifetimes. I have no car, no house, almost no possessions, and most importantly, barely any worries.

How did I change my life around to travel the world full-time? Here are a few things you need to know if you want to travel long-term.

1. You don’t really need most of the stuff in your life right now.

The average American income per household is about $67,000 USD yearly, which is mostly spent on housing (roughly $20,000), transportation (almost $10,000), and goods & services (about $11,000). I only have my backpack with one set of clothes for different types of seasons, and my most valuable possession is my MacBook.

I spend about $1,000 — $1,200 USD per month traveling in cheap countries, which includes my accommodation, food, and transportation. That makes me spend about $15,000 USD per year, which is even less than what the average American household spends on just their housing. My emergency health insurance costs me about $600 per year and any extra medical expenses I pay on the go, which is much cheaper in the countries I am traveling to than in most developed ones. I am not spending any money on a pension or life insurance, which most of you would find risky, but traveling full-time comes with some risks that most people are not willing to take.

I don’t need to pay rent or mortgage, don’t need a fully stocked kitchen with appliances and a house with furniture, don’t need a full closet with clothes, and do not pay for any car expenses. My leisure time is embedded in my lifestyle, and I don’t spend hundreds of dollars on party nights or fancy dinners. I do not need any gadgets to make my life easier, nor do I need expensive holidays to escape life.

If you are willing to give up about half of what you own and do right now, you can afford to travel to cheaper countries for years for a fraction of the money you used to spend each month. If you are willing to work hard for a few months of the year to earn that $15,000 that you would need to travel full-time, you are basically set to leave your ‘normal’ life behind.

2. Change the concept you have about money.

We are taught that time is money; every lost day at work could have made you more money. But most people don’t understand that money is time. Imagine all the hours spent while working on something you can do or buy in the free time you have left after work. You are basically working to buy yourself leisure time and to pay for the daily expenses that come with living in a Western country.

But imagine working only a fraction of those hours and having a lot of time to live the life you want. Now the concept is reversed: what you were working for before (to spend your time happily) is now already the biggest portion of your life. And the best part: you don’t need half of the money you thought you would need for it. You pay for your own time with less money instead of spending your time to make more money.

3. You will most likely need to change your career around.

People with successful careers are valuable to society because those people earn the money that companies want them to spend again and that governments want to collect in taxes. Many people during your lifetime will try to push you to build a profitable career to be successful in life.

From the moment we are born, we are conditioned in living the perfect society life; growing up in a loving family, choosing a study/job you like and building a career out of it, meeting the person you want to marry, and starting your own family, including a full-time job, house and car. This way you are most valuable to our society; you pay your taxes, you spend your well-earned money in their economy and you most likely get children that will follow more or less the same path.

Our lives at the moment are built around our jobs: for you to live the life society wants you to live, you need to earn a lot of money and basically spend 50 years of your life working.

But you don’t need a career that will make you rich, you need experiences that make your mind rich. Yes, this means giving up luxuries and securities which a successful career can offer you, but in return, you will gain your most precious aspect: time. Let go of the concept that the only way to be successful is to commit to your career.

There are a lot of jobs for a full-time traveler that aren’t ‘valuable’ for your career but will still make you the money you need to live a budget travel life. I have picked fruits on farms in Australia, herded cows in the outback, taken shitty customer calls in New Zealand, worked as a commission-based travel agent, washed dishes, cleaned rooms in resorts and hotels, and had boring data-entry jobs — all ‘careers’ considered not really ambitious.

But these are also the jobs that can make you $15,000 in about six months if you live as budget as possible and work the most amount of hours you can, which allows you to travel for the rest of the year in freedom. Are you willing to change your career around to start traveling full-time?

4. Be prepared to get out of your comfort zone.

To become a world traveler without working full-time, you need to give up on many things. You shouldn’t mind sharing your nights with multiple other backpackers in the same room, eating cheap food from the street, and getting bumped around in local buses on to your next destination.

Don’t spend all of your money on unnecessary things like alcohol, drugs, and cool travel gadgets. Choose the cheapest local food stands, and dorm rooms a bit out of the center of town to save as much money as possible. This will all not be as relaxing as your comfort zone at home and you might have to walk a few miles extra, but all these little things will save you a lot of money to keep you traveling for longer, which, trust me, is so worth it!

Book all your accommodation and trips yourself instead of going to a travel agency and don’t take the tourist transport but always the local buses. Skip some of the highlights in each destination as they tend to have a pricey entry fee. To become an eternal nomad, you will have to get out of your comfort zone, but that’s how I learned we actually grow the most in our lives.

5. It will not be an eternal vacation.

Even though I had more days off than those I worked the last few years, being a full-time traveler will definitely not be an eternal vacation. You will need to make money at some point to sustain your lifestyle and most of the time these will be boring, shitty jobs or jobs that require a lot of time and determination, like starting your own business.

In a lot of countries, you won’t be able to obtain a work visa so you will most likely get underpaid if you decide to work there. A good way around this is to do volunteer jobs in exchange for accommodation and food, this way you won’t spend any money on your daily needs and most of the time this kind of job still leaves a lot of time for you to make an income on the side.

Try to find work in touristy areas as with tips you can still gather some cash while doing your volunteer hours. Or start your own online business on the side to make some extra money as a digital nomad while taking house sitting jobs. You can enter data, teach online, write, create content like videos and photos, build websites, start a dropshipping business or work in online customer service or as a translator — the opportunities are endless if you put a bit of time into it.

You can do it too!

If your life consists of living from pay-check to pay-check to pay bill after bill and you are waking up every daydreaming to get away from it all to become a full-time traveler, be prepared to make some sacrifices.

The benefits of exploring and adventuring the world will make you forget about those sacrifices in no time though! You don’t need to be lucky or have a big savings account, just be smart about how you spend your time and money and your life as an eternal traveling nomad can start tomorrow.