How Did We Afford Two Years of Travel?
This is by far the top question that we get from the people we meet on our trip: “How can you afford to travel so much?”
We’re going to share with you our tips on how we made this all happen. But first, a little background for those of you who don’t know us. We have been together since 2006, and we’ve always known that once we got married we wanted our ‘honeymoon’ to consist of quitting our jobs and traveling around the world for a while (a sabbatimoon). So, here’s how we did it.
Early Years
We took out minimal student loans and worked nearly full-time throughout college.
We paid off said student loans within two years of graduating, even though that meant we had very little money left over.
When we first moved in together, we shared one car. And when we moved to San Francisco in 2012, we ditched car ownership completely.
So, this set us up to have very few recurring monthly payments — aside from rent, health insurance, and cell phones. We were able to start saving at this point.
Savings Mode
In early 2016, the year we got engaged, we started calculating what we thought would be a realistic budget. What should our goal be? After speaking with some friends who traveled extensively, we came to the conclusion of an average of $100/day (that’s total, for both of us) so that we could travel comfortably. So, we rounded up to an even $40,000 for a year’s worth of travel for two people. Now, we could make that money last longer if we stayed in cheap hostels and made more of our own meals, or shorter if we wanted to splurge more — it was up to us at this point.
Side note: We recently met a woman traveling through South America on $10/day. Anything is possible, it just depends how resourceful you are.
We tasked ourselves with each setting aside between $500-$1,000/month for this from our paychecks. Your own goal for something like this could vary greatly depending on your costs and salary, but setting a realistic amount is important. At our pace, it took us about two years to reach the point where we had our budget in place, in addition to a buffer for when we returned.
Not only did we save money, but we started collecting something even more valuable: credit card points (worth 1.5x when you use them on the credit card company’s travel portal). During the promotion when the Chase Sapphire Reserve provided each new signup with 100,000 points, we both got ourselves a card. You better believe we were using that card wherever possible, especially for work expenses (Dany put on a lot of work events and they didn’t have corporate cards). So we racked up those points like nobody’s business — nearly 500,000 points between us by the time we started traveling.
Timing
No time is the perfect time to quit your job, especially if you enjoy what you’re doing. This was the case for us. Since we were also planning/paying for a wedding around this same time (using a separate budget), we had to time this around our wedding, the holidays, and the lease on our apartment. We finally just picked a time that made sense: early January 2018. This gave us time to enjoy the wedding without stressing about everything else, as well as time to button up everything at work.
Execution
Hotels
We’ve got a lot of tips and tricks on what we used to maximize our dollar on the road. People are also curious how much we ‘rough it.’ Let us tell you, we’ve only stayed in a shared room in a hostel once (mostly because it was an amazing location). Because this is our lifestyle rather than a vacation, we’ve prioritized having our own private space when possible. Here’s how we do it:
Book hotels on the Chase travel portal using our credit card points. An average night at a 3.5-star hotel around the world costs about 3,500 points.
Ask your friends if you can stay with them! We never want to intrude, but we always try to ask if we can at least crash with a friend for a night or two — plus we want to spend time with them anyway, so it’s a win-win.
When we can’t find anything suitable on Chase and we don’t know anyone in a city, we use the Hotels.com rewards program (earn one free night for every ten nights booked).
Finances
Use Charles Schwab for your checking account. You can use any ATM and all fees get refunded to you.
Never exchange money — just use the local ATM to avoid unnecessary fees.
Remember that Chase Reserve Sapphire credit card? USE IT. You earn 3x points for food and travel (basically 90% of our expenses on the road).
Insurance
We use SafetyWing for our insurance on the road. It’s $39/month each, and has pretty darn good coverage. This is our only recurring monthly expense.
Food
Since we spend a lot of our time in airports, you’d think we’d spend a lot of money on airport food, right? Wrong! The Chase Sapphire Reserve includes the Priority Pass, which gets you into 1,000+ airport lounges around the world for free. You know what lounges have? Food! (And alcohol!)
But yes, a huge majority of our budget does go towards food. But that’s how we like to travel. We could definitely cook ourselves more and save more, but the experience of trying local cuisines and chatting with people who are also out is where we get a lot of enjoyment from.
Flights
OK, so this is an interesting one that some of you may not be able to replicate. Since both of us have had successful careers in tech and startups, we sometimes seek out a conference we can speak at or a company that we can consult with so that we can get an expensive flight paid for. This means we may have to work for a couple of days, but it can be worth it when you are moving continents. If that’s not an option for you, we have a couple more tricks:
Use Skyscanner or Kayak’s flexible date search to determine the cheapest day to travel. Since our schedules are more flexible, we can choose to fly on slow days or off hours to save some $$$.
Cross check the airline’s website directly. It’s sometimes much cheaper than what Kayak or Expedia will show you.
If you’re not ready to book your flight yet, use an incognito tab! Some sites will raise the prices on you if they know you are keeping an eye on a specific flight.
If you’re on a tight budget, take buses/trains instead! They aren’t as bad as some people think (and they often result in memorable stories).
Other tips
Did we mention we no longer pay for cell service? Our iPhones are paid off and we just use them on WiFi. We got to keep our old numbers by porting them to Google Voice for a one-time $20 fee. We almost never buy SIM cards.
Never pay for a hotel to do your laundry. They charge an arm and a leg! Instead, use your friend’s washer every time you stay with someone, book an Airbnb with a washer, or find a local service (super cheap in places like Asia and South America).
Pack light to avoid having to pay for your luggage on every flight you take!
While you are gone, don’t pay for storage if you can help it! We stored our things at Tristan’s parent’s house since they had space.
Influencer Status
This one is a little bit unique. If you are reading this, then you know that we blog and share many of our travels on our Instagram and Facebook pages. Some people have made a business out of being an influencer and some people just do it for fun. We find ourselves somewhere in the middle. We have used our status to earn some free hotel stays and nice meals, but we are not trying to keep this travel lifestyle going forever. It’s just a fun way to document our journey and we enjoy being able to share it with you in that way.
Continuing the Journey
You may already know that we’ve actually extended our trip to be a full two years. Honestly, it was so enjoyable and seamless for us that we found a way to keep it going. Earlier this year, we got a few temporary contractor gigs in Moscow and Saudi Arabia so that we could re-up our travel budget and extend our sabbatimoon. We already have a pretty connected international professional network, but there are so many ways that anyone on the road can earn money or find a place to stay in exchange for working a little bit.
Workaway — volunteer in exchange for housing and sometimes meals
WWOOF — live and work on a farm
Dogsitting or housesitting
Ask a hostel if you can clean in exchange for a bed
Teach English — you’ll have to become certified, but once you are it can be easy to secure a job (especially throughout Asia!)
Work on a cruise ship
Post a skill on Fiverr — you may be surprised but people will pay for almost anything you can freelance
There are sooooo many ways to make a buck if you are resourceful enough!
In the end, we spend less money on the road than we did just living in San Francisco. One more time… IT WAS CHEAPER TO TRAVEL THAN TO PAY RENT. Our $40k/year estimate worked out almost exactly, and we do pretty much everything we want to do when traveling (except flying first class, haha). *Please note that this was our personal budget and long-term travel is still completely realistic with much, much less money.
Moral of the story: You don’t have to be rich to quit your job and travel. It just takes a little preparation and a willingness to see what happens.