Travel for long enough and one day you wake up to realize: This is no longer a vacation, it's your life.
Night train from Belgrade to Sofia. | Image source: huffingtonpost.com
Over one year ago I quit my job and decided to travel around the world. This was both a dream 10 years in the making and one of the best decisions I've ever made.
In the last 12 months I learned a lot about long-term travel, what I need to be happy, and how to survive outside of the U.S. Many of these things can't be learned at home or in a book, and while reading about them on the internet can only get you so far, a lot of people have asked me to explain how I've done it.
Well, here's part of the answer.
"There's no substitute for just going there."
-Yvon Chouinard
My trip hasn't been about sightseeing (although I've done that) as much as just being somewhere. The simple challenges of daily routine can be overwhelming: trying to eat, drink and sleep in a place where nothing makes sense, you don't speak the language, and where none of the basic comforts of home are available. It's not easy, but if you want a fast-track to personal development, get on a plane.
When I was younger my dad often said, "The hardest part is just getting out the door." And that may be the most important lesson of all: it's too easy to get complacent at home and if you aren't at least a little uncomfortable, you probably aren't learning anything.
If you've already traveled extensively, you may get a kick out of this. If you haven't, here are some reflections, tips, and advice about long-term travel on my one-year anniversary of life on the road:
#1) Most of the world's people are friendly and decent.
Except for the French*.
Some stereotypes really hold up, but on average, most of the people I've met around the world are extremely polite, friendly and helpful. They are generally interested in why I chose to visit their home. They are eager to assist if it's obvious I'm lost or in trouble. They'll go out of their way to try to make sure I have a good stay in their country. And, contrary to what most Americans tend to think (see #3 below), they often don't know much about the United States (or necessarily care).
Don't be convinced before leaving that "everyone there is _______". Show a modicum of respect to people and their culture and you'll be blown away by what you get back. Try picking up a little of the local language. Just learning how to say "thank you" can make a huge impact.
* Sorry, I couldn't resist. To be fair, France is like everywhere else: most people are decent. It's just that France has a particularly large proportion of bad apples that give the place a well-deserved reputation. I've met a lot of wonderful people in France, but also a disproportionate number of a**holes (not travelers generally, but residents of France). This isn't based on a single trip nor is it restricted to Paris. Almost every non-French local in Europe agreed with me on this one.
#2) Most places are as safe (or safer) than home.
I remember confessing to my mother recently that I had a big night out in Budapest and stumbled back to my apartment at dawn. Her reaction was: "But don't you worry about being drunk in a foreign country?"
Ha ha, not at all mom! I've never felt so safe!
The only place I've been violently mugged was in my home city of San Francisco. Many of the people I know there have been robbed at gunpoint, and on more than one occasion there were shootings in my neighborhood.
In one incident just a block away from my apartment (Dolores Park), a man was shot five times and somehow escaped, only to collapse about 10 meters from our front door. You can still see the blood stains on the sidewalk.
Turns out we actually live in a pretty dangerous country.
In over 365 days on the road, staying mostly in dormitory-style hostels and traveling through several countries considered 'high-risk,' the only incident I had was an iPhone stolen out of my pocket on the metro in Medellin, Colombia. I didn't even notice and deserved it for waiving the damn thing around in the wrong part of town. Most people think that in a place like Colombia you'll still get kidnapped or knocked off by a motorcycle assassin, but that's not true. According to the locals I talked to (who grew up there), things have been safer there for at least 10 years.
Caveat: This doesn't give you a license to be stupid, and some places really warrant respect. Guatemala and Honduras, where there are major drug wars going on (and the Peace Corps recently pulled all of their volunteers), or Quito, Ecuador, where everyone I talked to had been robbed, are reasonably dangerous (I had no trouble in any of them).
In reality, based on the sort of mindless binge-drinking that happens in most travel hot spots, you'd expect travelers to get knocked off a lot more often. But if you pay attention and don't do anything stupid, you'll be fine.
#3) Most people don't know (or care) what America is doing.
I think the whole America vs. the rest of the world debate has been summed up perfectly in this post:
=> 10 Things Americans Don't Know About America
I couldn't have said it better:
Despite the occasional eye-rolling, and complete inability to understand why anyone would vote for George W. Bush, people from other countries don't hate us either. In fact -- and I know this is a really sobering realization for us -- most people in the world don't really think about us or care about us.
I've met people that didn't even know that San Francisco (or California even) had a coastline (now there's a sobering conversation for you. So much for thinking that's the center of the world eh?).
One thing is true: Americans are not well represented on the travel circuit. It just doesn't seem to be culturally important to us, unlike say, the Australians, who never go home.
#4) You can travel long-term for the price of rent and a round of drinks back home
My favorite question from friends at home has been: "how the hell are you still traveling?"
Well, for what you spent at lunch I can live on for a whole day in Indonesia. That's all there is to it.
- Monthly rent for a shared apartment in San Francisco could be: $1,100 per person.
- My average monthly expenditure during the last year of travel: $1,200 / month*.
That's $40 / day, and includes some ridiculous and totally auxiliary expenses. For example:
And so on. I also went out, a lot, and spent way to much money on alcohol.
- 10 days of Scuba diving in Utila, Honduras - $330
- Kitesurfing gear rental in Mancora, Peru - $100 for two days
- Flight to Easter Island (50 percent subsidized by my dad) - $400
- Acquisition of 4 Surfboards, + Repairs and Accessories over the year - $750
- Purchasing a bunch of gear, like a new netbook ($380), wetsuit ($175), boardshorts ($55), camping gear ($100), a SteriPen water purifier ($125), summer sleeping bag ($55)
- Riding the NaviMag Ferry through the lake district of Chilean Patagonia from Coyaiquhe to Puerto Montt ($200).
- Taking a total of seven nearly cross-continental flights (like Brussels=>Greece) during my four months in Europe.
Before I left home, my original budget projection was $50 / day, which I would consider lavish in many parts of the world. In some places, I spent as little as $20 / day (including lodging, all meals and booze) while living in relative luxury right on the beach. Generally, I shot for $30 / day which gave me a buffer of $20 for travel and miscellaneous or one-time expenses.
Countries visited on this budget: Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Chile, Easter Island (Chile), Argentina, Uruguay, Santa Cruz (California), North Shore of Oahu, Belgium, France, Spain, Germany, Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Austria, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Turkey
Totals: Six months Central/S. America, two months U.S., two months Western Europe and two months Easter Europe).
Obviously, some places are cheaper than others, like Guatemala, where you can get a room for $4 per night. You have to be a lot more careful in Western Europe, where I got a little bit loose with my budget and spent $2,000 per month for two months. But I also spent less than $900 in the month that I biked (pushbike) through France.
You might be blown away by how cheap some "expensive" places can be. The second cheapest hostel I stayed in (after Guatemala) was in Berlin, Germany, at €6 / night (~$7.43 USD). Beer in Prague was as cheap or cheaper than any other country I've been to (it was $1.43 for 0.5L in ultra-touristy downtown Prague). You can rent a decent downtown apartment in Budapest for $200 / month.
Bottom line: If you're careful, you can travel on $1,200 per month or less. Rolf Potts, the author of Vagabonding (highly, highly recommended whether or not you're planning to travel) claims to have circled the globe for years on $1,000 per month. Budget $1,500 per month and you should be totally covered. You can do this even in Europe if you go slow, stay with friends or in cheaper hostels, fly on discount airlines (as opposed to taking the train), cook or eat street food, and don't buy booze at the bar (which I did and somehow survived).
The best budget rule of thumb I've learned (can't remember the source) is to take the price of your nightly accommodation and triple it. That will be about your daily minimum to survive, so $30 per day where a hostel runs you $10 per night.
*Note that my monthly total budget does not include transcontinental airfare (like U.S. to Europe) which was free (see How I flew around the world for $220). Since I typically travel overland and all flights are one-way tickets I haven't flown as much as you'd expect.
#5) Saving for a big trip is not as hard as you think.
Most people think I'm rich because I've been traveling for a year. What they don't realize is that, although I didn't leave at the time (this was five years ago), I was able to save enough money for this trip within a year and a half of graduating college.
My first salaried job paid $29,000 per year -- not exactly ballin' by U.S. college-grad standards. But by pretty ruthless budgeting , I was able to save $1,000 a month for the 15 months I worked there.
Guess what? That's $15,000 or 12.5 months of travel at $1,200 per month.
Are there sacrifices to be made? Of course. But it's worth it.
Btw, I am by no means the first person to discover or write about travel budgeting. This post is from 2009: Travel full-time for less than $14,000 per year. Don't think it's just us either, because all of thesepeople are writing about it.
I plan to write more about how to save money in the future.
For the rest of the list, click here.
Isn’t it amazing how many life lessons you can pick up while on the road? I’d love to hear the ones you've had. Drop me a “Hello, Jamie Squillare!” message on Twitter. Don’t forget the hashtag #lifesajourney!