I am at my 30 day travel holiday reflection point. So far it has been an amazing experience and time. I haven’t really looked at my investments, this blog except to fix an issue with Robby, or worried about anything back home.
I think I can do this full time although I do have quite a few lessons learned that I wanted to share with others who may be contemplating year long travel.
First lesson is to optimize your packing and weight. The biggest challenge I’ve had in Europe are strict baggage size & weight rules. I ended up having to check a bag because it was too heavy then it ended up getting put on the wrong plane. I finally got the luggage a day later but I quickly realized moving from country to country that carrying too much stuff is a big hassle.
Second lesson, to save money and because consumables are very expensive in Europe, I packed things like soap, toothpaste, mouthwash, etc. Consumable items should be left behind and I should bite the bullet and pay the extra costs locally for things I need when I get there. I dodged a 40 euro surcharge on luggage a few times due to weight limits by hiding stuff in my fleece jacket pockets. The stuff I’m carrying isn’t worth 40 euros.
I’ve rented apartments and stayed at hotels in various cities. There are pros and cons to each.
Hotels – Pros
Easy to book, easy to stay, room gets cleaned daily and no cleanup after leaving. Amenities can include swimming pool, Jacuzzi, restaurant, or free breakfast. Soap & shampoo provided.
Hotels – Cons
Usually no washing machine, no kitchen, smaller single room. All your meals will be eat out.
Apartment Rentals – Pros
Larger space usually with kitchen, multiple rooms, washer, and more home-like. You can buy groceries and cook at home. Better for the waistline than eating out all the time.
Apartment Rentals – Cons
No daily cleaning, washing dishes, doing laundry, cooking all on you. When you leave, you gotta clean up and manage trash. Consistency is a big issue with apartment rentals. One was great, one was average and one was bad so far.
Third lesson, travel is expensive (or can be). Flights, ferries, taxis, buses, ubers, bolts, hotel stays, restaurants, and fun all cost money. I think I’ve spent over $15k by now and it’s only been one month. Obviously this level of spending won’t be sustainable for years on end so I am optimizing my future spend. Despite using AI to do extensive planning, I keep incurring expenses for things I did not plan such as buying medicine, excursions I did not think of until being suggested by locals, and random things.
I’m now in Eastern Europe where things are a bit cheaper so my spending has been reduced a bit. There is a huge difference in cost between Western Europe and Eastern Europe.
The only regret I have so far is that I didn’t start this journey sooner. I kept putting off retirement worried about not having enough money but it is clear that things will work out unless we end up in a global depression at some point in the future. I have met a ton of amazing people on my journey so far and I hope that continues.
I plan on returning to the USA in November but only for a brief two or three month stay then I will head to Asia for a full year or longer. The cost of living there is substantially less than Europe and I already have an idea of which countries I want to visit during the year.
I’ll try to check in at the 60 day mark which would be September 15.
May I know your net worth via email? Want to compare your travel spending/NW ratio and see if I can pull off.
You don’t need to know my net worth, what you need is your own spending budget. In my travels I met young people with hardly any money, they stay in hostels, take the bus instead of ubers/taxis and eat modestly to achieve their travel dreams. There are also variables in travel, do you want luxurious stay-at-resorts travel or modest hotels or hostels? You can travel on any budget if you are willing to be flexible. Having said all that I can tell you that I try to spend no more than $5000/month on travel. Some months it is far less than that and sometimes it is far more, the difference is in the country you visit. Switzerland is super expensive, Albania is fairly inexpensive. Guess which one will cost $5000 and which one will cost less than half that $5000. The biggest expense is usually your place of stay followed by airlines. I am in Europe for a few months to cut air travel and use trains/buses when I can.
So if my budget is $5000/month that means its $60k year. How much money do you need to have invested to earn $60k/year? Assuming 10% return you need $600k + extra for whatever your tax bracket will be. My net worth is significantly above that 600k mark but as I mentioned, it’s not relevant to travel. Europe is on the high end mark of spend, Asia and Latin America will be on the lower end so you save the budget money in low cost countries to use on high cost countries.
Hope this helps.