How People Afford To Travel Indefinitely

You want to have that travel lifestyle that you see many others currently having. But you can’t understand how they can fund one trip, let alone a non-stop trip around the world. You see their wonderful Instagram, YouTube or TikTok accounts and you wonder if that is funding their travels? Or do they have rich parents and a trust fund?

Luckily, this isn’t the main and easiest way of funding your travels, How do I know this? Well for the last 3 years, I have been a non-stop traveller and seen some of the most incredible sights. I Don’t have a successful YouTube, TikTok or Instagram. No trust fund or funding my trip using skills that others can’t require.

In this article, I will give you the information to get you travelling and stopping when you want too, not when you run out of money.

Changing The Way You See Travel

If you go on Instagram right this moment, you can easily find a person who has countless insane photos from around the world, looking like they are always loving life and constantly spending money. You never see them earning it, because why would they want to share that?

But I’ll let you into their secret, They work and save like the rest of us mortals. But they are clever with their money.

There are two main methods: They earn fast and spend slowly or they travel and make money at the same time. I’ll give you more information on how to do this later in this article.

But first, you need to follow this step.

Step one: Change the way you think what travel is, Stop thinking about it as a non-stop party but more of a lifestyle of freedom and choice on where and how you want to live your life.

Be prepared to work hard for travel. But it’s worth it, I promise.

Think Of Money As Time

Here are some facts you need to learn about time and money and the reasons why they are linked;

• Having money in your account is equal to having time to travel.
• Earning money is time not fully travelling (Most of the time)
• Earning money doesn’t mean you can’t travel slowly
• You want to earn money fast
• You want to spend it slow

Let me explain this using my current time and money relationship. My current time-earned is 2 weeks of work which allows me to spend 1 week travelling full time. This means if I work for 6 months, I will have enough saved for 3 months of travel.

On top of this, I am currently travelling slowly, seeing new places, when I can.

If I write this in normal talk, I’m currently working in the Lake District, for 6 months saving up for 3 months backpacking South East Asia. During my days off at the Lake District live-in job, I explore the local area.

How You Earn Your Travel Money Is Key

I will go on to how to spend money, as that is important too, but earning it is the way you travel indefinitely.

If you searched Google and found this article, I can guess that you have already scrolled through about 50 plus articles about how to make money and travel the world, it comes up with blogging, vlogging and many incredibly hard ways of seeing the world. The funny thing is, it’s super easy to start and you can achieve it doing the job you do now!

The quickest and easiest way of travelling and earning money is doing your current job in another location. This could be doing it in another city in your own country, or on a working holiday to somewhere completely new. You already have the skills and the knowledge why not use it to see somewhere different?

Maybe you want a different experience of travel? My favourite way of starting a travel life is getting a live-in job. Live-in jobs are amazing ways to save up fast (a Lot less bills) and there is a high chance you are in a favourite tourist area, so you can explore it on your days off. I’m not going to write loads on live-in jobs as I have an article on it here. You should check it out and see if this is right for you.

The key to earning money for travel is to be travelling slowly while you earn, even if it is a new city in your own country or a working holiday. But don’t forget saving is key too, you want to travel without a job too.

Step Two: Look at the way you’re currently earning money, ask yourself these questions?

• Am I in a new place and I have fun travelling on my days off?
• Am I earning enough money to save?

If you answer no, to either of these questions you’re not travelling indefinitely, look at a live-in job.

Spending Money Is Spending Your Free Time

Have you watched the film “In Time” starring Justin Timberlake? If you haven’t, without any spoilers. In this film set in the future, time is money, You run out of money you die.

Travel is like this, apart from the fact you die when you run out of money. Instead, your travels come to an end. You need to set a budget for how much you are going to spend a day and work out how long this will last.

For example; Myself and Holly set a Budget of £50 a day between us for travelling Europe. Which was incredibly tight. If we were to stick to the budget, we could travel for 3 months. Every day we went over this budget we would lose time, and every day we were under the budget we would gain time.

We ended up travelling for 2 months because we decided that having a budget too tight was restricting us from enjoying the travelling.

Just like in the film “In Time” People don’t stop buying coffee and treats because you need the balance of spending and enjoying yourself.

Cutting Costs Gives You More Time

When you travel there are things you want to do and see, They are not all going to be free or cheap. But this doesn’t mean your whole travel lifestyle is going to be expensive.

Having a budget per day will make you think about what is worth your money and what isn’t. Each traveller is different and as you travel your thoughts will change.

Here are a couple of examples;

• You might enjoy coffee shops and you will have one each day as a treat, but you are happy to stay in cheap hostels.
• You might like spending money in museums but are happy to cook to save money
• You want to stay in places longer, you’re happy to work in a hostel for free accommodation.
• You want to have more experiences, you’re happy to go to a cheaper country

When we travelled Europe, we started with an extremely tight budget to learn what we were happy to cut costs on and what we weren’t.

We quickly learnt that accommodation that came with cooking facilities was a great way to spend a little more to save money. We were happy to travel on the cheapest public transport and just walk and explore cities for entertainment. We didn’t want to spend money on Alcohol but a coffee shop was a great treat.

A little tip for you guys, If you want to build a travel Instagram, Youtube Channel or TikTok and want to look like the others that live it up… Take photos of the time you’re treating yourself and less when you cut back. Personally,I like showing the real side of travel.

Step Three: The final step is to set a budget to work out how long you travel.

Then when starting your travels work out the best ways to save and spend your money.

Thanks for Reading

If you enjoyed this article, and want more travel information check out the blogs on this website, the Funny Backpacker YouTube Channel or even listen to our podcast called Travel Troubles.