Imagine being able to Travel whenever and wherever you want. Fellow travel bloggers, Agness and Cez from Etramping share a couple of ways to make that a reality. Click to read more of their insider tips.
Sometimes don’t you feel the urge to buy a ticket and take off, without thinking about your job or other responsibilities? And then reality bites, and you hate how you’re stuck to your job or commitments and can’t just travel as and when you like.
I know exactly how that feels. I used to feel like a caged bird, not being able to travel whenever I wanted to. I would spend my days daydreaming or planning the next adventure. Eventually I found my way into travel blogging and now, I’m a full-time travel blogger who spends most of my time exploring new places and sharing my experiences here and on other channels.
The thing is, I’m not alone. A lot of people out there with a passion for travel have managed to, somehow, find a way to travel frequently without quitting their jobs.
How do they travel whenever they want?
Here’s how you can do it too.
Make Travel Your Priority
Probably one of the first things you’re going to need to do is to actually make travel your priority. If you really want to be able to travel whenever you want, it’s vital that you think of travel as something that’s more important to you than almost anything else. You’ll need to make sacrifices — that might mean you can’t buy the latest PlayStation or spend all your money on new clothes. But think about it this way: a Playstation costs the same as flights to Costa Rica — which would give you more happiness and satisfaction?
When I first started getting hooked to travel, my friends couldn’t understand how I could afford to travel so much. They only understood when I compared their expenditure with mine: my ticket to Argentina was the same price as their Gucci purse, all my accommodation there cost the same as what they spent on tickets to a U2 concert, and food there cost half the price of what they usually spent eating out at home. When travel is your priority, you’ll know what’s most important to you in life and you’ll make it happen.
Save Money Like a Crazy Person
Traveling doesn’t have to be expensive, but you’ll still need to have money to afford it — especially if you’re not making money while traveling. If you want to travel whenever you want, you need to have some savings set aside, so you don’t need to worry about finances while traveling. That might not require a complete overhaul to your weekly budget, but it does mean avoiding large expenses.
Make a list of your monthly expenditure and think about which items you can do without. Things like parties and social events are going to fall to the bottom of your list of priorities. No more going to the club on Friday night and spending your paycheck on alcohol. Maybe move in with your parents for a while, or look for a roommate to share the monthly rent with you. You’ll be saving a large chunk of your expenses that way. Do a garage sale and sell all of your old clothes and electronics that you no longer use. You get to save space, declutter and make some money!
READ MORE: HOW TO TRAVEL MORE WITHOUT QUITTING YOUR JOB
Make Full Use of Weekends
Weekends are your reprieve from work and they’re the only free time that most of us have. If you can’t quite travel whenever you want because of work or other commitments, then make the most of your weekends to travel. You potentially have two and a half days — which I know isn’t a lot but will curb your wanderlust just a little bit. Leave on Friday evening after work, and return on Sunday evening all refreshed after a fun-filled and rewarding weekend away. If you’re one of those people who’s able to make do with little to no sleep, you can always come back early Monday morning and head straight to your 9 – 5.
Keep your eye on Groupon, which offers great hotel or holiday deals around the world. I still use it these days to book weekend trips just to get away from the daily routine. We’ve had some amazing weekend trips, such as a scuba diving weekend trip in Borneo, a surprise trip to Venice for Valentine’s Day, a yoga retreat in Portugal and more. If you choose places that are easy to reach (either by car or airplane) and not too far, you can actually experience quite a lot over a weekend!
Maximize Your Vacation Days
If you plan around holidays, you can really maximize your travel potential. Adding only four vacation days to a three-day-weekend gives you nine days off from work (including the previous weekend). That is more than enough time to explore an exciting new country and cover at least two or three different areas in one trip.
Even if you tag on just one or two days to a long weekend, you’ll get four or five days. This is a perfect amount for an extended city break or hiking trip. Be warned that airfares for public holidays tend to be higher than usual. So plan way in advance before the prices get even higher.
Before I went into travel blogging, I had an office job just like everyone else, but I would still travel around 6-10 times a year because I made the most of my vacation days and extended weekends.
Keep it Close
You don’t have to go far to explore somewhere new. If you live in Europe, there are lots to explore a short flight or drive away. There is a load of places which are really interesting and we bet you haven’t uncovered them all. How about cycling through Vienna or even ice-climbing in Iceland? There are also lesser-known areas like Bosnia, Romania and Macedonia that are all within a budget flight away.
If you’re based in the US, you can easily go on a weekend trip to a Caribbean island or a week-long adventure in Alaska. There are plenty of affordable flights from big cities to the Dominican Republic or Jamaica and even further afield like Costa Rica and Colombia.
How about staying within your home country? Head to another city near you, or research a cool area of the countryside just a hop and skip away. A lot of people move to new places nowadays to find work or study. If one of those people is you, well, you’ve got a huge new place to explore. There’s always something for you to see.
READ MORE: HOW TO FIND ADVENTURE IN YOUR BACKYARD
Limit Your Attachments
We have some friends who always wanted to travel. Yet every time they go to book something, they would quickly remember one thing: the cats. Two little feline companions who couldn’t be left on their own for fear of them starving. Those two friends would then put their travel plans on the back burner, and sigh.
It’s all too familiar of a scenario for some. The things that tie us down and keep us grounded in one place. We’re sure that those cats are some of the cutest, cuddliest little guys that have ever existed, but they were also an anchor stopping their owners from focusing on travel.
Pick a More Flexible Job
For many of us, it’s often our work that holds us back. Thankfully these days, there are a load of opportunities available for those looking to have a bit more flexibility in their life. Why not try working as a freelancer? Think about what skills you have and try to leverage that to your own benefit. Do you have some knowledge in web design or copywriting? Websites like Upwork.com or PeoplePerHour.com are great for sourcing freelance work. Perhaps you can start a travel blog and pursue a career like mine! Even if you don’t have these skills, it’s easy to learn from online courses or tutorials. Freelancing will be the easiest way to work and travel wherever you want.
But you don’t have to be a travel blogger, web designer or copywriter to be able to travel whenever you want. Try looking for remote work in your profession or field of interest, or even better, propose to your boss the idea of working from home to save office space and resources. It’s getting more and more common for companies to reduce their physical workspace and allow employees to work remotely. Whether you are a programmer, lawyer or engineer, many professionals these days are able to work from anywhere they want thanks to technology.
Find a Travel Job
But what if you want a job that lets you connect with the location? English teaching is great for this. There are possibilities available all around the world and you can always head back if it gets to be too much for you. Moreover, salaries from these positions often pay enough that you’ll be able to travel around the country you’re teaching in with little financial hardship.
Being an ESL teacher isn’t the only option, there are plenty of travel jobs available. How about becoming a tour guide, working on a cruise ship, or working as a travel nurse? All these jobs offer lots of opportunities to travel, whilst still making money. Here’s a great list of travel jobs that you can consider.
Keep Yourself Motivated
Our final advice: keep yourself motivated. It might seem like a pretty obvious one, but there are going to be points where you’ll be feeling as though you’re missing out on some things. Make sure to remember what the end goal is. In a couple of weeks (or months), you’ll be sipping on a nice cold beer (or your beverage of choice) in your dream destination. Whatever the case, you’ll find you’ll have cracked the code to letting you travel whenever you want.
Don’t think you can’t spoil yourself occasionally though. As long as you keep within or near to your budget, you’ll find you can live both the good life at home and the good life out there.
READ MORE: HOW TO BECOME A TRAVEL BLOGGER
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