True Nomads

I’ve been promising to answer the ever reoccurring question of how I am able to afford to live a life of perpetual travel, so I guess now I will.

Every person that asks, seems to always assume that I have rich parents somewhere, paying for me to just travel around the world indefinitely. This is far from the truth. So to clear up some confusion, here are a few things you might not know about me:

1. I have no rich family, or any financial support what so ever.

2. I didn’t get some huge settlement or loan or inheritance to travel.

3. I didn’t save for years in order to travel.

4. I’m not special: I’m just an ordinary guy, from a middle class family in Colorado.

What I’m trying to say is, I don’t have any special advantages that allow me to travel. I’m just convinced that it’s a state of mind. It’s a mind set that I have that knows what I want and goes after it. So all that said, here are the ways I make it happen.

First things first- Get rid of everything you don’t need. If your main goal is to travel the world long term or indefinitely, then there is absolutely no reason to hold onto things that keep you planted to one area. This will be good practice anyways- teaching yourself that you don’t need all that luxury. Travel doesn’t have to mean luxury and glamour, so you should get used to that idea now. You will soon learn that in fact you do not need that huge car with an expensive payment.

You don’t need huge TVs and toys. Sell them all. Sell that car and get one for around $500, just to get yourself to work and back until you leave. Basically, make traveling the world your priority, not material possessions. Get out of your expensive apartment, find some room mates, and make all your living expenses bare minimum. When you travel, you’ll be living like this anyways.

Buy a ticket somewhere. Anywhere. Set your timeline. Once you have that ticket in hand you will be excited and motivated to save your money. Don’y make the dead line for six month or a year. Make it for three months, and tell yourself you will go, no matter how much you save. (I was in Africa with $400)

Find ways to make money, or at the very least, not spend it. The first job I ever took internationally, was in Mozambique at a guesthouse or hostel. I was almost broke, alone in Africa, and getting desperate. I was shy to ask, but finally inquired at my guesthouse about working for accommodation. They said yes, and the trend was born. Now I have either volunteered or worked at hostels on 6 continents. Other backpacker jobs you can find without a work visa are:

• Bar tending
• selling scuba dive sessions and courses for commission
• Collecting cans in Europe. Very profitable in Scandinavia.
• Farm work. Working with animals or produce.
• Busking. Learn guitar or some instrument.
• Get a certificate and teach English. Better yet. don’t even get a cert.. Just post signs offering private lessons.
• Get a real work visa for Australia. Even the worst jobs pay good. You can see Oz and save a lot of money for continuing your journey.

The list goes on. You just have to be creative. Once I was only a volunteer at a hostel and needed money, so I started making dinner for the guests, charging 3 euro each. That way I ate free and made some extra. Just think outside the box. If you can find ways to make money, you can travel indefinitely.

The way I find so  many hostel jobs, is I pick a place I want to go, then find and email every hostel in the area, asking if they are looking for volunteers or workers. Europe is very easy to find places that take backpackers. You can just hop from country to country, hostel to hostel.

Kiss luxury goodbye. Contrary what society, media and advertising has you believe, travel doesn’t mean cruise ships, five star hotels, and fine dining on a exclusive beach resort. Unless you are rich, there’s no way you can have this lifestyle and travel the world long term. Live with the bare minimums. Sleep in the cheapest hostels. Never eat out, and always cook for yourself. take the long, cheap, uncomfortable transportation. Like I said, you have to have it in your head that you don’t need all these comforts, and that it’s worth the sacrifice to be able to see the world. Without these compromises, there’s really no way.

Work online. I got it in my head that it would be the ultimate job to be able to make enough money online so as to be able to afford to travel forever. Working online means you are location independent, and free to travel while you work. That’s why I started this blog: I wanted it to eventually sustain my addiction of travel. It takes time to build up, so if you are going to do it, start now.

Utilize resources. Make important contacts. With a little research, I thing you will be able to find that there are actually a lot of resources out there to help people like you, who want to travel long term. So utilize them all. Here are important travel resources that every nomad should have:

• Couchsurfing.org- Make a profile and start using it. sleeping on people’s couches is going to save you tons.
• Hitchwiki.org- This makes hitchhiking easy. You type in the city you are hitching out of, and it tells you exactly where to stand to easily get rides. I personally hitchhiked and Couchsurfed my way around nearly all of Europe, spending nearly nothing, and making a lot of friends along the way.
• Ryanair.com-  This is one of the cheapest airlines in Europe. I’ve heard of people getting tickets from London to Warsaw for $1. They have deals every day. I personally flew from Tallinn to Oslo for $10. Cheap way to get aroud Europe for sure!
• Wizzair.com- This is another cheapy, and it cover the part of Europe that Ryanair doesn’t. I just bought a ticket from Bucharest to Israel for $100 RT.
• Hostelworld.com- Find the hostel you want to stay at, anywhere. I’ve worked at a lot of hostels so I know two things: It’s cheaper to reserve beds online through a site like hostel world, then it is if you just walk in. 2: People who book through Hostelworld usually get better treatment then walk-ins, since they want your good reviews. Hostel live and die by reviews.
• Rome2Rio.com- This site helps you find out how to get from one place to another. Pretty cool site. It even tells you how much stuff is, though I don’t know how up to date it is.
• HelpX.com- I don’t use this site, but it might put your mind at easy when looking for hostel jobs. The hostels advertise here, looking for workers. Other places do to. Just type in the city you want to travel and see.

places I’ve been, on very little money

Those are a few of the resources I use daily, but I’ll keep adding them as I think of them.

For 2.5 years I worked at one hostel for a while, then moved on to another in a different country. I hopped around everywhere. Usually I just traveled until I had almost no money, and then found a job. It’s never failed.

Now days, nearly 9 months after starting this blog, I have finally starting making money. I make enough to travel where ever I want, just as long as I am still a frugal backpacker. It is still a full time job, so I have to sometimes stop traveling and stay somewhere for a month to catch up on the blog. most of the time I will still volunteer at the hostel I’m staying, just to save that money.

The main point of this post is to make you realize that I might be doing remarkable things, BUT I am am not a remarkable person. Anyone can do it. It’s completely a state of mind. You are the only one stopping you from living your dream. My advice- just wing it. It always works out.

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