How some people afford to travel around the world for months without working?

s08nlql9@lemm.ee to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 164 points –

https://piped.video/watch?v=V-yO1DcdUFQ

I'm one of those who work 5 days a week to earn a living. We have our vacation days to enjoy whatever we want to do in life, but we still need to go back to work because people like me will struggle in life if we lose our job.

So I'm curious how some people like the guy in the video can travel around the world for almost a year without working. There are also other vloggers out there who left home to go on a travel and they are still young. Do they already have savings enough to support until they retire?

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I'm American and of the Americans I know who traveled longterm or lived abroad, or traveled for free or on a budget:

  • They were part.of a student exchange in High School and.lived in Europe.for half a year(program was competitive and free)
  • They were part of a program in college that included an annual international trip (program was free)
  • They went.to college or university abroad and would travel during breaks (had to pay for school and for the travel, but traveled on a broke student budget)
  • They were a nanny for a wealthy family in Europe
  • They taught English as a second language in countries like India, Thailand, South Korea and China, usually living there from 1.month (very short cultural.program when hey were in college) or several years (working FT in private ESL schools), which allowed for a lot of inexpensive travel.in Asia
  • They perform on cruise ships full time and visit the locations where they stop
  • They live frugally,.save a bunch of.money and vacation days, then travel to the places with the cheapest airfare and COL, also typically not during the busiest tourists times (off season or.shoulder season)
  • They go where they have friends and can crash on their couch, or travel.with friends and split the costs
  • They are "digital nomads" and work remotely while they travel
  • They are vloggers and their travel is a part of their content; they make.money on YouTube etc. (this also can include digital nomads - they may work their FT gig and.do the content creation on the side)
  • They are retirees, some relatively young (military or nonprofit/governmental pensions,.money saved in Roth IRAs or.other retirement accounts that they can tap early), traveling for.months at a time or living abroad and doing a lot of traveling from that jumping off point)

Of the above, if they have student loans that they are paying off, they usually don't travel longterm anywhere. The lifestyle requires little to no debt.

ETA: Thinking of a few more,, one already mentioned by PP:

  • They saved up summer job money and backpacked in between High School and college
  • They visited family abroad periodically throughout their childhoods over the summer
  • They work for companies that had branches in foreign countries, or for the State Dept., or for NGOs, or are in the Peace Corp

Most people I've met that travel a lot are just wealthy.

Ding ding ding. In the American work culture the only way to travel a lot is to be ok with not having a job and travel very frugally, or start out with enough money it doesn't matter.

If you're the former, one tip I would give is to pick somewhere to go where the USD is very strong like northern Africa or parts of South America.

Without exception, whenever people have told me that they can afford to travel a lot because their job is trading crypto or vlogging or some shit, the reality is that they inherited heaps of money or sold the family farm or whatever.

I'm sure there are a few vloggers who make enough to just keep travelling but those are extraordinarily few.

I guess things have changed in the last several years - being a digital nomad is actually pretty viable now for a number of professions. That said you tend to stay in the same place for a year or so at a time just because that keeps costs down. Also even digital nomads need a work environment - internet and a desk big enough for more than a cup of coffee. These things can be harder to find than you'd realise.