How We Turned Our Dreams Of Full Time Travel Into Reality

Have you decided that you also want to quit your job and travel the world? And now you’re thinking, where do I start? Well, I’m not claiming to be any kind of expert on the subject, but I can share the resources I used to help us plan our trip. There are two books that were instrumental in planning our trip. The first was “A Year Off” by Alexandra and David Brown. The book goes into detail about budget, how to decide where to go and even breaks down what to do each month leading up to your trip. The second book we used was “Travel the World on $50 a Day” by Matt Kepnes. The title really explains it all but Matt goes into detail about different ways to budget travel. These two books really guided us to where we are today. Below are the steps we took to turn our dreams into reality.

1- We decided we want to go. Make the commitment first, then make the plan.

2- We decided our route. We each made list of places we wanted to visit in the first year. We both agreed to “chase the endless summer” which means we would travel to places during their warmer months. Southeast Asia is a great place to start as we wanted to leave in January and it would be summer time there (and dry season in most places). We then decided to stop in Turkey and then make our way to Eastern Europe and finally to Western Europe. Covid infinitely changed our travel plans and we realized that we would not be able to follow this route exactly. But we do believe that having some kind of plan in place is important.

3- We created a budget. We did this both for the trip and for our time at home before we left. We researched all of the places we wanted to go and made notes of how much every day life would cost us. In southeast asia it would cost us very little compared to places like Western Europe which would be the most expensive. We decided to try and stick to a budget of $50 a day per person for 300 days putting our total at $30,000. We also set aside $5,000 each for an emergency fund/coming home fund.

4-We started saving. We used various methods to help us save for the trip. Most importantly we lived below our means. We kept our rent low by sharing a house with 2 roommates. We paid off my car and shared it (this was a big sacrifice). We paid off all of our debt. Lemon started using apps like Ibotta to coupon for groceries. I used the app digit which lets you create financial goals and pulls money out of your checking account to reach those goals. I also set up a seperate savings account and set it up to transfer $40 a day from checking into savings (this was the easiest way to save). We stopped going out for dinner and drinks and we meal prepped and brought our lunch to work. We quit going to bars and instead drank at home. We put EVERYTHING we could on a credit card to earn points/miles and paid it off in full each month. We have another blog post on using credit cards to travel for free.

4- Notified our friends, family and work. This was a big one for us. We told my family early on but Lemons family lives in Indiana so we waited to tell them until we could fly out there. In hindsight, we should have told them much sooner; keeping it a secret was difficult. We were worried about telling our jobs in fear that our schedules or titles could change. We did give them 3 months notice and both of our jobs were very understanding and have both welcomed us back when we return.

5- Booked the first flight! This was one of the most stressful and exciting things we had to do. We watched flights for months and waited for countries to open up before pulling the trigger. But once we did, everything started to feel REAL! While you can use many third party websites to get cheap flights, we thought it was best to book directly with the airline in case we needed to make any changes our if our flight got canceled.

6- Booked accommodation. After we booked our flight it was time to pick a place to stay. Since we would be traveling for over 24 hours we chose to book a hotel instead of an airbnb or hostel so that we could relax and have everything we need at the property. The last thing we want to do after being on an airplane for over 20 hours was try to find a grocery store to stock up on necessities. We did only book the hotel for 2 days so that we could recharge before heading out on the road again.

7- Prepare for takeoff. There are a number of things we had to do before we could leave. We had to decide what we were keeping and putting into storage and what we were selling. We signed up for international travel and health insurance through SafetyWing. We made copies of our passports and compiled other important docs (health insurance, banking info etc.) to give to my family in case of emergency. We decided to change our address to my parents house so they could alert us of anything important. Then we changed all of our mailing and billing address to the same and turned off 2 step text verification on all of our devices and credit cards. We decided to end our cell service with Verizon (so hard giving up our phone numbers) and go with an ESim. There’s a lot of things that have to happen right before you leave and it can be very stressful. We had to move out of our apartment and sell our car just days before we left and it was a nightmare! But we knew that the next chapter of our lives was going to be the absolute best.

Again, the hardest part is deciding to just go. But once you make the decision and start saving, anything possible!