You wonder about the secret that made me travel for two years budget-wise?
This article will cover how to manage expenses for long-term travel and how I made it possible. I hope it will give you some keys if you dream of doing the same.
If this article helps you, don't hesitate to share it with your friends or on social media. Comment or share my work with people around you. It's always a good way to show your appreciation and help me reach more people who would find answers in my words. I would also love to have feedback on it, so I will always read your words with pleasure!
In this article:
Genesis of my travel
Let’s start with the beginning. Travelling has always been in my dreams. When I say always, I mean from my twenties on.
Since I started my first solo / duo trip in Europe in 2017, right after leaving my job in London and just before coming back to France with my Italian friend, Monica, we were planning on this trip around Europe for a while. So we packed our bags, and there we went!
One month and a half of discovery around seven different countries, fast travelling by bus and train mostly by night to save some hours of the day.
Sometimes spending only one week in neighbouring countries like Tcheck Republic and Slovaquia. The landscapes were changing fast, and the rhythm was exhilarating. We were young, wild, and free, like the sound—which we were listening three times per day.
Nonetheless, after one month, my friend reached back home in Italy, and I continued alone for a little while.
It was a different experience, like a call for freedom and power. I was standing on my own two feet. I came back home as a different person. I mean, I was still Marine, same body but different mindset. I could bring a new sense to the life I was living; I was happier.
With this experience, I got back to traditional life: getting a job after a year and a half spent in the capital of Great Britain, finding a place to live, and so on.
So I was back to sedentary life, but I was planning on a bigger trip already.
A trip, I thought, would be a one-way ticket to discover the big world.
From this time on, having this dream in the back of my mind, I started saving each cent of my salary. Making compromises sometimes with my rental expectations (I ended up living with a leak on the roof for a while) and second-thinking any expenses I would make for myself (no Black Friday or discount sales would push me to spend on something I did not really need).
Moreover, I was working to spend my money on experiences rather than on materials that would not truly make me happy.
Saving money: my tips and tricks
That's a few of my tricks to save money if you want to plan for a long trip (it’s working for me, but is different for everyone’s life’s priorities):
Think twice or three times before investing money or time in long projects that would hold you back from your freedom dream (I mean by that, buying a house, having a time-suck business, buying an expensive car, making an investment that holds your money for a long time, etc.).
Try to save as much money as possible each month while keeping a good balance of entertainment in your life so as not to get frustrated or unhappy.
Make a plan of how much you would need depending on the countries you want to visit; it’s also a very good way to motivate yourself towards your objective!
Some people told me about passive income, which is a good way to have money while travelling. I will not develop this subject longer because I am devoid of passive incomes so far. I do not have any experience in that matter.
Now, that is my own tricks I used to have enough savings to leave my country for a few years. It is not the same for everybody because the currency is different from one country to the next.
So, if one is lucky enough to need only a few years or months to have enough money, it could take a lifetime for other people living in countries where the currency rate is lower than the Euro, for example.
Cover your journey with insurance.
While travelling, it is important to have insurance to assist you in case of an emergency. If you fall sick or have an accident, you can be subjected to high expenses due to the fact that you are not covered by the social system of your country anymore (when your country has one). I had the chance to have very few incidents during my two years of travel; I only needed once the coverage of my insurance company. I had pain in the lower belly for a few weeks and decided to undergo a scan to check where it was coming from. I discovered a big cyst in my right ovary that could have needed an operation. Hopefully it collapsed on its own after treatment, but I was lucky to have insurance that covered all the costs of the three appointments and examinations I had to make. Which cost around 400€!
It would have been a big loss of money in my travel budget if I hadn't had the insurance covering it.
I am currently covered by GObyAVA, as they offer long-term insurance for travelers. After two years of travelling, I was being covered by another insurance company, which couldn't extend the coverage longer. I was looking for an alternative when I discovered GObyAVA.
They have different offers depending on your travel style (expat, volunteering, study, etc.) and a large community of travel buddies to learn from!
They also have plenty of articles about almost every topic of travel on their website that are super interesting. I have been inspired by reading a few articles about cycling travellers. I will keep you updated on my Instagram account on the benefits of this insurance and my experience with it as this collaboration keeps running and as I get more input.
(This article is sponsored by GObyAVA insurance.)
Reduce your expenses while travelling.
Do not worry if you cannot save; there are also other ways of travelling for a long time. As I have been travelling for two years, I have also learned how to manage my expenses while travelling.
Let me introduce you to some of my favourite advice for travelling cheaply:
Volunteering.
Volunteering helps you save money while travelling, but it actually brings you so much more! The beauty of slow travel is found in getting in contact with locals and involving yourself in meaningful projects. But wait… You will also gain knowledge on specific topics, connect with travellers with the same mindset, and learn from their stories.
Eat and live like a local.
When you are travelling, you can lower your expenses considerably by living like a local: taking local buses instead of the ones for tourists, discovering the places where people are actually living and not only the tourist spots, or eating local food instead of food coming from other parts of the world (it also lowers the carbon footprint, by the way).
Meet local people using hosting platforms.
You can be hosted by local people using platforms like Couchsurfing; this will lower your accommodation costs while helping you discover the hidden gems of the place you are visiting—things that only local people know. It will also help you have a deeper insight into the culture; there is nothing more rich than exchanging with locals and living with them to understand them better!
Work along the way.
Many people stop in countries like Australia or New Zealand to make some more savings before continuing their travel. I haven't had this experience so far.
Use public transportation.
Using public transportation instead of taxis or flights to move from countries or inside the country is a good way to save a lot of money. It might seem unconfortable, but it is a real experience to meet the way of life of the place we are travelling to. They are usually much cheaper and a lot of fun! There is nothing better than getting lost in a city; it leaves you with a lot of stories to tell back home.
Travelling longer and not taking a flight.
That's the part that can seem strange to many of you, but when you travel longer, you spend less money.
In the same way, not flying to reach a destination has a big positive impact on the carbon dioxide emitted by your journey. Taking the long way to reach a destination is going to drastically reduce the impact we have on the planet.
You will probably spend more money to reach a certain destination point, but it will be diluted over a longer period of time. Moreover, when taking the long way to a destination, so many experiences happen along the way that are full of learning and meetings that it would be a loss to not live them. The aim is never the destination but what is happening along the way, as the saying goes.
To finish this article, which I hope helped you understand how to travel for a long period of time financially, I wanted to share with you these thoughts.
Someone told me lately: How do you cover for the money you lose travelling?
It inspired the title of this article. For me, it was showing how the idea of travel can be so different from one person to the next.
Travelling has never been a loss of money for me; actually, I consider it an investment in myself. An investment in my development that broadens the spectrum of my ideas and my inspirations. One that helps me gain so much from the people I meet and from the experiences I have.
So I think the perceptions we have about things make it easier or not to go in a certain direction. Let's say your goal is to travel, but you see it as an expense and a loss of money. It will be harder to make decisions, and you will feel differently about the investments you have to make in order to reach your goal.