What makes travel so desirable?
First and foremost, “travel” is an umbrella term. It’s an experience, but there’s a plethora of variety underneath it. Nonetheless, people want to travel to feed the innate explorers and lifelong learners in them.
This is why many have the itch to see more of the world.
Pursuing a Travel Lifestyle
Travel is regarded as a form of luxury that many people aspire to. Unfortunately, not many get to travel as often as they want to, if at all.
Travel can be expensive, but there are people who have managed to cultivate and maintain a travel lifestyle despite their limited resources.
What are the steps they’ve taken and the tools they’ve acquired to make such a lifestyle possible?
1. Funding the Trip
There are different ways to come up with a travel fund. Here are some suggestions:
- Name the amount you need and start saving. You can set aside a portion of your paycheck every month. You can take on a second job and put all of your pay from it toward travel.
- Earn reward points. If you travel for business, you can collect hotel and mileage points that you can use for your personal travel. Also make sure to check the rewards offered by your credit card provider as well. Often, they include trips, hotel stays, flight deals, and other travel-related treats
- Cut down your expenses. You can sacrifice certain pleasures and luxuries to augment your monthly savings. You can consider giving up designer coffee, eating out, and cable TV. Live frugally in order to save for travels.
2. Affording the Stay
There are also travel options that allow you to more easily afford your stay in a different place. Here are some of them.
- Choose a cheap country to visit. Some of the most affordable destinations are Central and South America, East Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.
- Opt for budget travel. Be smart about sourcing your travel tickets and lodging bookings. There are promos and sales you can take advantage of.
- Work while you travel. The following are some possibilities:
- You can telecommute, in effect remaining employed even as you go abroad for an extended stay.
- You can freelance, which allows you to work remotely, depending on the nature of your line of work.
- You can work locally. Get the proper papers to do this, of course. Find jobs suitable for transients. You can teach your language, work as a server, or do some consulting, depending on your expertise.
- You can blog or vlog. You can establish yourself as an influencer and get individual and corporate sponsors to support your wanderlust.
- You can put up a business that requires you to travel, such as import or export.
3. Upholding the Lifestyle
There are tools, habits, practices, and choices that help you maintain a traveling lifestyle. What are some of these?
- Opt for a pet-free household. If you frequently travel, it wouldn’t be right to keep a pet even if you can afford to get a pet-sitter or arrange kennel stay for it. Animals get attached and they would miss you and feel out of sorts to be displaced.
- Get a Caribbean citizenship. This is a nifty move since it allows you visa-free travel to more than a hundred countries. Applying for a second passport is a sound investment for the frequent traveler. It takes away a considerable portion of the tedious details to not have to worry about visa applications.
- Choose work that doesn’t keep you tied down. Your options are mentioned above. Besides jobs that allow you to work remotely, you can also decide on a career that keeps you transient. The international school circuit is a popular choice among those who consider themselves rolling stones.
Traveling the World
At the end of the day, choices come with tradeoffs. Unless you belong to the wealthy jet-set crowd, opting for a life of travel might mean that you won’t get around to investing in your own property, achieving tenure at work, etc.
Nonetheless, the richness that travel brings to your life is special. It’s up to you to decide if it’s worth the bother, sacrifice, and expense.
AUTHOR BIO
Kal Kennard is the co-founder of Citizens International, a white-glove specialist firm offering private client services necessary for citizenship investment into the Caribbean. Based in the Caribbean for the past 15 years, she is an experienced consultant who works directly with many professional partners and advises clients worldwide.