Is It a Good Idea to Drop Out of College and Travel the World?
I get hundreds of emails from people from all around the world, usually very young, with questions like, “How can I dropout of college and travel the world?” or “Can you tell me your secret? Can you teach me how to get paid to travel the world?”, especially since an article from my blog usually comes on the first page of Google for ‘dropping out to travel the world‘.
Well firstly, I’m sorry but there’s no secret or quick hack to what I do. It’s pretty straightforward. To sum it up: Hard work and patience.
I don’t sell some bullshit 997$ course claiming that I have a system by which you are going to sit on the beach and do nothing and millions of dollars are just going to magically appear in your bank account! Shit like that doesn’t exist, wake up!
I believe in practicality, hard work and patience!
There are thousands of blog posts on the Internet trying to sell you bullshit courses that tell you about how they are going to help you make a ton of money, and all you have to do is buy their courses worth thousands of dollars!
Just from my own experience and expertise in this field, I understand and realize that it took a lot of hard work to be where I am right now! By the way, since we are talking about this, the way I see it, the reality is that irrespective of the path you choose, if you want to “graduate college, get a degree, get a good decent job and climb up the corporate ladder”, “build a business that lets you travel the world for a living” or even “start your own startup with an idea that you think can change the world”, you need to put in a lot of hard work!
There’s no way around that, you can’t escape that, so why not work hard doing what you love?
Over a year ago, I dropped out of college to travel the world. I had people call me crazy, stupid and called my dreams impossible. However, I want to now use this platform as someone who succeeded in dropping out of college to travel the world to have an honest discussion of both sides of the issue, about whether it’s smart or not to do what I did. So…
Is It a Good Idea to Dropout of College to Travel the World?
I don’t believe it’s black and white. This question can’t be answered with a simple yes or no. It depends on the person in question. I hope by the end of reading this article, if you are someone who is thinking about doing what I did and stumbled upon this article, your doubts will be cleared.
I don’t recommend people to just “dropout of college and travel the world” for a lot of reasons that are pretty obvious. But at the same time, I don’t believe a college education should be held in such a high regard as it is held right now.
What are the points against dropping out of college to travel? Well, it’s pretty obvious, ain’t it? You will be broke once your savings run out, you will not be able to make an income as “you can’t get a job without a degree” and probably you will have to go back to school in a couple of months/ years.
That’s probably the worst-case scenario that can happen, i.e. you are just where you started and you have lost/wasted a few years and months. Here’s where I find that logic flawed: What’s wrong with spending a few years in pursuing your passion? The upside is that if you succeed you get to live the rest of your life doing what you want. Whether it is making money traveling the world or spending more time with your family and friends.
Most of us are worried about what other people will think about our decisions! We are usually more afraid of what other people think of our failures than actually failing. I’m not talking about trolls on the internet or strangers, I’m talking about your own parents and your friends. The opinion of others usually holds most of us back.
College is an investment, not only of your money but also your time. I believe time is the currency of life, you can always make back money but you can’t get time back. If your college education is bringing you value and helping you towards the goals you want to achieve in life then, by all means, close this article!
Degrees are worth less and less each day in the majority of fields, definitely not all. Like I want my doctor and lawyer to have a degree but I don’t really care if my video editor has one.
You first need to be self-aware of what you want out of this wonderful gift called life!
Here are a few positive points for dropping out to travel the world. Firstly, most of you readings this are young! If you are reading this you are probably in your teens, 20s or 30s. Most of you don’t have kids to worry about (some of you might). If you live to be 60, you have around 30 to 40 more years to your life, do you realize how long that is? Instead of spending the weekend going out partying, during the next 2–3 years you can spend your time learning and then execute towards your goals.
A few of you might be at the age when you can live in a tiny apartment, eating instant noodles while you spend your money investing in your business. That’s something you can’t do comfortably if you are older, you can still do it no matter your age but it just gets harder as you grow older. It’s about doing what most people aren’t willing to do, to live like people won’t be able to.
Also, if you are reading this, you are privileged. Now that’s a harsh assumption, but hear me out before closing the browser in anger and disgust at my assumption about you. Let me repeat myself: If you are reading this, you are privileged. It means that you have access to the Internet. Guess what? That it a privilege. As of today (April 2017) only 3.6 billion¹ of the 7.5 billion² people on this earth have access to the Internet. So you, yes you: if you are reading this, you are in the minority!
You can complain all you want about your circumstance but what most productive people know is that most of the times it’s not about the resources but about resourcefulness.
I was extremely privileged in 2 aspects, one is having access to the Internet and the other one was in speaking English. Those two things most of the people reading this take for granted, yet it’s those two privileges due to which I overcame my circumstances which included but aren’t limited to: ‘Being from a 3rd world country where the (unenforced) minimum wage is 3$/day with absolutely no welfare system (India), being called a disgrace by my family for dropping out of college, having a week when my bank account was -ve and I just had a jar of peanut butter to eat for 3 days.’
Now what are you going to do with that resource. Are you going to waste it sharing memes on Facebook, binge watching Game of Thrones and then blaming the government for not providing you with a job? OR are you going to use it to learn and work towards your goals?
You can learn almost anything for free on the Internet. You can pretty much google, “how do I ___?”, with your goal in the blank, read, learn everything necessary, and execute towards your goals.
To make it easier I made a post detailing the best places and sites to do that! Knowledge is worth less and less each day. Knowledge isn’t power, it’s only potential power, it’s acting on that knowledge that’s true power.
How to Learn Anything For Free Using the Internet?
It’s easy for me to sit on my high chain and give my opinion about this, but I believe in practicality. So instead, I’ll show you the way I made money using the above method. When I started traveling for the first 5–6 months, I was making money by building websites for cafes and hotels. I used the above method and learned how to build websites from YouTube and Google.
I didn’t have a portfolio, so it was pretty hard for me to get clients online. Also, I was nearly broke, so I couldn’t afford to just “wait and hope”, so what I did was I went cafe to cafe and pitched. I got no after no, but I kept pitching and eventually I got a yes. Continued doing this and in the background networked and got referrals from previous clients. I stop doing this around September of last year, but that’s a skill I always have as a “backup” plan.
A sure shot way to succeed is to bring value to other people. Find a way that you can save someone else time, money or energy. Start off by figuring out how you can help someone else, instead of just trying to find a way to get money in your bank!
Remember how I said that the question of “Is it a good idea to dropout of college and travel the world?” can’t be answered with a simple yes or no? Well, here’s where the individuality comes into play. All the advice I just gave to you is simple, practical and pretty much to the point! I gave it all away for free. Why? Because most people still aren’t ever going to act upon it. Most of the things in life are actually pretty simple, like ‘How do you lose weight?” Well, stop eating too much, remove stress and negative people from your life, cut sugar and fast food, move around. That sounds super simple but the execution and having the discipline are where most people fail. It’s hard work, and you also need patience. Going on a 7-day juice detox isn’t going to give you a six pack. Everyone wants a god damn magic pill that will make them thin and fit by next weekend!
There are just 2 type of people, people who will complain about their circumstance, and other people who will work hard towards their goals!
Whatever you pick, whatever path you take in life, start off by first working smart and then hard! How is it possible that I’m on the first page of Google, in just a year of blogging, while they’re hundreds of people who will start a blog today that only their parents and grandparents will read?
Well, I put in the work and learned and execute. Pretty much everything I know already exists on the Internet. I don’t have a “hack” or “secret” that I’m trying to sell you. I’m trying to convince you to change your outlook towards your goals!
There’s no magic pill and diet or secret! It comes down to hard work and patience and whether you are the person who will keep going when the going gets tough.
Start looking for win-win situations in life, one of the reasons I succeeded in making a full-time income from blogging is that I’m always looking for win-win situations, that’ll benefit my readers and followers and not just put money in my pocket! I believe that ‘how you make your money is more important than how much money you make’.
For you to win, someone else doesn’t have to lose.
This is little less optimistic post compared to the way I usually write but here is the thing, just from my own life I know that it takes a lot of hard work. The world isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, the real world doesn’t care for your feeling or for the amount of time or work you do, it cares about results!
Can you bring value to other people?
It took me working on my goals when everyone I knew called me stupid and crazy! Whether it’s waking up early at 4 am and going for a run or cutting some of the people you have known since childhood but are absolutely full of negatively and are holding you back from living to your true potential.
So is it a good idea to drop out to travel? I can’t answer that for you, only you can answer that for yourself! But reimagine the actual possibilities, expand your mind and no matter the path you choose, always keep on learning and growing!
If you liked this article, I’d truly appreciate it if you’d share it and as it might bring some practicality and change someone’s life! 🙂