You Need To Make $40,000 To Travel All The Time
Summary: I traveled non-stop, without a home base, for 4 years. The following contains all the math and logistics on how to do it.
I sold everything I owned, broke up with my girlfriend of 6 years, and quit my tech startup job. Typical 20-something thing to do these days.
It’s really nothing special — a lot of people do it. I’ve met countless during my travels and you’ll find endless blogs about it. People document what they do, but most of them don’t tell you the true math behind the situation.
I traveled non-stop for 4 years. I do it more slowly than most. I stay in the same place for weeks or months at a time rather than destination-hopping. There’s nothing wrong with doing it the other way, but to me it feels touristy and inauthentic. I like to soak in my surroundings and feel at home. Here’s how I did it:
The Math
- How much should you spend on rent/mortgage/housing? The quick answer is somewhere between 25–33% of your income (there are good reasons for these numbers, but I won’t go into them). So if you make $100,000/year you can you can afford $2083/month in rent: (($100,000/12 months)*.25). So now we work backwards:
- Where are you staying? Hotels ($50–200/night), Hostels ($12–45/night), Airbnb ($30–200/night), First world ($50/night minimum), Third world ($10/night minimum).
- Multiply that number by an average of 30 days in a month. For example, if you want to stay in nice hostels in the United States all the time, you’ll need to spend about $30/night on average — $900/month.
- Now multiply that by 12 months in a year and then by 3 or 4 to get to 33% or 25% of your total income. In our US hostels example it would look like this: $900/month * 12 * 4 = $43,200.
Cost per night * 30 days in a month * 12 months in a year * 4 = How much money you need to make or save in a year to travel all the time.
Housing Options Breakdown
- First-world hostels: I’ve stayed at a ton of hostels in the United States. Most of them are nice. Most are clean. Many have shitty internet — which is an issue because if you’re trying to make money while traveling, you probably need a decent internet connection. You’ll meet a ton of people if you stay at these, make a ton of friends both foreign and domestic, probably get laid a lot. The range of prices is anywhere from $12–75/night, most of them being closer to the $25–30/night range.
- First-world hotels: If you stay at lower-end places, like Motel 6 (most are super clean and safe), you’ll end up paying on average $50/night. It doesn’t sound like a lot more than a hostel, but when you add it up monthly it’s the difference between $900/month and $1500/month — a rent difference you wouldn’t normally be so casual about. Bump it up a notch to places like Comfort Inn or Best Western and you’re usually talking around $60–100/night — let’s call it $80/night. Again, doesn’t seem like a huge deal, but over a month that means $2400 (you’d need to make $115,200/year to afford this). Beyond that, I’ll let you do the math. Plenty of hotels are $100/night and up.
- AirBnB: These fall somewhere in between hostels and hotels. I stayed at a really cheap AirBnB for a week that was a tent in someone’s backyard. Expect $30–80/night if you’re staying on your own and it’s a private room in a shared house.
- Third World: I lived in the Philippines for 6 months. The prices for the places I stayed ranged from $13–50/night — $390–1500/month in rent. There’s a huge range here. This is a particularly interesting option if you plan not to work at all. Your housing cost for a year could literally total around $4500.
Partners
This is not a section you should skip over. This will happen to you and your rent will basically double if you’re a guy.
If you have a romantic partner with you, and you will eventually if this is your lifestyle, don’t expect to be able to stay in hostels or cheap places constantly. You’ll want privacy — comfortable privacy. What this means for your rent is that you’ll probably be spending a minimum of $50/night if you stay in the US. If you’re in the 3rd world you’ll get away with a lot less, but you still can’t stay in hostels. If you’re a guy, expect to be paying completely on your own. It’s sexist as fuck, but that’s just how things are. Trust me, I’ve been in this situation many dozen times now.
Where Does The $40k Number Come From?
An arbitrary-ish average of alternating between all of the above options. Stagger between hostels, hotels, first and third world, and AirBnB. If you’re careful enough, you’ll be able to make your average around $30/night.
What Job Can I Do That Pays $40k Working Remotely?
The rest of the world has covered this topic better than I will here. For a lot of my travels, I’ve been unemployed. I saved up a frakton of money and just lived off of it for a long time. The rest of the time I was doing technology consulting. It’s a pain in the ass to do in the third world or in a place where you don’t have good internet.
Should I Travel All The Time While Working?
Probably not. I don’t get as much out of it when I do. You’ll find yourself stuck on your computer with a deadline to meet when a gorgeous 18 year old German girl with an amazing ass asks you on a date to a remote place in the mountains. Australians will hand you beers without you asking and destroy your work ethic. You’ll seem glamorous to all your friends while you work at cafes in remote places, but you’ll get so fed up working on their shit wifi that you’ll tear your hair out wondering why you bought their $6 latte to watch images load at dialup speeds.
Oh yeah, I should mention that that $6 latte will catch up with you. You’ll want cafe internet because it will be better than the place you’re staying. It seems trivial, but if you do it daily and drink more than one, you’re looking at $150–300/mo more in “office” rent.
Working while traveling is worth doing, but it’s way more enjoyable to save money for 6 months and then do absolutely nothing for the next 6. I meet a lot of food service people from the first world who follow this model.
So Wait, Didn’t You Just Say Not To Work And Travel Simultaneously?
Yep, pretty much. But some people have better luck than I do with it. Particularly people who have long-term partners who work remotely as well. If your focus is your partner, then you’ll be able to maximize your time being in a different place because your focus is on being there with them. If you’re single, you’ll want to be social.
The math is the same though regardless of which you choose: either 1. Get a job that you can do remotely for $40k or 2. Save $40k.
Don’t Travel For A Year
You’ll probably get bored. And it takes way longer to save for that. If you’ve never done it before, just travel for a month and see what happens. A month is long enough to figure out if this lifestyle is really for you. You’ll also only need to save about $3000 instead of $40,000.
