All in Lifestyle
We’ve heard the personal stories and read the financial posts where someone cuts their spending by $60,000 or gets out of $100,000 of debt in just a year. It captures our attention and makes us wonder, how in the world did they do this and how can we do the same?!
There’s more to long-term travel than simply finding the perfect gear and taking off. A solid, well planned foundation can avoid or mitigate many problems that could arise while living life on the road as a digital nomad, long-term traveler, or full-time house sitter.
Traveling as a digital nomad, remote worker, or long-term traveler means that hotels become your home and your office. Read on for tips and hacks to make your next hotel stay more comfortable!
Our budget as a couple for one year of continual travel abroad might astound you! We’ve included all of our expenses, like health insurance, hotels and lodging, food, plane tickets, buses and trains, sightseeing, tours, etc. So, if you want to know how much we spent for a full year, or if you simply want to learn our budget tips, read on!
After a year of continuous travel abroad, with just each other and our backpacks, we’ve completed what we originally set out to do!
Our first podcast appearance was on Sean and Kevin’s 2 Frugal Dudes Podcast. They made the experience super enjoyable and fun, and we had a great time talking about F/IRE (Financially Independent, Retire Early), travel, house sitting, miles and points, and much more!
Learn how we took travel award hacking to the extreme and got 41 hotel room nights free with Hilton using hotel rewards and promotions. And, we’re not just talking zero cash out of pocket, we used less than 65 reward points per night on a normally 5,000 point room. Not only did we essentially stay free, we also extended our Hilton Honors Diamond Status for another year!
Two of the things we hold in high regard are family and elders. Our elders are the ones that are always there for us and the ones that have been there before us. They’re to be honored, respected, and listened to.
The FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) community is thriving. We experienced this first hand on a trip to Northern Colorado where we found ourselves welcomed into the NoCo Mustachians community at a Meetup at Mr. Money Mustache Headquarters!
We never would’ve thought that when we started to travel house sitting would turn into a lifestyle for us. But now we’ve house sat extensively and have nearly 20 house sit jobs under our belts. Our latest house sitting job took us to Colorado where we enjoyed a comfortable home at the foot of the Rockies, with the most adorable, fun, and amusing dog and cat!
If you’re traveling for more than a few months you’ll find yourself needing a haircut along the way, unless you know how to cut your own hair of course. Furthermore, if you’re a digital nomad and long-term traveler like us, you’ll find yourself needing haircuts in cities all over the world.
We’re frequently asked how we can afford to travel the way we do. The short answer is that we made the choice (thousands of small choices really) a long time ago. The long answer is a bit more complex.
We embarked on this year of travel, knowing that many of the comforts of home we’d grown accustom to wouldn't be available on our trip. Either the sheer circumstance of not being in our own home, or the fact that our bags can only fit so much stuff, meant that we were going to need to manage without a lot of 'stuff' we were used to having for the next year or so. Of course, we knew this going into it, so it wasn't a surprise to us.
Just because we were leaving behind the stresses of home and achieving a goal we’ve worked towards for years, didn’t mean that life would suddenly be easy and smooth sailing. On the contrary, life is now full of new challenges, ones we haven’t faced together before.
We pride ourselves in being able to take on most physical activities at a moments notice. This by no means, means that we do the activity at the highest caliber or that we’re winning any competitions for speed or strength. We’re just in decent health and with good overall conditioning levels.
The United Kingdom is very similar to the United States in many ways, but very different in others. Of course there are the major things that are different, like driving on the left side of the road, an English accent, a much more exhaustive train system, and trash cans are rubbish bins. Then, there are the little things that take a bit of keen observation to notice, pubs are not bars, wall outlets have individual on/off switches, and you aren’t expected to tip.
We want to travel with as little stuff as possible. Less stuff equals less weight and more space. It’s amazing how much difference a couple of pounds can make on comfort and mobility.
In many ways, finding a house sit is like looking for a job. We need to find an intriguing one, apply, and go through an interview process.
Sleeping isn’t when the memories and the life changing events happen.
