People to to avoid traveling long term because people feel it is costly and feel they cant save enough money to afford the trip but that is simply not true. One of the greatest fallacies about long term travel and travel in general is that it is pricey. People think that to travel you need to be wealthy because all people see on TV are advertisements for expensive holidays but real travel is not like that. Travel is actually very cheap if you do it right. A person could travel around the world on less than $15,000 dollars- and I bet people spend more than that to live.
You may think that is a lot of money but in terms of living off just that for one year, it sounds quite reasonable. You may already spend more than that. It may seem like a lot to save in one year, but you can do it. There are many ways to save that amount of money. It simply requires persistence and making saving money a habit and priority.
That sum of money works out to be around $1,200 US dollars per month and there are many ways to save that. Think about how much money you spend per month and how much you save. If you save 500 dollars, then you only need to find another 700 dollar per month. Do you think there is an extra 700 dollars in your budget? I know there is. You just need to find and cut the fat.
If you only eat in and go out once a week, you will only spend $340 per month and save over $800 dollars per month just by doing those two things. To save more money, move into a smaller apartment or get a roommate. Even consider moving home if you have that option.
Those are the low hanging fruit though. The real way to save money is to eat in and consume less. If you are an average person, you probably eat out 5 to 7 times a week. If each meal costs an average of $20 dollars, that is between $400-$560 dollars per month. Eating can cut your cost down to $80 dollars per week. That saves you a lot of money, since you probably already do some grocery shopping too.
If you follow the tips from above, there is no way you won’t be able to save for your trip. Your friends might not see you for a long time and you may be brown bagging it to work a lot but in the end you will be traveling around the world and that will be worth all the sacrifice you did. No guts, no glory. No saving, no traveling.
