Want your dreams of full-time travel to become reality. But just don’t know where to start? Here are the 5 simple steps to get your dream kick started and begin to travel full-time. We have been travelling full-time for 3 years, here are our best tips and tricks to make that leap and make your dream a reality.
Step 1 : Find your why?
Why do you want to travel full time?
Quitting the 9-5 is a dream for a lot of people. But, very few make it their reality.
A lot of people feel like they can’t make the leap from normal safe, comfortable life to travelling full-time. And let a lot of external and internal factors impact them in making that step, and making their dream a reality.
It is important to understand why you want this and to really motivate yourself and push yourself to find and achieve your why.
So what’s your why? What’s your motivation?
Maybe you want to quit the 9-5 to see the world. To meet new people and experience different cultures. To have a break and see what else the world has to offer other than a traditional career path.
Whatever your why may be, make it important and something that will keep you motivated to carry your dream to a reality. Even in the toughest of times and when you doubt yourself and others doubt you too.
Step 2 : Money
Okay you’ve made the first step, and now you’ve quit your job and are planning on travelling full-time.
Now what? How are you planning on sustaining this lifestyle?
Travelling full-time does not necessarily come cheap. Having realistic and good money practices is a crucial part to sustaining a full-time lifestyle on the road. It would be wise to have some savings, however small, to fall back on say things don’t go to plan. Enough for a flight home or enough to sustain you for a month whilst you figure things out.
When we quit our jobs, sold our house, car and everything we owned to live out of a backpack. We roughly had £35K saved to sustain us for a year (we spent all f this in 9 months – oops!) Whilst we figured things out trying to make this lifestyle more permanent for us. But you don’t need loads of savings, just enough to help you if things don’t go as planned or aren’t planning on working on the road.
Change your lifestyle. If you’re used to a gym membership, eating out a lot, getting an expensive £6 coffee, that may not hold up well for your bank account on the road. Try to save and budget where you can and stay in cheap accommodation, workout at home and eat out less to stretch your money further.
Above: Helsinki, Finland. Helsinki Town Hall. Via: @maisieandnikita on Instagram. Follow our travel adventures if you haven’t already!
Step 3 : Make a commitment
Quitting your job can be daunting. You can say you’re going to do it, but just never do and keep putting it off.
Our best advice is to book a flight or a train ticket. This will motivate you to have something set in stone that you’ve spent money on that will actually get you moving towards your goals.
We booked our flights and had 6 months to work towards getting everything ready to quit our jobs and go. We stuck to our deadline, and this really motivated us to actually get up and go. Without booking our flights, I doubt we would’ve actually gone that year and most likely postponed our travels. So book your flight or train ticket or apply for that job and work towards making your dream your reality.
No one else will do this for you so you have to get off you’re botom and do it yourself.
Step 4 : To work or not to work
Most people who travel full-time will have some sort of income stream. I know what you’re thinking: I just quit my job to travel why would I want to get another job?
Well there are so many other options out there than the regular 9-5. Personally we think the best and realistic job for long term travel is to do seasonal work. This is the best and most stable way we travel full-time. We have side hustles like online work with blogging, YouTube, social media etc. but the most stable way to make money and sustain this lifestyle for us is seasonal work.
We normally work a winter season save and then travel the summer for 6 months. Then again do another winter season and travel again in the summer and so on and so on. We’ve also worked summer seasons.
So what is seaonal work? Seansonal work is a ‘seasonal’ or temporary contract that lasts anywhere from 3 to 6 months, usually. The most common and popular for winter is to work in a ski resort, see my post here on the different seasonal winter jobs and how to apply to bag your first winter season. The most popular summer season jobs are campsite or hotel industry jobs. Click here to see my list of summer seasonal work and how to apply, to land your first summer seasonal job.
We’ve had roles that pay anywhere from £1300 to £3000 a month with accommodation included! So seasonal work is, for us, the winner when it comes to stable income whilst travelling full-time. Plus you get to work in amazing countries and visit places you wouldn’t normally get to see.
The best websites to find seasonal work are Sesaonworkers.com, Anywork Anywhere and Workaseason.
Step 5: Travel Slow
This goes hand in hand with step 2 and step 4. Choosing to travel slow will usually help you to save money and to extend your budget a little further. By renting somewhere for a longer period of time you can usually get a cheaper deal. A lot of rentals offer a heavy discount for monthly stays.
Doing seasonal work. Staying somewhere for 3-6 months whilst working makes you save money, whilst making money. And also getting to really experience the place your staying and all that it has to offer.
Travelling fast and seeing everything is probably what you want to do. We remember how hungry we were when we first set off to travel. The first two weeks of travelling, we visited 6 countries. That was hectic and expensive. We were rookie travellers and didn’t know how to budget or spread our money further. Now the minimum we will stay somewhere is a month, sometimes two weeks if we have to. Travelling slow you really get to immerse yourself in the culture and experience things you wouldn’t normally see just on a fleeting visit. So travelling slow isn’t just beneficial to your budget.
Conclusion...
Now you know how to travel full time and make your dream life on the road a reality. It’s time to get out there. Remember to sign up to our newsletter to get updated guides and tips straight into your inbox! If you liked this article you will love these.
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