How I Afford To Travel Full Time (& How You Can Too!)

In 2012, after years of dreaming and saving, I finally quit my job in the UK and left on an indefinite journey around the world.

I have been traveling full time ever since and the most common question I get asked is ‘How do you afford to travel full time?‘ So let me tell you exactly how I fund my travel lifestyle and give you some tips about how you could afford to travel too!

If you want to know more about me, about why I decided to give up everything to travel full time and how I made it happen then read my last post first – My journey to a life of full time travel. Now, I’ll tell you how I afford all this travel….

How I Afford To Travel Full Time

So am I rich? How exactly can I afford to travel so much?

Let’s get this out of the way first, whilst I know that I’m really fortunate to be born in the UK and to be able to make my dreams of traveling the world a reality, I’m not rich!

I didn’t win the lottery, I don’t have a trust fund or large inheritance. I’m not lucky enough to own a home to rent out and I don’t even have a ‘proper job.’

The thing is that you don’t need to be rich to afford to travel, but you do need to:

• Save money before you travel
• Spend less while you travel
• Earn money as you travel

Travel doesn’t have to be expensive.

It’s a common misconception that traveling is expensive. Sure, if you want to fly first class and only stay in 5 star hotels and take luxury cruises and tours then traveling is expensive, but it doesn’t have to be. There are plenty of ways to travel on a budget and plenty of budget friendly destinations.

In the West, we are especially lucky because we can take our $, £ and € to countries where our money stretches much further. Whilst I know it can be hard to save money with the rising cost of living, every little helps!

There are plenty of ways to save – for example making sandwiches and a flask of coffee at home rather than going to Starbucks can save enough money to pay for a nights budget accommodation in Asia – it’s all about prioritising.

Usually, the flight will be your biggest expense, but you can still find some good deals on Skyscanner if you’re flexible with dates.

The longer you go away for the more value you can get out of that expensive plane ticket. Plus, slow, independent travel or living abroad is a cheaper and infinitely more rewarding way of traveling than sticking to the comfort of 5 star hotels.

In fact, if you are smart about where and how you travel then traveling is actually less expensive than living in the UK or US (or indeed many parts of the Western world)

By backpacking or traveling independently in cheaper countries in Asia, Central and South America and parts of Africa your money goes a lot further.

In some places you can travel and live a very comfortable lifestyle from only US$15 / £10 a day! So, in many ways I can’t afford to stop traveling!

Low Cost Destinations

The secret to being able to afford to travel full time is choosing budget friendly destinations where you can travel and enjoy life for less than $50 a day including:

• India
• Nepal
• Sri Lanka
• Thailand
• Malaysia
• Cambodia
• Vietnam
• Laos
• Indonesia
• The Philippines
• Guatemala
• Nicaragua
• Bolivia
• Ecuador
• Peru
• Morocco
• Egypt
• Romania
• Bulgaria
• Turkey

For more information see this article on the 22 Cheapest Countries to Travel in the World.

I’ve documented how much it cost me to backpacking India and Southeast Asia, but don’t just take my word for it check out Price of Travel.com – it’s an excellent resource for budget travelers and backpackers. This site breaks down the costs of traveling in cities around the world to help you save and budget for your trip.

Ways to travel for free

As well as cutting down your travel costs, there are also plenty of ways to travel for free including:

• Camping,
• Trekking,
• Hitch hiking,
• Couch surfing,
• House sitting.
• Volunteering in exchange for food and accommodation,

Check out 11 Ways to Travel for Free for more ideas.

Ways to make money while traveling.

Even before the pandemic made remote work common and digital nomads and influencers became cool, there are plenty of ways to work abroad and make money while traveling. Some of the most popular include:

• Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL or TESOL)
• Resort, Hospitality and Bar jobs
• Teaching Surfing, Yoga, Skiing, Scuba Diving etc
• Working on a Cruise Ship or as Cabin Crew
• Leading Tours as a Tour Guide
• Travel Rep
• Child Minding and Au Pair work
• Camp Counselor
• Farm and Fruit Picking Work

If you’re young you might be able to get a working holiday visa for somewhere like Australia, New Zealand or Canada where there’s plenty of casual work in hospitality or fruit picking jobs with decent pay that will enable you to travel in these more expensive countries.

With the rise in remote working getting a job that allows you to work remotely is one of the best ways to make money while traveling, although be aware that not all employers will let you leave the country.

Digital Nomads afford to travel full time by doing freelance work or creating online businesses that allow them to live a location independent lifestyle. I’ll cover this is much more detail later in this post.

Check out 17 Ways to Get Paid to Travel for more ideas and read my interviews with digital nomads and travellers who work abroad for real life stories and inspiration.

Finding what works for you

There are many ways to reduce your costs and earn money while traveling – it’s about finding what works for you, your situation, and your skill set.

Everyone has different circumstances, challenges and opportunities to work with. It can be daunting to figure out how to make it work for you and have the confidence to make that leap.

Some people prefer to work seasonal jobs for 6 months a year and save as much as they can – then they travel for 6 months and escape the winter. That way they enjoy their travels fully without having to worry about if the internet is working!

My secret to affording a life of full time travel was deciding to make travel my priority and doing whatever it takes to make it a reality. I saved alot and have tried plenty of different things over the years and have to keep reinventing myself to keep up with the times.

For me, and for many other bloggers and digital nomads, it was kind of a trail and error and I tried many ways to afford to travel until I found something that worked for me and the lifestyle I wanted to lead.

My Story

So here’s my story of how I have been able to afford to travel full time since 2013.

As I already mentioned in my post about My Journey to a Life of Travel I made sure that I paid off my debts and had a good chunk of savings (£6000 / $10,000) behind me before I left the UK.

I realise that just by having a British passport and being able to work in the UK I am very privileged already but I didn’t have a well paid job by UK standards.

I worked a soul destroying job in admin and sales for a large energy company for just over minimum wage. When I decided to make travel my priority I sacrificed everything, sold all my possessions and saved like mad for 18 months to buy my freedom.

It wasn’t easy as I worked all the hours I could doing a job I hated, moved back in with parents and seriously cut back on spending until I hardly even ate anything. But I saved every penny for my travel fund firmly keeping my eyes on the prize and keeping on dreaming of the day that I could make my escape.

Work, save, travel, rinse, repeat…

Saving was probably the hardest part in my journey to a life of travel. I’m lucky that earning UK wages and living with parents allowed me to really save big chunks of money quickly, but most of the time saving money is just a matter of working hard, prioritising and cutting down on unnecessary spending.

Even the small things add up, for example, bringing a packed lunch to work and saving on a coffee and sandwich could save you over £100 a month which goes a long way in Asia. See here for more ideas about How to Save Money for Travel 

Most people fund their travels this way and there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact there are many advantages of this method – with a nice chunk of money saved you can truly be free and really appreciate and enjoy your trip without worrying about money or work – you just travel!

Traveling or backpacking on a tight budget helps to make your money and your trip last as long as possible. But eventually you will run out of money and won’t be able to afford to travel anymore so you have to go back home to get a job and start saving again and coming home from traveling can really suck!

My savings lasted me for about a year as I travelled through India and Southeast Asia. My next destination was Australia, somewhere I had been dreaming about visiting for year but I knew that exploring Oz wasn’t going to be cheap. I was starting to run out of money, I couldn’t afford to travel Australia but going home was not an option – luckily a working holiday visa was!

My Working Holiday in Australia

It took a few weeks to find a suitable job in Australia but once I did I worked in two 3 month stints in an outback pub in Queensland.

This was perfect because the job included live in accommodation in the pub and all my food. As the pub was in the middle of nowhere and all my expenses were covered I had nothing to spend my money on. I just worked every hour that I could to save as money as possible whilst also getting an amazing insight into authentic rural Australian life. Read more about How I Saved $15,000 on my Working Holiday in Australia 

If you’re thinking of going to Australia for a Working Holiday check out my FREE Working in Australia Ebook Guide with all my tips on how to find a job in Australia and save money.

After 3 months I had saved enough to buy a campervan with my boyfriend and travel around Australia. Buying a campervan was another amazing way to travel on the cheap that also gave us the ultimate freedom to explore Oz.

Plus, when we left Australia we sold the camper which effectively meant that we had free accommodation and transport for our time in Australia making our trip in this expensive country very affordable. See my Ultimate Guide to Buying a Campervan in Australia 

With the money from selling the campervan and another 3 month stint at the pub I saved enough money to afford to travel more in Southeast Asia and then Eastern Europe.

But Europe has a habit of draining your money so after a few months I was back in the UK with no money and had to take on a temp office job for a few months to top up my savings.

After being away for 2 and a half years it sucked to be tied down to one place and I realised that I really needed to find a way of making money from anywhere in the world so that I could really afford to travel indefinitely.

How I earn money while traveling

I have been writing this travel blog since my travels began, at first it was just a way to record my experiences, update my family and friends and share my tips with other travellers. As I wrote more and gained more readers I started to realise that perhaps I could make money out of my travel blog. Wouldn’t that be the dream!

So I attended events like TBEX and signed up for courses like Travel Blog Success and spent many, many hours writing posts, editing photos, promoting my blog on social media, developing my website, learning about SEO and figuring out how I could monetise my travel blog while still trying to stay authentic and sharing useful travel tips.

Out of the hundred of thousands of bloggers there are out there I am one of the lucky ones that makes an income from my travel blog and from freelance writing. It’s not easy, it took years of working for nothing and over the years my income streams have to keep evolving.

There are a variety of ways to make money with a blog including:

• Advertising,
• Social media,
• Sponsored posts,
• Affiliate marketing,
• Partnerships with travel companies and tourism boards
• E books, online courses and digital products
• Consultancy and trip planning

As well as this I’ve also been fortunate to go on some amazing tours for free because of my travel blog like meeting unique tribal people in North East India, an experience I would not have had if it wasn’t for my travel blog.

But being a travel blogger is not as easy as it might look…

However, many people seem to think that being a travel blogger is an easy ticket to free travel and making money on the road. But, to be honest, there are much better ways to fund your travels than with travel blogging alone.

Creating and maintaining a professional blog takes a lot of work and the income is irregular. You are also at the Google and Instagram algorithms mercy which are constantly changing.

For the amount of time and money I’ve spent on my blog I would probably be better off working in McDonalds, but the money was never the point – I just wanted to earn the freedom to travel and live life my way and help other people to do it too!

While there are other, more reliable ways to make money online, creating a travel blog has given me transferrable skills and enabled me to become a digital nomad and build a location independent career online as a freelance writer, social media and SEO consultant and website designer.

Finally, after years of work and trial and error, I have found a way that enables me to afford a base in a place I love (Goa, India) to afford to travel frequently, and more importantly to avoid getting stuck spending the best years of my life in an office working for someone else.

Working Online

The sort of work that digital nomads do could be anything really that you can do online. The best part about working online is that you can work anywhere in the world and lead an location independent lifestyle.

Digital Nomads do a huge variety of things, most capitalise on their existing professions and skills and work remotely or a freelance capacity in these fields. But you can always learn plenty of new skills online too.

Some ways digital nomads make money is by:-

• Start a business or online shop that you can run remotely
• Freelance writing, graphic design, photography, and videography
• Website design and SEO
• Develop an App
• Translating or online language tutor
• Working as a virtual assistant
• Drop shipping / E-commerce
• Social media, YouTube, and influencer marketing
• Consultancy and life coaching
• Create digital products like an E-Book or online course
• Blogging and affiliate marketing
• Trading stocks, shares and crypto

In fact the list is endless, anything that you can do online you could do remotely, freelance or self employed and many digital nomads combine a few of these methods to make a flexible work and travel lifestyle work for them.

One of the first places that freelancer and digital nomads go to to make money is Upwork and Fiver but the bidding system means that may can be very low.

You can also try

• Freelancer,
• Flex Jobs,
• Guru 
• and even Craig’s List.

And there are loads more places to find freelance work depending on what type of work you want to do. There are also many bloggers who blog mostly about how to make living online that you can loads of tips from.

Many places in the world have now become popular digital nomad destinations offering cafes and coworking spaces with fast wifi, coliving hostels and social events with other nomads.

Some of the most popular digital nomad destinations include:

• Canggu, Bali
• Chiang Mai, Thailand
• Lisbon, Portugal
• And many places in Mexico

Nomad List is a great site which tells you the best locations to live and work as a digital nomad.

Also, don’t be disheartened if the jobs on these kind of sites have low pay, I find that once you build a portfolio companies will reach out to you. You can also pitch directly to companies who you feel might be in need of your skills and services.

If you’re not so good with a computer there are still ways you can earn money by being a nomadic yoga teacher, tattoo artist, DJ, musician, bar tender, hair dresser, artist, guitar teacher, surf instructor, jewellery maker or by selling things on the markets.

The downsides of the digital nomad lifestyle

The biggest problem with making money while traveling or working abroad is that you may need a work permit or a business visa which can be difficult to get. Digital nomad visas are becoming more common now but are mostly aimed at remote workers. The high income and paperwork required means it can be difficult for entrepreneurial, self employed and freelancing digital nomads to get.

I’m still far from rich in monetary terms but that’s not what matters to me.  I’ve experienced more than I could ever put a monetary value on, I finally feel like I’m making the most of my short and precious time on earth and I’ve spent less each month than I was spending in the UK just to afford to live and leading an unhappy and fulfilling life.

I’ve learnt a lot about myself and about the world, made new friends, wonderful memories and completely changed my life which I would never have been able to do if I was still spending 40 hours a week doing a job I hate just to buy material possessions! For me, it’s well worth it for the adventure of a lifetime and my only regret is that I didn’t do it sooner.

Ironically, now that I work online and earn money while traveling I find that I don’t have so much time for pure travel and that I need to travel a lot slower – it’s certainly not a constant holiday and the life of a freelancer/ digital nomad/ travel blogger is far from easy.

It would be easier and more profitable to work a 9-5 but for me it’s not an option and as long as I can do work that interests me, be location independent and free to live the lifestyle that I want and afford to travel as and when I want then I’m happy.

I don’t own a house, have children, savings, healthcare or a pension, I have no idea what will happen in the future or where I will be and sometimes that’s scary.

But I’m making the most of the present moment and I trust the universe that whatever happens will work out for the best. I’m free to live my life on my terms and too see the world. This kind of lifestyle is not for everyone but, for me, it’s well worth it for the adventure of a lifetime and my only regret is that I didn’t do it sooner.

So, do you still want to give up everything and travel full time? Let me know in the comments below … 

Want More? Check out how these other travel bloggers and nomads afford their travel lifestyle:

• 13 Ways I’ve made money from blogging (and how much I was paid) – Girl Tweets World
• The Best Travel Jobs: 50 ways to make money while traveling the world – Just One Way Ticket
• How you can afford to to travel: Travel Bloggers share their secrets – Miss Tourist

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