Traveling The World In Style On $40k A Year

“Take Nothing But Pictures, Leave Nothing But Footprints, Kill Nothing But Time , Round the World 2009”

2009 was a whirlwind year for me.  I went skydiving in Switzerland, bungee jumping in Queenstown, in between visiting 40 countries on 6 continents.  While my lifestyle has been quite travel centric and even nomadic since then, that year was still one of the most intense.

At the time markets were tanking and I'd left my job, so the responsible voice in me could have easily been freaking out about ongoing expenses. Truth be told, I had been saving ruthlessly since I started working.  

Adult Gap Year

Gap years are extremely common in Europe and Australia, where students often take a year off between high school and university. I met plenty of these budget travelers along the way. They were all pretty young.

Taking an adult gap year had it's benefits though. I had savings to draw from and didn't have to choose between buying alcohol and meals. After working 12-14 hour days for years I also had a greater appreciation for the freedom of a flexible schedule. After being used to 6am starts at the office, getting up at 9am actually was sleeping in.

Couch Surfing

I rang in the new year on a boat in Sydney Harbor, with fireworks and a bit of wine.  The Aussie dollar was fairly weak, and in early Jan 2009, $0.67 US Dollar could buy you 1 Australian Dollar.  These were fresh lows and purely based on currency rates, the US dollar could be traded for more in Australia.  It was a good time to travel there.

(The AUD has once again weakened to lows of the last 10 years, so traveling there now is also favorable)

Back then Airbnb hadn’t launched globally yet, but I had a friend to stay with to keep costs down.  Staying there has not gotten any cheaper – Rising housing prices catapulted Sydney into one of the top 10 most expensive cities globally last year.  Sydney, being the largest city in Australia by population, struck me as being pricey, though I’d been somewhat inoculated by living in Hong Kong.  If I was going to stay for more than a week I’d probably have to end up cooking.

Travel Contests

Flipping through the Jetstar magazine, I came across a Jetstar fanclub contest.  The requirements were fairly straightforward – a few travel photos and a short blurb about my travels.  It probably didn’t hurt that I had already flown on 11 Jetstar flights that year given that it was budget airline from Qantas.   I won 4 weeks of unlimited flights in July, which I ultimately couldn’t even use and had to give away.

Halfway through the year, I’d hit 6 continents and thought I’d try to go for the 7th.  An Antarctica visit would have been significantly more expensive (now as well, easily $5,000-$10,000 minimum spend) so I once again started looking for creative ways to get there.

I hadn’t been blogging at all, but joined a blogging contest anyway that would get me to Antarctica.  I lost the internet popularity contest, most likely pretty badly with only 171 votes! I didn’t have much time or social media to corral votes, but it was worth a shot.

Travel Promotions 

It was the year of unlimited travel deals.  Early August I sat down at a random internet cafe and saw a note from a friend: “Jetblue is offering a monthly all-you-can-fly pass for $599, but you must book it by aug 21.”  Having already passed up my 4 weeks of Jetstar flights because of prior bookings, I must have been itching for an unlimited flight deal.  If i could fit in at least one of the 2 international destinations included (Colombia and Costa Rica), it seemed like a good deal.

Colombia and Costa Rica ended up being the only 2 places I traveled without a tour or a plan to meet friends, but I met fun tourists and really enjoyed it. Within that month I also fit in at least 5 other cities.

Sunk cost fallacy is a tendency to try to get your money’s worth for something, even if you don’t enjoy it.  (ie buying a bag of terribly over-salted popcorn but finishing it anyways because you spent the money). Arguably these unlimited flight deals pushed me down that path.  Even if getting on 10 flights in a month is a royal pain, the more flights taken, the better the deal seemed.

I traveled at least every week, even going up to Portland, Maine for literally the day to taste a crab roll.  It was in hindsight, pretty ridiculous, but I was young and still high motivated by the drive to have “been there done that” (even pre-Instagram).  

Flight deals still happen frequently.  In 2012 I took advantage of a Cathay unlimited flight deal consisting of 4 business class trips in 4 weekends.  I was doing this while working full time and in the end my partner had to remind me about the sunk cost fallacy.  I ended up with pink eye from all the flights and in the end we skipped the last booked trip.

Budget Camping

I’ll admit, while at the beginning of the year I hadn’t set out to take on 40 countries, by the end of the year it turned out to be a fun badge of honor.  Anything I do, I pour my heart and soul into, and when I turned full time traveler I quite simply got addicted. It also didn't sound that crazy after being on the road for awhile. There were some travelers who had been on the road for 20 years.

Europe had been a region I really hadn’t seen much of, aside from a Spring break tour in the UK and Scotland I’d splurged on during college. Full of historic buildings and natural beauty, I decided not to focus on any specific area.

Top Deck tours offered (and still does) a budget camping option that would see around over 20 countries in 30 days. It was more like glamping than camping, and usually there were relatively clean common toilet and shower facilities.

For those who like a bit of nature, can sleep anywhere, and don't mind dorm style facilities, this was a high value method of seeing relatively expensive countries.

Given alot of my travel around Asia and the US was planned around visiting friends, going to Europe on a typical travel budget would have added significantly more to my budget.

Longer Term Stays

Typically the biggest costs associated with travel come from getting to that destination in the first place.  Usually there’s a tradeoff between time and money; you can take a train for a fraction of the cost over 8-9 hours, or fly for 2 hours.  Having the ability to work or be entertained on a laptop anywhere has made traveling less of a drain on time.

As a family constantly on the move now, I can personally attest to moving locations causing energy drain.  Sometimes you come back from vacation thinking you need another vacation, partly because everything that was on autopilot in your home city, requires decision making!

I tried to minimize travel that was under a week, especially if I was flying in from an international destination.  If I was spending $1000 to fly in, and I was working off a daily budget I could spend, that added an additional ~ $150 to my daily spend.  

Looking Back

Sure, 2009 was a year where the sky still seemed like it was falling amidst the financial crisis. Honestly there wasn't a whole lot of business activity to miss given that markets were fairly locked and illiquid. Rather than join the panic, I saw the world.

Looking at US inflation rates as a proxy, costs may now have increased around ~20% in the last 10 years. Though costs are generally on the rise, the principles I used to save money still apply.

One of the biggest changes has been the widespread usage of the internet for travel. Online comparison tools make the travel industry extremely competitive. Finding far corners of the Earth to visit has become easier and just as rewarding.