How We Saved Over $120,000 by Traveling the World for 4 Years
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Venice, Italy
If you’ve never heard about FIRE, it’s probably about time that you did.
FIRE stands for “Financial Independence Retire Early” and it’s a lifestyle choice that sprung up around 2010 and has recently been gaining a lot of attention. It stresses the important steps to take to increase your income as much as possible while decreasing your expenses to the extreme and saving everything in between. We wrote a short article about it as well.
If you’re lucky enough to have a fully remote job, then this process is much easier to do because one of the biggest costs that Americans and Europeans have is simply living in their own countries. It’s incredibly expensive compared to the rest of the world.
Our Costs to Travel the World for 4 Years
For example, we have been keeping tabs on how much our costs would have increased over time if we continued to live in Orlando, Florida instead of traveling the world full-time. The skinny? We would currently need to have a budget of about $60,000 per year as a family to cover our rent, our transportation, our food, a small amount of entertainment, and all of the miscellaneous stuff - like soap, cellphone plan, and whatnot.
Over the course of 4 years, that means we’d end up spending $240,000 simply to cover our basic living expenses. Yet, over the last 4 years we’ve actually spent a total of $116,890 while traveling the world full time. That means it was actually $123,110 cheaper to travel the world for 4 years instead, equivalent to a little over $30,000 per year!
That’s just because it is cheaper to live in most other countries in the world. Think about that for a moment. If your job was a remote job and you could do it while living in a different country, you could save an extra $30,000 or more every year. That’s big savings! Chances are you could retire much earlier… but, you’d also pretty much feel like you’re retired while you’re doing it!
Now that’s some quality savings - especially when you factor in the amazing experiences that come with it. Whatever value that is for you, i don’t know, but for us it is worth even more than an additional $30,000 on top of that.
Plus, we’ve had 2 kids along the way, yet our entire average daily cost - including EVERYTHING - is still just $40 per day per adult.
Let’s just say that it’s much cheaper than you think, and that if you get a remote job making $30,000 per year, it is now equivalent to having a work-from-the-office job of about $60,000 per year. And there are some great ways to get trained for, and land, higher paying remote jobs (think $70,000-$110,000 per year base) in as little as 2-6 months!
After you have a remote job, all you will have to do to save $30,000 per year is to choose to live in another country or travel the world like we did. Eat Wander Explore has some amazing resources, but if you’re looking for amazingly developed countries with fast internet - you don’t need an expensive country. Some of the fastest internet that we’ve ever had was in the cheapest of the countries… totally mind blowing! Read the “Cheapest Places to Live” page for more details about that.
Abu Simbel, Egypt
Cheap Countries Only?
So, we’ve had to live in the poorest of countries to do that, right? NO. Not at all. We fluctuate between expensive countries and cheap countries and it just ends up working itself out. We’ve been to just about every country in Europe, a few countries in Africa, a handful in Southeast Asia, New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Mexico. Actually, there are 33 countries that we’ve been to over the course of these 4 years (although we’ve been to a few more before this adventure). The point is, you don’t have to “limit” yourself to the cheap countries to save that much money, but you could probably save a good amount more if you did!
So, what is this article? Just a way to gloat? No. We want to help you save money too. In fact, feel free to comment at the bottom of this article with any questions that you have and we’ll reply to you.
But, to help you understand how our expenses compare to yours at home, check out the brief, but not-very-sexy, breakdown of our budget below (learn more details about it on this page).
Cappadocia, Türkiye
4 Years of Traveling the World
March 28, 2018 - March 31, 2022
Total Number of Days
1,465 days
Total Expenses
$116,890 USD
Average Daily Cost per Adult (2 Adults)
$39.90
Budget Breakdown
Transportation (airlines, trains, subways, buses, ubers, cars, gasoline, tolls, etc.)
$28,648.32 total over the 4 years
That’s $596.84 per month
Less than $300/mo per adult
Accommodations/Stays (bnb’s, hotels, etc.)
$42,612.76 total over the 4 years
That’s $887.77 per month
Less than $445/mo per adult
Food (groceries, restaurants, snacks, etc.)
$33,804.56 total over the 4 years
That’s $704.26 per month
Less than $355/mo per adult
Activities/Entertainment (tours, entrance fees, events, movies, Netflix, Disney+, etc.)
$7,470.68 total over the 4 years
That’s $155.64 per month
Less than $80/mo per adult
Miscellaneous (phone data, bathroom supplies, clothes, soaps, etc.)
$6,462.73 total over the 4 years
That’s $134.64 per month
Less than $70/mo per adult
Guys, that is a total cost of LESS THAN $1,250 per month, per adult, TO TRAVEL THE WORLD ENDLESSLY!!!
And now we’re doing our best to help other people learn how to do it too.
Batu Caves, Malaysia
Your Budget
Now that you know how much it costs us per month to endlessly travel around the world, take a look at your own budget and estimate how much extra money it would cost you - or save you - to do the same. Chances are that you could save quite a bit.
Difficulty Planning or Knowing Where to Start?
Honestly, it couldn’t be easier to get started today:
Step 1:
Get trained for a remote job in as little as 2-6 months.
Step 2:
Let us help you pick the safest places in the world, in well developed countries with everything that you need nearby, plus great internet. Or learn more about these places.
Step 3:
Use our free travel articles to help you decide what to explore and which foods to try wherever you go.
That’s all. There’s not much more to say apart from: “Enjoy the adventure - It’s a whole new life, a whole new world!”
Have questions? Post them in the comments section at the bottom of this article and we’ll respond within a few days.
Hobbiton, New Zealand
Thank you VERY much for reading our article. We actually created this website to help people reach financial independence. Did you know that by having a remote job and traveling endlessly, or living in a country that has low costs of living, you can actually reach retirement quicker? Plus, retirement abroad is up to 75 percent cheaper as well! Learn more by exploring our website: EatWanderExplore and REmotiFIRE.
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