Traveling around the world for 6-?? months is really eye opening and gives you a lot to think about. Solving puzzles about getting money, how to get to places, crossing language barriers, trying to tap into the underground, cool scene, not being limited to the tourist kitsch, learning how things are done in ways you had never thought of, these all require creativity and are rewarding. There are also many hardships on the road too, and sometimes you wish you could teleport home, if there is such a place.
But after a while, the places all start looking the same, and every place gives you the same experiences, more or less. There are buses or subways, hotels, or hostels, interesting people who like meeting foreigners, museums, parks, points of interest, foods, drinks, restaurants, bars. Something starts growing inside you saying "I want to build something, I want to belong to something." That something could be a tech company, a school, a network of friends, a business, a non-profit, a family, or anything else.
When you get to that point, your traveling days are limited, and you start making plans for how satiate your new appetite. You will probably travel again someday, but with a new objective, and with more experience guiding where you go and how you spend your time in the places.
Sankyo - I'm sitting here almost at a loss for words. You've managed to articulate something deeply relevent in my life right now, in a way I just haven't quite able to put a finger on myself (having just moved back to the US after 3 years living/working abroad).
If you're up for it, I'd love to connect some time and talk life. I didn't find contact info in your bio, but my email is in mine. It'd be great to connect.
Depends. If you travel for the sake of travelling yes, but there are ways to make it more interesting. For example, last time I went travelling I went to South America for 6 months. I travelled slowly (I probably stayed in less than 10 places total) but had activities to focus on along the way, like learning different styles of dance. Travelling doesn't have to be about cramming in famous places, you can live it with just as much purpose as when you build something with permanent roots.
This. I've never understood the appeal in just 'seeing things' at each city that one visits. Whenever I travel, the things I enjoy the most and look back on are the people I met, conversations I had and anything special that happened.
I've always found that attending any festivals/events that are on is a great way to enhance the experience.
That's the true value of traveling. You learn that people are similar, nobody is completely happy with where they live, deep down there is an enormous connection between humans, and location is not what is stopping you from making your dreams come true .
Nailed it. Traveling is amazing, but it certainly loses its luster after a while. I must say we're extremely fortunate to have been able to even make it to this point though.
I've always wanted to travel longer, but I've found that after a month, I end up with the urge to learn, create or build something and to be with people that I've known for years, not days.
As a result, in the past 6 months, I've taken 3 overseas trips (4th in a few weeks), bouncing back and forth between home and overseas.
I traveled for 10 months and this is exactly the feeling I got. Thanks for putting it so well. I had a strong desire to move forward on learning and building something, which the constant uncertainty and inherent instability of traveling was unfit for. Like everything else, it's best done in moderation for people like myself who love to experience new things but also love to make new things.
In your experience, is it not possible to build something whilst on the road? I will be travelling soon and fully intend to hit the ground running with trying to grow some ideas. Perhaps you have some tips?
I quit my job to travel. Working on projects was one of my main motivations. That and learning.
After 11 months on the road, I've found it very difficult to do project work. Too much of your day is devoted to figuring out the basics of living -- lodging, food, and transportation. Then of course you want to experience some of the destination you worked so hard to visit. Then you spend time figuring out where you're going to go next. Not to mention the work itself is often hindered by lack of Internet or electricity.
Because of this, I changed my mode of travel to stay in places for at least one month. You won't cross as many destinations off your bucket list or have as many adventures, but I find the depth of experience more than makes up for the breadth.
Tips:
- use nomadlist for city ideas
- book 3 or 4 days short term in the spot to confirm you like it, get adjusted, and figure things out
- use this trial period to scout real estate for the month+
One advantage of this approach is it can often be cheaper. Monthly contracts and cooking.
Good question. It is possible, I think, especially if you can incorporate some craft or skill - like playing an instrument, writing, photography along the way. You have a chance to practice your craft in so many settings, any of which may "push you beyond a local minima", because you are lonely, homesick, inspired by kindness or natural beauty.
On the flip side, every day life keeps you so busy - figuring out how and where to do laundry, what time something opens, where can eyeglasses get fixed, is there a better, cheaper place to stay than the current one, etc. If there is a will there is a way.
Absolutely rings true. I spent ~2 years being nomadic in my late 20s. Whilst I had a blast, at some point a deep mental nagging started to grow, just like you said: "I want to build something, I want to create something that impacts people beyond myself".
After some point, I guess I got tired of just being a "consumer" of experiences. Also, it starts to get pretty damn lonely. Pitching up in a new place, trying to make some friends, then moving on is a grind that started to wear me down emotionally. For other more self-socialising/individualistic people this may not ever become a problem, but it did for me.
For me it helped me realise how privileged I was just by virtue of my birthplace and (non-wealthy) parents. It directly lead to me pursuing a career in education-tech, where I can use whatever skills/upbringing I have to affect some sort of positive impact on the world. Im no philanthropist, but actively choosing positive work has certainly made me happier.
Nope. I read it and laughed. I love the New Yorker. It just got me thinking about if my father owned a rubber empire in South America and I did have a trust fund, how long could I really travel, and where would I go. Then it got me thinking about my own travels.
One thing from my travels is this: I hardly have any decent stories about fancy places we stayed. All the memorable stories happened in hostels, sketchy hotels, or plain resorts. We met interesting people and workers and they tended to be in interesting neighborhoods. All the fancy stuff is good for R&R, but it is mostly boring and forgettable.
Why do we let people sell us cynicism? What benefit is it to us? Does it make you feel better for not pursuing your dream of travelling? Maybe the problem is you and not your lack of trust fund.
For about $5000 a person, my friends and I bought a car in California, shipped it to London and drove to China. I was poor at the time and put most of it on a credit card. I also kept my job-- I saved up 3.5 weeks of vacation and lobbied my boss to give me a few extra days on top to give me a full month out. It was one of the best times of my life and something I always love to reflect on.
I guess what I'm upset about is, along with this article, no matter what you say there will be people trying to convince all of us that we can't have a happy life without a trust fund. Not Madison Ave... people on these forums. 'Not everybody has $XXX', 'Not everbody is as lucky..'. Shut up. Either start pursuing your dreams or shut up. Stop bringing everybody down with you. Travelling the world is a series of small easy steps that anyone can do. It's vile to try and convince people otherwise.
In all of these articles and discussions, there's this lingering, implicit assumption that everyone dreams of "travelling the world," which is one of the vaguest and least creative dreams I can possibly imagine.
People are a curious restless species though. It used to be conquest/colonies that would drive people away. The aristocrats considered it de rigeur to tour europe on their trust fund equivalents, often bringing western ideas with them. Traveling for leisure is indeed becoming the un-creative thing to do. And it's largely an artifically created dream. Wonder if there are ways to make it more meaningful.
I think you're missing the point of this. To me it reads as a satire of un-selfaware privileged people and facile, feel-good travelogues. You can certainly be a traveler without being/doing either of those
I think you're missing what's happening here. This is a place full of exactly the people being satire: the self-awareness-lacking privileged people, as you say. They're being defensive of their choices, and arguing that they're not privileged at all, and anyone can do it, 'as long as they have the money and a job, which anyone can have', completely missing the irony.
>Maybe the problem is you and not your lack of trust fund.
says the guy who took a 4 week paid vacation.
most americans dont get ANY paid vacation, those who do often cannot accrue it over time.
you got to return to a job you kept, a home you likely kept, health care coverage that never ended, etc etc.
this is simply not possible for the vast majority of people, your pull yourself up by your bootstraps argument mightve held weight if you werent an outlier.
Americans really do not prefer either candidate. Our political system is deeply screwed up. Saying something like "Just vote for the right people and everything will be better!" doesn't help us Americans because the system is both a two-party system and is heavily influenced by the rich. The two problems combined has really made our country less of a democracy and more of an oligarchy.
The US is unique among OECD nations, in that it does not have any (as in zero) mandatory days off. Not a single national holiday and no required vacation.[1]
Roughly 23% of Americans get no paid leave.[2] Furthermore, that 23% is almost exclusively located in the lower wage range. Vacation truly is a luxury for the rich in the United States.
What this NYer article should have done is depantsed the fake Instagram pushers who do have trust-funds or well heeled partners. The dream is really difficult for those who've gone past a certain point in the debt cycle, but with a bit of discipline and wisdom, you can clear your current situation and Live Differently. But that will seem, and quite possibly be, impossible for a lot of people with less flexible/resolvable life circumstances.
Well, you can start with the fact that being able to dart from country to country without first begging for a visa at the consulate of each country is a huge privilege in itself.
It might be hard to explain, but the process and odds of an American/Westerner getting a Russian or a Chinese or an Indian visa are not quite the same as the other way around.
But again, to truly understand one needs to be a non-Westerner.
Thanks for the reality check. Come to think of it, I met a Japanese duo during a vacation. They were young, and traveled by land from Vietnam as far as Kenya at the time I met them. They were very careful with money and didn't spend a lot. They hitchhiked through the Sudan on a freight truck. Wow!
That is not something I would ever do, but I will criticize people for falling for the cynical belief that only the rich can have a good life.
i think the article is meant to underscore actual travelers who are curious and authentic stand in stark contrast to what amounts to a trustafarian extended vacation.
While there is nothing inherently wrong with either, the ladder tends to oversell their cultural immersion and misadventure (at least in stereotypes) while calling great attention to the experience. I do think that does somewhat cheapen it for the people who do what you mention above and travel & experience are very inportant goals it took a long time to plan and save for
You got to take a 4 week vacation from work and YOU GOT PAID FOR IT.
That you would say "Maybe the problem is you and not your lack of trust fund" is absolutely hilarious. You think everyone is as spoiled as you with free months of salary? Sorry to shatter your world view....
This has a terrible environmental impact. For 1000€ you could have bought a car in any European country (but you'd have to learn how to drive a manual, hard for a 'merican)
As a citizen of the world, I rarely get lonely. Everywhere I go, I meet such diverse groups of people. In hostels, I’ve shared beers with friendly British and Australian twenty-somethings. In hotels, I’ve sipped wine with friendly British and Australian forty-somethings. We all became lifelong friends, despite the language barriers.
He forgot to mention the groups of Israelis who travel together in large swarms with at least one guitar player, taking over hostels before migrating to the next one!
This is pretty unfair. I basically did just what this satire describes, minus the trust fund and eye-gouging. I did it by working hard and saving my modest salary for a pretty long time, finally having saved enough to take 6 months to a year off.
People are always mystified at how I managed to do it. They think traveling the world is expensive beyond their wildest dreams. But the truth is, for much of the world the most expensive part is the plane ticket. You can live shockingly well on $10 a day in some parts of Asia, for example. It ruins you for when you return home: "Wait, a burger at a sit down restaurant costs $12?!? That's crazy!" Meanwhile you're meeting fascinating people and observing different and sometimes surprising cultures.
The time I spent traveling became the most significant and formative part of my life. What this satire portrays cynically, I experienced joyfully, and with a profound impact on my sense of place in the world, in society, and in history.
For Americans in particular, travel is one of the most important things we can do to get some perspective on the insularity and self-satisfied back-slapping that goes on at home. Suddenly you realize how homogeneous American culture can be, and, for all the praise we love to heap on ourselves, how far we have left to go to catch up to the rest of the world in so many aspects.
I spent many years traveling the world alone. If you have any questions, or if you're interested in doing it yourself, I'd be happy to give guidance.
"San Francisco isn’t in the same country as Lakeside anymore than New Orleans is in the same country as New York or Miami is in the same country as Minneapolis ... They may share certain cultural signifiers—money, a federal government, entertainment—it’s the same land, obviously—but the only things that give it the illusion of being one country are the greenback, The Tonight Show, and McDonald’s." American Gods - Neil Gaiman
> sent a quick text message to my girlfriend telling her that I was leaving the country forever, and was off.
A friend of mine once showed up at my house to tell me, "I'm leaving for China. If my girlfriend asks... tell her I'm at my parents'". I stared at him for a moment, then said, "Ok," and he left. They made up some time later, but he's still over there.
Hah. It is true that a lot of the people traveling are 'privileged', but probably not with 60k a month trust funds :) They are just privileged by where they were born, the value of their currency and the support they might have from family. A lot of the people I met when I did my traveling had little savings, had worked their asses off to save up for the trip and didn't have any employment lined up for when they get back. As software developers we are doubly lucky to have jobs that are portable worldwide and in demand, I did a little consulting on the way to help pay for things.
btw if you have an urge to do this do it before you have kids - after that, well, not going to happen probably.
How about with kids? With a family? With aging parents that needed help while you are the only child? With a H-1B visa on the edge of being kick out because I'm heading to the 6 yrs limit?
I felt this way because that's exactly where I'm in now and I don't seem to find a way out. Need some advice here.
As long as you have a $60,000/mo trust fund, these aren't difficult problems to solve. Just take your entire family with you when you travel! No need to renew your H-1B since your income from that job is a pittance compared to your monthly stipend anyway. And you can always hire a full-time aide to care for your parents! </s>
Seriously though, it sucks that you're going through a rough time. I don't think there's a magic bullet - you just have to keep on moving and see where life takes you. If you end up having to move back to your home country, will that really be the worst thing imaginable?
Even if your standard of living takes a hit, your family will survive and you'll be together. I've been down a similar road before, and although it seems calamitous at the time, eventually you adapt and it's just life.
I don't know that I can give you a lot of advice, since your life is bound to be so much different than mine, but I can tell you what we did.
I own a small business (14 employees, <1MM in revenue) that does essentially technology-oriented bookkeeping. I'd say we're a startup, except that we're bootstrapped and capital comes from customers, not from VCs--not sure if that excludes us or not. A couple of years ago, my wife and I decided to move with our 4 children to Sweden for a year, where she has two sisters. We wanted our children to be able to speak Swedish, not just English, and I wanted to see the world a bit more. (I actually commented on a hacker news piece while there: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8731296)
Things got a little crazy when we found out before we moved that she was pregnant with number 5--and that if we moved he was going to be born in Sweden. We had only 10,000$ saved up, but we decided to take the plunge knowing that I could work remotely on my business here and I had 60k income. Note that her being a dual citizen was critical--we knew she would be able to take advantage of the free health care.
It was an awesome year, with some powerful struggles--living above the Artic circle in a foreign country made me look at things in a whole new way.
The three things that made it possible were 1) We had a support group (her sisters) in Sweden willing and able to help us 2) I had a remote job and 3) she was a citizen.
We came home broke, and I lost a few customers by not being able to focus as easily, but I have no regrets. My company didn't go bankrupt, both me and my children now speak fluent Swedish, and we have an amazing circle of close friends that we would otherwise never have gotten to know.
I can't say it's easy, but the moment my wife & I decided _as a team_ to do it, I knew it was possible.
I think your best option is to be practical. You're unlikely to be so old that in 20 years you'll be too old to travel.
Having kids just means that, at worst, you have to wait until they're 18 before you run off globetrotting. In the meantime you can still see the world, but you might be limited to their holiday periods.
If you're on a H-1B then don't forget you've seen more of the world than the majority of people who don't leave their own countries, ever.
Aging parents are trickier, but this comes down to how much money you have and how important it is that you are the primary carer. It sounds cold to put it in those terms, but if it comes down to it, that's the decision you're making - 24/7 care is certainly something you can buy (and might actually be better than what you personally are be able to provide).
Many might be jealous you got selected for an H1B visa.
Moral of the story - if its bad for you, its always worse for someone else. Not something that may make you feel better, but its important to try not to lose some perspective.
Agreed. I always try to keep things in perspective. Most problems I end up complaining about are really first world problems. The thing is I remember growing poor in a different country, so I should know better. But after all this years I find myself complaining my internet is slow, my water heater doesn't heat enough water, I had to wait in line getting a plane etc. My younger poor self would slap me on the head and laugh at me for complaining.
You have to travel a little different when you have children though. They need longer to adjust to places, so as long as you stay in each place a little longer they cope quite well. So rather than stay somewhere for a day or two, you stay a week before moving on.
Sadly, there are enough people in my neck of the woods (Fairfax County, VA) that have trust funds and extreme privilege, that the essay didn't come across as satire. I literally thought this was just another oblivious rich guy.
> As I left town, I cast one final glance back at Greebo. One of his friends playfully tossed him to the ground and thumbed his eyes as the others snatched all the money I had given him. I couldn’t help but smile. It felt good to make a difference in the lives of these simple people.
Its possible if you have a remote job, even if you don't have a lot of money. I ditched the apartment, bought an RV and have been traveling across the US for a bit. Its cheaper than flying and hotels, and the RV cost about a year of rent where I lived, and older used RVs depreciate about 6% a year. So, overall, I'll come out ahead financially from where I was (incl travel and gas costs)
Most people probably can't do it (spouses, kids, non-remote work, drawbacks to living in an RV), but its possible on a budget and if you're in the right situation. I'm sure it'll get old soon, but so far its fun, albeit stressful. I've seen more in a few weeks than I've seen in almost my whole life.
That's probably simply because terrible satire. I read the whole thing and had to come to the comments to verify. I actually thought the author was just an asshole. That's just bad writing.
I think the point of satire is that it doesn't try too hard to get the point across.
One could have easily written this article:
"People with trust funds are the worst. All they do is travel the world, not really talking to anyone, and posting pictures of ice cream on Instagram. Man I hate those people. They're the worst."
The author took a different approach and let you decide whether or not you hate that type of person.
My wife and I did a six month round the world trip. No trust fund, just saved the money over several years from our jobs. We were a software engineer and teacher saving up for a house down payment -- then my wife got laid off, we had too much Sushi and beer one night, and decided to blow the down payment money on the trip.
Should we have taken that money and bought that house in Palo Alto? Financially the answer is yes. But 20 years later we are still very, very glad we took the trip. You can always make money.
I fled from USA to the third world with very little money because I was so poor I couldn't really afford to move to anywhere else I wanted to be within the USA. I continued to be poor and lived on rice and chicken for several years before starting to make decent money and was able to return to the USA. I also really enjoyed this satire and just shared it on my Facebook.. lol.
I guess my point is that many of the people you meet abroad, like myself, are absolutely not trust fund babies. You obviously don't need money to travel to third-world countries where most people have less money than USA. At the same time, a lot of the people you meet traveling absolutely are trust fund babies and they are pretty insufferable.
I have spent the last 7-8 years traveling regularly. The past 5 years I've been traveling more than I have been at home, especially the last 2. I am not paid an exporbitant salary, although working remote helps with travel.
My parents are financially modest. My parents did their best to help me and I'm sure I got more help than many - but after the handful of years after HS I received no help whatsoever and in fact have lent both of my parents money over the years.
There are two big secrets:
1: Make it a priority.
2: Find a job that lets you travel.
It's easier now that I work remote, but I used to travel for extended periods of time back when I worked in restaurants. For a couple years I worked summers and would take the winter off to travel.
If travel is a priority, you can make it happen, and you don't need a trust fund.
Don't quit your job and travel the world. Hint: look for "REMOTE" keyword @HN. Stay 1-2 months at one place at a time via AirBnB to get cheaper rates and use Hipmunk's chained flights to avoid returns. Did that for >1 year, best time of my life!
I'm in my 40s, I've got a kid in college and another about to go, and I'm considering doing this with my wife. We have a bit of a joke that we'll write a book titled: 5 years, 5 cities.
Its not that hard if you are living in Europe, USA or some other County with a decent economy and currency. It might take a little longer depending on the county.
For me it started easy, after backpacking for a month through Europe as European I could feel this desire to travel more. So 2013 I set my lifegoal to travel arround the world. One year later I specified it to travel for one year till end of 2018.
I googled a little and found a Worldtrip costs 10'000-30'000 Fr.- per year. So when starting my first real Job I knew how much I need to save to make my lifegoal become true. So I addapted my life standards to this income.
Fast forward, its 2016, I got a poor russian Girlfriend in Russia which I can't leave for a year. So know it means to save a little more and divide that through 2.
So the base question, can you save 200$ a month? Then do it for 5 years. Can you save 400$ a month? Then do it for 2.5 years. Can you save 1000$ month? Do it for two years, because you can easily afford a nice world trip.
Maybe its because most Swiss get raised to save money but its not that hard. Split the income as follows: 1/3 renting, 1/3 living, 1/3 saving. Put the money to save (automatically) on another account the day you get your salary. Its easier to save money you never had.
So if a worldtrip is desires, set the goal of your near future life and live with the consequences to save those 200$.
I'm really tired of writers like this who project their resentment and dissatisfaction with their own lives onto people they're jealous of. See also: every article written in the mainstream press about how annoying Burning Man is, every article trashing people for being on Ashley Madison, or last year's shit storm of hate against that couple that spends their life LARPing the Victorian Era.
The default mode of our economy and society is not at all defensible. Going to work 5 days a week to make somebody else rich is entirely, completely inhumane. Articles like this are supposed to make you feel smug about being stuck in what is, objectively, a complete nightmare of a life. And I am tired of reading this crap.
Also, as other commenters have pointed out, it's entirely possible to travel the world with savings of sub $5000 without a trust fund (or sleeping outside), but I imagine whatever terrified little baby wrote this article wouldn't be able to handle the level of trust you have to put in your fellow humans to pull it off.
Vast majority of comments here are arguing that a satirical article that lampoons a subset of wealthy travelers does not encapsulate 100% of their own travel experience. Its a satirical article poking fun at a population that is both wealth AND critically unaware of how much of a benefit is.
what next, argue with john swift about eating babies?
Has no one seen the parallels and thinly veiled references to Anthony Bourdain's TV shows here? In fact its referenced directly but in quotes with the "no reservations" quip. Bourdain was frequently criticized for the fact that in extremely poor areas of the world he threw money around and caused unintended consequences for the locals. Take for instance his Haiti visit after the earthquake, when he tried to buy a meal for starving kids but then couldn't feed all of them when the word got out.
I'm not sure I get the point of this article. Travel nomads are a real thing, and more and more numerous. They typically don't have a lot of money and often work at local menial jobs or by doing freelance gigs online, but then again it's no coincidence that Tailand is the world's digital nomad capital. When your cost of living is ridiculously low, it's not impossible to work from the beach and spend your time traveling.
I don't really think this should hit the front page of Hacker News since it's obvious, and not even particularly clever, satire. That said, I also don't think any of the articles that this one skewers should ever be on the front page of HN, either, and they still pop up regularly.
If you want to experience real travel on a budget, cycling is the way to go. You would be surprised how many people cycle the silk road between Europe and Asia. I know some guys who has been doing this for many years, just going home to work a year in Europe when money runs out.
Do whatever before you have a family and kids. And hopefully pay some due taxes to wherever you live while you're travelling, after all if young-work-age people do not contribute some taxes the only hope to sustain the society is to keep printing paper money.
"As I left town, I cast one final glance back at Greebo. One of his friends playfully tossed him to the ground and thumbed his eyes as the others snatched all the money I had given him. I couldn’t help but smile. It felt good to make a difference in the lives of these simple people."
I'm ashamed to admit I didn't recognize this as satire until I reached this point and burst out laughing. I failed to notice the URL, too. This kind of article is so common, I just figured it was yet another. I hate the apparent trend of titling articles "Why I [insert activity here]," which made this all the more amusing.
This really discredits people who opened credit cards with a $2,000 limit and went off to work on a farm in Australia
There isn't really anything glamorous necessary, aside from having some resolve to do what you want, some resolve to make sacrifices, and the fortune of being born somewhere globally relevant
"On paper, my life seemed great. I had a dream job, a swanky apartment, and a loving girlfriend. But something was off. I couldn’t bear being chained to my desk in a stuffy office any longer. "
Yes yes, this is sounds just like me!
"So I decided to quit and travel the world, bringing only my passport, a small backpack, ..."
Yes yes! This is what I dream of doing. How did you do it? I'll leave tomorrow.
"... and my enormous trust fund."
GO FUCK YOURSELF
Yes, I recognize that this is satire. But there are real people out there for whom this is their real life. That is who I am waving my finger at.
This is the quintessence of what we don't want on Hacker News. Please don't "wave your finger" here. Yes, it's popular—but for bad reasons.
We can't have both reflexive rage and reflective conversation. On HN we want reflective conversation.
It isn't that we don't all feel these emotions; we do. The people you're waving your finger at do as well, and no doubt feel as justified. But the sine qua non of reflective conversation is to catch those reactions in oneself and then inhibit them before they hijack the cognitive apparatus. That is what allows the slower, subtler processes to engage—and that is what leads to interesting utterances, as opposed to bile.
Everybody (author of the satire included) always jumps to conclusions that people doing such acts always have some massive fortune or cushion in the bank to wait them.
That's far from the truth. Thousands of people do the same thing every year without anything in the bank (and no sure job awaiting them when they get back).
Some have meagre savings (like $5.000 - $10.000) and use all of them to fund the trip (like year-long).
Others just go at it with nothing, and survive on the kindness of strangers and odd gigs here and there.
I know a few personally doing the latter, but many more doing the first.
Heck, if you have $10,000 in the bank, and are a decent programmer that can manage to find work when he gets back from the trip) you can quit your job, spend 3-4 months in Asia and Africa for dirt cheap, and still have like $2-$3.000 spare to get you through a month before finding some new gig.
> Some have meagre savings (like $5.000 - $10.000) and use all of them to fund the trip (like year-long).
You really don't understand how bad it is these days. The average family does not have $2,000 in savings, much less 5 to 10. In fact, [the average American household with debt owes an average of $130,922][1]. Over $15,000 of that is in credit card debt alone.
Being broke is actually doing pretty well nowadays. We live in a world built on debt, where the financial sector makes up over 30% of the economy and almost everyone is beholden to large banks. In a few decades, we'll be right back to feudal system, if things don't change.
These are not very informative statistics about the 'average' American. First of all, they only represent those who have at least some debt, with no reference to what percentage of the population that is. Secondly, they are means rather than medians, which are likely skewed by a long tail of people with extremely high debt (especially because they are ignoring the entire half of the distribution with no debt).
[80% of Americans have some form of debt.][1] The average total wealth for all Americans is actually positive. [It's a little over $300,000.][2] But that number is really the skewed one, as it's significantly shifted by the 0.1% of the Americans [which own 90% of America's wealth][3].
As for the median, I can't seem to find that statistic, but I would argue that it's actually a less accurate picture than the average.
Maybe this goes without saying, but the average family in North America lives well above their means. Rent to own furniture, a leased lexus for the wife and ginormous pickup truck for the office job husband, dinner and drinks out multiple times per week etc. when you can find everything you need for a comfortable material existence used on craigslist, cook at home, etc. It's possible if you have gainful employment and discipline. I didn't have either of these in my 20s. Now that I do, I'm focused on avoiding the seemingly inevitable "I deserve it" lifestyle inflation and "It's only $xxx per month" debt.
no, most Americans live worse than that. They finance their entire life. The education, the house, the cars, the furniture, the food, the everything. If you want it all, and have the cashflow, you can have it all for a set of minimum monthly payments that leaves you with little actual cash in the bank and an increasingly large debt to pay.
It's the eternal blind optimism of Americans. What's the monthly payment? Oh, I can swing that! My salary is X and always will be, or higher! Never mind that these been a recession about every eight years during my lifetime!
I don't know about the details of what you said, but one more thing I find important is that even if you could afford it you take away at least one year of saving for the future.
I try to work hard these days to pay off my mortgage early and save for retirement. Using my current savings and loosing one of my good years of income seems like something that should at least be mentioned.
Or how many of those didnt-vacation-and-now-I-spew-bitterness -and-lost-my-savings-anyway-due-to-buying-a-house-or-other-bs we mid-career vacationers will be supporting...
I wouldn't. The mid-career vacationing types tend to do better than the "go-with-the-defaults" drones, and they have some life experience to shelter bad times too.
Your first link is about credit card debt, and your second link is about a family with no credit. You can't link the two. What point are you trying to make? You said this:
Maybe this goes without saying, but the average family in North America lives well above their means. Rent to own furniture, a leased lexus for the wife and ginormous pickup truck for the office job husband, dinner and drinks out multiple times per week etc.
But none of your links actually back that up. If we're trading personal anecdotes, fine, but otherwise you're caricaturing the average family as struggling because of (I would guess based on your implication) stupidity and greed. This doesn't seem to match my experience of the "average" family, but it is common dog whistle language.
Not sure why I'm getting downvotes. I can't reply to the person below, but yes, this is how most folks live according to the stats and my observations. Everything is financed. Working from home in a suburban Atlanta neighbourhood, at least once per week I see a rent-to-own furniture truck unloading something at a neighbors home. I don't even own a TV because my priorities are different.
>You really don't understand how bad it is these days. The average family does not have $2,000 in savings, much less 5 to 10.
I'm not talking about the average family. I'm not about people on HN level jobs.
In fact, I wasn't talking about a family at all -- only singles or at most couples. A family makes it non practical for several reasons (though it still can be done).
On the average household debt. I'm always curious what these families financials look like. My guess is they made a few common mistakes (that most of america doesn't view as a mistake) starting with buying a house (150-400k debt) assuming that's counted towards the "average", followed by having kids. Tons of people have school loan debt and medical debt but if you look at it objectively it's not "how bad it is" but how financially illiterate people are these days.
I'm one of those "quit the job and traveled the world" types except I didn't travel the world, just did a healthy 6 month dose of travel but my friends and family look up to me like I did something they are completely incapable of and I might be because I had the self control not to have children and buy a home, go to bars regularly, eat out all the time, etc, etc.
I met tons of people who were doing the same with a lot less money then I had and they made the same sacrifices I did. Anyways, end rant. I agree debt is out of control and much of it designed but I also know people made a shitton of bad decisions with money.
That part of the population can take the other route proposed -- like thousands of "hippie travellers" each year: go at it with just the ticket and the kindness of strangers. Having some skill you can use to make some small money here and there (like playing music on a street corner) helps.
For the rest, those making $50.000 a year or more, $5000 to $10000 is very doable to save in 1-4 years -- if you actually want to visit the world that is, and not just want it to fall on you lap while you enjoy everything else at the same time. Rent a smaller house, don't buy a new car, spend less on bars, restaurants and other BS, dont buy that iPhone, etc.
Don't spend my money on anything nice, having fun, or treating myself to something special in the hopes that I can travel the world as a beggar or poor person (5k-10k as is a substantially small travel budget)?
it's whatever your priorities dictate. If you want to spend all of your money where you are, don't cry that you haven't been able to save any to go travel the world. $5K-$10K is not a small travel budget for a single person if you spend wisely. If you're expecting to stay at 5 star resorts and party like you have a trust fund, then yeah, good luck with that.
If I were still single (and younger), I would have taken that $10K and lived an awesome 6 months abroad. But 15 years ago my priorities were a fast-ish car, a nice apartment, eating out every night, and trying to impress a girl (now my wife). It's worked out well for me regardless.
[edit]Your attitude comes off as very entitled BTW. You complain about "...don't spend my money on anything nice, having fun, or treating myself to something special". Oh woe is me, I can't travel the world and buy that latest iphone and fancy new clothes...sheesh!
You're not seeing any complaints from me about traveling. I'm fine where I'm at. I'm just pointing out the flaws in the parent's reasoning, and explaining why it might not be appealing to people that do have a genuine interest in traveling.
The parent's reasoning is meant for people who do have a "genuine interest in traveling" so I fail to see the flow.
I did say: "if you actually want to visit the world that is, and not just want it to fall on you lap while you enjoy everything else at the same time".
The observation that (advice about travelling) "might not interest those who are not interested in travelling" seems redundant to me.
Some people live to travel and to constantly have exciting new experiences and care more about that than having enough money to buy the latest iphone, enjoy artesian bread for breakfast, or have a nice apartment with a view and plush furniture.
There's nothing wrong or right with either way of life, it's just different personalities.
Travelers may call your lifestyle fake or meaningless, you may call their lifestyle fake or meaningless, but the lifestyles are as real and valid as the person wants them to be.
I don't think I ever used the terms fake or meaningless. My point is that the lifestyle being referenced might not be appealing to a majority of people, hence the reason most don't do it.
Your last statement is exactly the kind of reasoning that I'm arguing against. Besides being an absurd generalization, it's also not necessarily true, at least if you're conflating needs and wants, which I suspect is what you're doing here.
If you don't like it, or can't stand to not buy a new car every few years and go out on bars, don't do it. Some appreciate the traveling more than "having fun" by spending money for "nice things" (which for a lot of people are BS throwaways, but they still moan that they can't afford to travel).
It's not like somebody put a gun on your head.
5-10K is by no means a "substantially small travel budget". In fact many middle class families in other parts of the world make it with that or less for the whole year.
Now, if you want to travel the world first class and stay on 5-star hotels, get the budget for it.
Not everybody needs or cares for that -- but we can still travel for months on end on far much less AND have fun.
I have a friend who saved $15,000 in 1 year selling cars and low quality marijuana (he made $1000/month from it).
He traveled to 50+ countries and slept outside everywhere except poor countries where it was cheap to get a bed.
When he returned to the US, he sold cars and was homeless. Literally he slept outside but still worked out and ate well. When he got a car, he still slept outside.
He recently just made $60,000 driving for Lyft/Uber in 6 months and saved $30,000 (assuming a lot went to taxes).
He then moved and slept in hus car for 1+ month while having 30k and perfect credit, and still driving. Now he's taken a month off to pursue creative and side projects.
If you don't have a family, then anything is possible.
It takes someone special to live like a drug dealing homeless person. Most people are trying to avoid that lifestyle at all costs. Obviously if you have zero bills, saving money is easy. But be realistic.
Probably a lot more than you. How do you get from $1000/month to $50? Or did you just make the whole thing up? You can get 5 years in the federal pen for dealing trivial amounts of pot if you manage to piss off the government.
My point was running a criminal enterprise isn't really an acceptable option for most people.
If you can only bank $500/month working as a programmer in the bay area, something is very wrong (or you're just not living frugally at all). I bank way more than that as a mid level developer, granted I work at the big G, but I also support a non-working wife and kid.
> Please explain to me your equation for making a lot of money
It's easy, "live beneath your means". Move away from the valley and give up that lifestyle. If you're a decent-ish programmer, you can make a bunch of money in any of the other medium sized cities in the US with a reasonable cost of living.
I work in Santa Clara, live in rental townhouse in San Jose. I have a 20 minute commute and reliably save 15% of my take home income. I have a wife who works part time and goes to school. She saves all her money.
Its about budgeting. We each keep a budget for our hobbies of about $100 per month. We spend about $200 at restaurants (eating out less than once per week). Most important is keeping a tab on your spending. UsBank has a download spreadsheet function that keeps track of your last export so it is very easy to download one month at a time.
Ha! I'm heading over to northern Spain where wine flows like water and everything is super cheap. :) I'll be there for a little over a month slowly making my way to west coast to enjoy the ocean. Then... I don't know. Maybe head north to nordic countries or fulfill a life-long dream of exploring Tasmania (if i can get there on the cheap). I don't plan to "travel the world." Just backpack for a few months to reset. I do this once every several years. How about you? Where are you headed?
It's a first for me. I'll probably start out in Las Palmas and then go east as I feel more adventurous (China, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam). Should be a blast!
Ah the Canaries! Met a lot of folks from there when i was on my last adventure a few years ago. What an awesome start, man! If you're going to be in Spain in July/August hit me up. My email's in the profile. Good luck and enjoy it man!
I haven't actually booked anywhere yet as I'm largely going to wing it. It's likely that my first stop will be Las Palmas (https://nomadlist.com/las-palmas-gran-canaria-spain/scores). It's not too culturally different to where I live now, so it should be a more gentle introduction to the nomadic lifestyle, but the cost of living is also relatively cheap.
No shit, I'm doing the exact same thing at almost the exact same time. I've got a few months savings in the bank, and I'm heading off to Las Palmas... stopping along the way in Europe. See you there!
I have some friends who were 50+ years old with very little money in the bank. The rented out their old house and headed to Costa Rica and Puerto Rico for 2 years. They "Interned" on tropical farms in exchanged for food and lodging, he did some electrical work. But they had a ton of adventures. Prob saved their marriage to break out of the USA and their normal lives.
They are now back living in their house again and working the same jobs.
If you're serious in your travel ambitions, one simple term: Teaching English as a Foreign Language
For the most part the qualifications are (1) a heartbeat and (2) English proficiency, and not even native level necessarily. No college diploma needed, no expert understanding of grammar, no upfront money needed.
Of course various countries and schools differ in the level of qualifications and visa requirements but my experience has been that these are not huge hurdles as long as you don't have some super specific place in mind. If "the world" is your destination, it's wide open.
A lot of times you will end up teaching in a school where children or people know conversational English and are studying to become more proficient.
I have two close friends (husband and wife) who spent the last 6 years teaching English in Thailand and Bali. In Thailand they taught at a private learning school and in Bali they taught at a school where the wealthier families sent their children.
Per the larger discussion: While there, they lived on one of their salaries and saved the other. I think they left with $15k and returned with roughly double that. I know during there time over there, they took off around a year and half total to travel and relax. They didn't live in glamorous places and eat at fancy restaurants. Instead they lived more like the locals to some extent, but this mentality/lifestyle allowed them to stay longer and ultimately come back home in a better place than when they left.
My wife and I visited them in Bali for four months last year (I am a remote software engineer). By association we adopted their lifestyle and had a fantastic/extremely affordable extended traveling experience.
For the most part I was limited to classes intermediate and above when I started out so there's some basis for communication. Of course the best part of travel is learning the native language. After a few months you can probably start teaching beginners, especially once you get a feel for the kinds of questions students ask. People usually have the same confusion points.
Some "immersive" methods such as the Callan method explicitly do not want you to use the native language at all, even if you know it.
TEFL is usually a term reserved for teaching English to [young] adults. The teaching methodology is almost always quite different compared to teaching English to primary & secondary students. Not being bilingual is rarely an impediment.
> You can travel through South American for a couple grand a month
You are talking pesos, right? I've been doing this for 2 years now and the most expensive places in South America where French Guyana (about USD 2k/mo), Guyana and Uruguay (USD 1.5k/mo in each place) - both times in rented houses and with all food and transportation included. In all other countries you can stay in regular hotels without any discount for long term stays, eat out every day and still live on less than USD 1k/mo (I did this in Suriname, Colombia, Peru, Paraguay and Brazil).
The trick is simply not to use AirBnB or any other booking site except for the first one or two days in a new location and to buy flight tickets with cash at the airport. Having a clue about local economics also helps to evaluate offers and haggle them down from "clueless gringo" rate to "not so clueless gringo rate" (which is usually less than half of what one is asked for initially).
You of course can still make a better deal with promotions, but slow travel and "buying two months in advance" don't mix well since it takes away the liberty to spontaneously change destinations or to leave a place if one does not like it (or to extend a stay).
But when one wants to fly next day in South America, in my experience the cheapest is to just buy at the airport, followed by online booking at the Spanish airline site, followed by the English site.
I see it the other way. We should encourage the rich to become more idle. Give their jobs to people who actually need them. So don't insult them. Laugh at their jokes and encourage them to fly to Ghana to commune with the trees. Once they are out the door, nail it shut.
You are correct in that they don't consider themselves to have "jobs". They treat going to work more as a hobby. The problem is that regardless of their opinion on the matter, someone else really wants that job as a job.
It is satire. But a guy just like the one portrayed in the story is now the president of my country. It is really sad. Do you want to guess where am I from?
> Maybe I’m just a crazy dreamer who also gets a monthly no-strings-attached sixty-thousand dollars deposited into my checking account, but I won’t be tied down so easily.
Wow!!! Why is it a "why" question. A bit greedy to keep working if you already have 60k per month coming in your checking account. Why would anyone want be a slave ? I just have few grand in bank, 0 income and I recently quit my job to travel around until I run out of money.
This is a garbage fluff piece that borders on being a satire. Maybe it is? Either way the New Yorker should be ashamed for publishing this.
>>That life style isn’t for me. Maybe I’m just a crazy dreamer who also gets a monthly no-strings-attached sixty-thousand dollars deposited into my checking account, but I won’t be tied down so easily.
edit: Realize this is satire now - still think the piece sucks.
But after a while, the places all start looking the same, and every place gives you the same experiences, more or less. There are buses or subways, hotels, or hostels, interesting people who like meeting foreigners, museums, parks, points of interest, foods, drinks, restaurants, bars. Something starts growing inside you saying "I want to build something, I want to belong to something." That something could be a tech company, a school, a network of friends, a business, a non-profit, a family, or anything else.
When you get to that point, your traveling days are limited, and you start making plans for how satiate your new appetite. You will probably travel again someday, but with a new objective, and with more experience guiding where you go and how you spend your time in the places.