The Secret to Long Term Traveling

The big secret to traveling long term is….nothing. There is no special secret.

Vagabonds, nomads, and long term travelers are nothing special. We have no super powers or secret Swiss bank accounts. Extended travel is a big deal around the world. The gap year is a rite of passage for people. It is normal to take a year or two to live and work somewhere else around the world. In some countries, it is abnormal not too. The problem is one of those countries is not America, which is why I thought it was something special. However, I quickly found that it didn’t take any fancy footwork or large bank accounts. All these people had that I didn’t have before was the desire to do what they to do, free of the expectations of society, because they enjoyed it and that was all the reason they needed. They simply said “I want to travel” and then did it and made it work.

They did what they wanted a revolutionary idea for me at the time but after years of travel, I realize that it’s not so revolutionary. If people really want something, people do it. If you want a big screen TV or a DVD, you go buy it. If you really want to eat sushi for dinner, you are going to have sushi for dinner. If you want to travel, you will do that too. It is that simple. Just like you find a way to pay for that TV or your new car, these travelers simply arranged their life so that they could afford to travel. As the saying goes, where there’s a will, there’s a way.

Why should I spend my best years in an office, saving money for an age I may not even see or, if I do see, might be too sick to enjoy? Yeah, we long term travelers save a bit for a rainy day but we don’t worry about the future. We enjoy now. Take care of your present and your future works out. When I stop traveling, I’ll figure out what is next.

So when you ask travelers how they do it, they aren’t lying when they say they did nothing special and that there is no secret. We simply made a conscious desire to do it and after that, just worked toward our goal, saving money and making plans just like what you would do with any other venture in your life.

And that’s our big travel secret.

By Nomadic Matt, January 28, 2009

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