This question hides others. What do you prioritize right now in your life? Are you ready to change that?

Very often we are not even aware of our priorities. I have a lot of friends who tell me they don’t have enough money to travel and who spend an impressive amount of their income every week on clothes, alcohol and restaurants.

They don’t realize the proportion of their budget that this involves. If you’re not sure how you spend your income, the best way is to make a budget.

That being said, if you’re like us and your finances aren’t your strong point, we warn you, you might be startled! But this way, you’ll see that there’s probably a lot of expenses that you could cut back on.

In our case, when we have a travel project in mind, we make it our absolute obsession. (Okay now we sound crazy, but we swear we’re not). So it involves some sacrifices, yes. However, when you keep your project in mind, those sacrifices are easy to make.

Now don’t think that we deprive ourselves of living fully while in our home town. You don’t have to do it either! You simply need to modify your outings. Instead of going to restaurants, suggest a picnic with your friends. Do you really have to go out? Don’t order alcohol and try to choose the cheapest option on the menu.

Pro tip here:

If you go out, try not to drink. (Yes, you read it right!) Sounds boring, but this will save you more money than you could ever imagine. Who knows who might pay you a drink in the end anyway?

You could as well avoid buying new clothes by thrifting (more ecological as well!), simplify your grocery, cancel monthly subscriptions such as Netflix, etc. There’re so many things you can do in order to reduce your spending.

On the other hand, you may also realize that you’re not ready to cut these expenses. If all of this sounds like a death sentence to you, it means that travel is simply not one of your priorities at the moment. It’s totally fine, and it’s a good thing to become aware of it. If it ever does become something you want to prioritize at some point, you can always review your budget management.

This second question is interesting because none of us are in the same life situation right now. As far as we’re concerned, in the last few years, we’ve gone through several stages that are very different from each other.

But despite all these changes, we’ve always been able to travel. Why? Because it was our priority, and we always made sure to take advantage of each situation. Moreover, we always made decisions with our travel plans in mind. Let’s take a closer look at that.

WHERE DO YOU LIVE?

First, suppose you live with your parents. You probably don’t have any rent to pay. So you can save a lot more money and you don’t have to worry about making rent payments while you are abroad. This is a HUGE advantage.

On the contrary, if you live in an apartment, you may decide to sublet it while you are out of the country. Sharing it with roommates will also help you cut costs considerably.

Knowing in advance that you’re planning to travel, you may also want to make sure that you rent a fully furnished place. That way, you won’t have to worry about your stuff if you decide to go away for a long time without renewing your lease.

ARE YOU STUDYING?

If you are in college or university, the long vacation periods you get are a DREAM TIME to travel. Chances are you’ll never get as much vacation time when you start working full-time later in your life. Take advantage of it!

Another opportunity you may have is to join an end-of-program trip and organize fundraising campaigns to reduce costs. That’s what I did in college and it allowed me to stay in Europe by myself for 2 months after the trip. 

We also have friends who did an international internship or a full year of study in another country. These opportunities exist in a lot of programs, it’s all about getting informed.

When it comes to work, things can tend to get complicated, especially if you have a good job. Again, you will have to analyze your priorities.

During the time we had student jobs, since they’re often all low paying and pretty easy to get, we weren’t afraid to simply announce our departure.

We let our employers know that we’d be happy to come back after our few months abroad, but that we understood if this wasn’t possible. We always got our jobs back when we returned. 

If you have a good relationship with your boss and you’re doing a great job, chances are they’ll be happy to take you back in the team after. Make sure you let them know in advance that you’re leaving and take the time to explain your situation to them. 

Of course, we’re aware that getting a job back will not be everyone’s reality, and leaving it should always be a considered decision. Our point here is to show that when you want something, there’re many ways to get it.

WHAT ABOUT A GAP YEAR

If you are already working in your field and like your job, be aware that in some organizations, it is possible to take a gap year and come back after.

Have you ever heard the quote that says there are no problems, only solutions? This is exactly how we want you to think from now on. You can always make it work.

The key is that rather than looking for everything that might not work, you have to tell yourself that it will. Period. And then just look for ways to solve everything that might seem like a problem at first glance.

The solution is always somewhere. As a simple example, when I left for 4 months last year, I had no idea what to do with my car. I didn’t want to sell it.

After talking about it with people around me, my dad came up with the solution. My cousin had no car and needed one. I was more than happy to lend her mine for a while. She agreed to do the basic maintenance in exchange, and everyone was happy.

This is a very important question. We would never have been able to travel so much in the last few years if we had opted for hotels, expensive activities, and restaurants every day.

What people often forget is that when we travel, it’s anything but fancy. We’re on a budget!

When traveling, you can spend $2,000 a week. You can also spend 5 pounds a month. I know it sounds absolutely ridiculous, but that’s exactly what we managed to do last year.

There are many ways to travel, and it’s up to you to choose. Travel more with much less comfort, or travel less while allowing you more luxury.

There are no right or wrong ways to do it. You just have to find what’s right for you. For our part, we are willing to make every possible sacrifice to be abroad for longer.

I must admit that we prefer this way of doing things because it really means going on an adventure, getting out of the big tourist centers, meeting and living with local people, etc.

Besides, we are putting together a complete course right now to turn you into an expert traveler even with almost no money. Make sure you subscribe to our email list to be informed of the launching first and get your 10% discount. I’m sure you think you need way more money to travel than you actually do!

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