How to go on a long journey and not go broke

My husband and I shared the dream of a year-long trip. When we finally decided to consider her seriously, we had good careers and comfortable living conditions in Cyprus. But the dream attracted and did not let me forget about the question “What if?..”. This is what eventually led us to a long Asian journey.

We have been on a trip for more than a year, managed to visit 12 countries, staying here and there for a long time, and visiting some places for only a few days or even hours. This article provides tips on how to prepare for such a large-scale trip and how to save money on the way.

How to prepare

1. Start saving for your dream

Our preparation began 15 months before departure with savings. We created a family budget, reviewed income and expenses, analyzed what expenses can be reduced, what can be sacrificed for the sake of a dream. Having calculated the final potential amount of savings, we were satisfied with it.

Advice: create your budget, track where the money goes. Cut your spending and start saving a certain amount of money regularly.

2. Decide what you will do on your trip

Traveling in itself is great, but we did not consider idle everyday life for ourselves. Therefore, in advance, we began to create online projects with which we could work remotely. By the time of departure, we had a job search site in Cyprus and my project "To Change To Be!", Aimed at helping people achieve their dreams.

Advice: think of what you can work on while traveling. Believe me, it is impossible to spend 24 hours 7 days a week only on travel. You will have free time. You can spend it watching TV shows, but why not devote some of your time to something more useful to you?

3. Have patience

After the decision to go on a trip, I was ready to do it tomorrow. However, common sense called me to order. I had to tighten my belt tighter and continue to gradually prepare for the trip.

Advice: think about how long it will take you to actually go on a trip. Save up money and / or start your online project. Do not try to do everything faster, it will not lead to a good result.

4. Sell things

Closer to the trip, we started selling things. How much I had unused! Some things were new at all. We sold everything: household appliances, electronics, furniture, board games, videos, a car. The clothes were taken to the collection point for the needy. These sales added more than € 3,000 to our budget.

Advice: sort out your belongings, evaluate critically what you do not use, and feel free to put it up for sale through forums or specialized sites.

5. Secure your savings

One of the most unpleasant things that can happen on the road is the loss of money. Agree, it's scary to wake up in the morning and find out that someone has taken a decent amount of funds from your card.

To avoid this, we have created a triple money storage system consisting of two banks and one mobile bank. All our savings are kept in bank A, from which we transfer the amount for a month to bank B. To the card to which the mobile bank is linked (we have this Revolut), we transfer through the application the necessary amount for withdrawal through an ATM. Thus, we "shine" only the Revolut card, which never contains money.

An additional bonus is that this card converts the account currency not according to the standard banking scheme (your currency - into dollars, and then from dollars - into the currency of the country of location), but directly, bypassing dollars. Thus, the course is the most profitable.

Advice: pick up a reliable money storage system. At a minimum, get a second bank card, which you will only use for cash withdrawals.

6. Choose the right health insurance

The secret to choosing long-distance travel health insurance is to choose the plan that really covers the entire duration of your trip, rather than, as in most insurance companies, a maximum of 45 days per year.

The second thing you should pay attention to is the deductible, the amount of payments, after which the insurance company pays the costs. If you are traveling to Asia, it is better to choose insurance without a deductible, otherwise you will constantly pay out of your pocket (since medicine in Asia is inexpensive).

Advice: take the time to research insurance, ask all sorts of questions to the support team. Medical insurance is an important part of safe travel.

7. Download online and offline maps

If we hadn't installed such maps on all our devices before the trip, I think we could still wander somewhere in India or Myanmar. It happened that the locals simply sent us somewhere, not knowing the right direction themselves. After we began to believe only the map, life became easier.

Advice: Before the trip, install applications on your phone, download the maps of the desired countries. Maps.me was perfect for us, it works great offline.

8. Make copies of documents

Sometimes they began to demand copies of documents from us suddenly and in places where you did not expect at all. For example, in Myanmar, when we were moving from one city to another by night bus, we were woken up at some conditional border, which was impossible to pass without a photocopy of a passport. Fortunately, we have copies lying around. Sometimes, to find a copier, we had to run around a decent number of places. The photographs were even worse.

Advice: make at least five copies of your passport and several 4 × 5 photographs in advance (if necessary, you can turn them into 3 × 4, but on the contrary - definitely not). Scan your insurance policy and passport, store the scans on your phone, and also send them to your mail. This will help you in case of loss of documents.

9. Rent out your home

We have met guys who have been traveling for years simply by renting out their homes. Thus, they do not earn, but they do not spend the savings either.

Advice: if you have your own home, consider renting it out. This will help you increase your budget.

10. Do not forget to pack a first aid kit and take things you cannot do without

There are not very many medicines in our medicine cabinet: most of the necessary medicines can still be found in local pharmacies. We took only emergency medicine.

And in the list of must-have-things I include earplugs and a sleep mask: sometimes in hotels there are surprises in the form of very loud snoring neighbors or light from the street.

Advice: take only the essentials, do not take tons of medicines and personal belongings. If necessary, you can purchase them on the spot.

11. Be open to the world

We all have ideas about how the world works. They originated with us within the framework of the reality that we observe every day in our habitual habitat. Others' norms and rules may seem strange to us. What would you think if you saw people in pajamas in a supermarket? This is what we observed closer to midnight on the island of Penang in Malaysia. It turned out that at 12 am the supermarket makes big discounts, so many families drop in for hot deals, and then go straight to bed.

Advice: respect other people's culture and norms of behavior. In the end, we also seem strange to someone. And that's okay!

How to save money on the go

Earlier it seemed to me that a long trip is something insanely expensive and unreal. All these thoughts, most likely, were born from short-term vacations, when you spend money left and right. In practice, it turned out that travel is available for any budget and, if desired, you can significantly save even in such expensive cities as Hong Kong and Singapore. I'll tell you how.

1. Travel less on airplanes

Of course, air travel is the easiest and fastest way to travel, but if you don't have time constraints, why not try other methods? Buses, trains, water transport - moving by alternative means saves up to 60% of the air ticket price.

2. Use Workaway

Workaway.info is a find of our trip, a kind of volunteering in exchange for housing and food. This is a great way to save money and experience the local culture while working and interacting with the locals. The usual conditions are as follows: work 4-5 hours a day, five days a week (but you need to clarify in each case).

We have used Workaway five times, having worked in a cafe, restaurant, hostel, strawberry farm. The work was very different: from helping in the kitchen to language practice and marketing. Knowledge of English is required at least at an intermediate level.

3. Don't forget about couchsurfing

Already a well-known way to travel with a free overnight stay with locals. A great way to make new friends and get to know the culture and customs of another country. But do not forget that you are staying at a party, not at the hotel. Be polite and clean up after yourself.

4. Buy tickets for night flights

Choose night transfers - this way you can save on a night at the hotel, and comfortable sleeping buses will help you not feel overwhelmed in the morning.

5. Place your belongings in your carry-on baggage

We failed to do this, and we constantly observe with envy those who travel only with hand luggage. This saves $ 20 to $ 40 on baggage fares each time you fly.

6. Pay attention to hostels

Hostels are a great place to meet other travelers, share your stories, and have fun with like-minded people. It is also cheaper than renting a hotel room, especially if you are traveling alone. Read the reviews carefully and check the rating, this will save you from unpleasant surprises.

7. Use the discount programs of services Booking, Airbnb and Agoda

Each of them has discount programs: if someone books a house using your link, you get a percentage from this. You can also earn money by becoming a partner. To do this, you need to have your own blog (you can get up to 25% of the rental price through your website).

8. Work remotely

If you, like us, do not want to travel idly, then try to earn extra money while traveling. You can create your own projects or find remote work, if your specialization and experience allow it.

9. Rent a home with a kitchen

This will allow you to save on food in cafes and restaurants in countries with expensive food, such as South Korea. Of course, traveling without getting to know the local cuisine can lose most of the fun, so I'm not saying that you should completely eliminate eating in a cafe. But you can still reduce the number of visits if the budget matters to you.

10. Use Grab and Uber

Install these applications on your phone and protect yourself from the situation when you pay with a taxi driver and you are suddenly informed that the rate was announced for a person, and there are two of you … In applications, you can set up payment immediately from the card, completely eliminating payments with the driver directly.

11. Determine your daily and monthly budget

Decide how much you can and want to spend on a daily basis. Keep track of spending, try to stay within budget. We use an Excel table to which we add all the expenses. It helps us see where we have gone outside the box, and signals that it would be nice to save money on something (for example, a cafe or a massage session).

Traveling makes our life brighter, opens up the world and new opportunities for us. Give yourself this joy! Hope you find my advice helpful.