Work Less Travel More!

That’s really the dream for us explorers, isn’t it? Travel more and work less, or somehow still work while you’re travelling. The problem with our 9-5 lifestyles is that they often give us the money to enjoy things but not the time to enjoy them. 

A while back, I wrote Saving for Travel - Here's How We Did It!, and have since written an updated article, Saving For Travel - Part 2. In those articles, apart from saving to travel, I mention investing some of those savings to give you the freedom to do the things you love doing. Check out how we invest our savings in my post on Growing Your Travel Fund. Or if your savings or investments don't quite cover your travel expenses, then consider Working On The Road to supplement the travel fund.

This concept of quitting the 9-5 and having more time is something we’ve thought about for quite a few years now. When living on the Gold Coast in Australia, we both had full-time jobs which meant our travels were restricted to 4 weeks a year. You can still explore quite a bit in 4 weeks but when you really want to get away and experience a culture (or for us do snow season after snow season), it’s pretty much impossible to hold down a traditional full-time position.

IT'S NICE TO HAVE THE TIME AND FREEDOM TO ENJOY MAJESTIC PLACES LIKE THIS - LAKE WAKATIPU, QUEENSTOWN.

As early as 2008, we knew that we wanted to explore much more of the world. We had just returned to Australia to full-time jobs, after spending a little over two and a half yrs in London, one yr in Las Vegas and an awesome 7-month snow season in Banff, Canada. It was a big old slap in the face of reality. But then we mentally decided that this 9-5 business doesn’t need to be our reality if we just plan a little.

And that’s where we really started to think about our future - how to travel more but have the money to pay for our adventures.

Having a plan is really half the battle - the other half is sticking to it! But like life, plans change and evolve so be prepared to be a little flexible.

So what did our plan look like in 2008? It was a pretty simple concept, and far from original:

1. Save as much of our income as we could (this is where the budget came into play).

2. Direct those savings into;

   1. paying off the mortgage.

   2. buying shares and reinvesting the dividends.

3. Repeat!

Pretty simple but if I could give you just two points to follow then it would be these:

1. Don’t spend everything you make;

2. Use your savings to purchase appreciating assets.

If you haven't already, check out the ways we've managed to travel more - it might just give you some ideas!

• Working On The Road

• Saving For Travel Part 1 and Part 2

• Saving Money On Foreign Transaction Fees

• The One Thing You Need To Understand About Investing

• Growing Your Travel Funds

• Cheap RV Hire

• Finding Cheap Accommodation

I hope these simple ideas help you achieve your goals quicker. If you have any questions or like to share your ideas, please leave me a comment below!

Mick

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