The view of the towers at Torres del Paine in Chile was one of my favorite moments from my travels last year.
The great paradox of life is the relationship between time and money. An abundance of one usually leads to a shortage of the other.
I’ve talked about money in previous posts – saving for travel, eliminating your bills and Travel Banking 101. I’ve also written about the REAL cost of travel, where I broke down the entire cost of my seven-month Latin America adventure.
Now, let’s chat about TIME. Whether you want to carve out two weeks to road trip to Yellowstone or a year to explore Asia, here are a few ways to find the time:
Make the Time
My non-stop traveling has nothing to do with luck. I travel constantly because I MAKE the time. If I want to do something, I do it. It might take months or years. Regardless, I make it happen. The idea to travel long-term in South America crept into my brain in India. After a year and a half of relentless planning and saving, my bags were packed. During my trip, I met other travelers who carved time for travel into their lives like the 68-year-old solo Traveling Granny and Rob and Cath McGuinness, who traveled around the world with their teenage daughters for almost a year!
Michelle Sinclair organizes her work schedule around her travels to take advantage of low season prices in places like Iceland.
After graduate school, I quickly realized my $10/hour internship was not enough to live on. I promptly found a bar job—a job I truly loved that also helped fund my travels for a good five years. The best part of working in the bar world was the amazing people I met like my friend Michelle. She’s a bartender in Birmingham, Alabama who arranges her entire life around her travels. After a cost-value analysis, she realized that she made 80% of her income on Thursday through Saturday nights. She only works those nights to allow her to spend the rest of the week in Iceland, Europe or hiking Zion. While she is limited to shorter trips, it allows her to both keep her job, which provides a really good income, and still travel.
Negotiate the Time/Work Remotely
Never underestimate the power of strong negotiating skills. The biggest secret to budget travel is to take advantage of business trips. Tack on a few days to the beginning or end of every trip to explore nearby places. Since your initial transport is covered, your expenses drop tremendously.
My friend Steve negotiated an extra long vacation for 2014 World Cup. Left: Buenos Aires, Argentina. Right: Rio, Brazil.
Sometimes, a few days isn’t enough time. My British friend, Steve, was determined to go to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil and travel in South America. Since he was living in Australia on a work visa sponsored by his commercial real estate job, quitting wasn’t an option. Instead, he went to his boss a year in advance and asked for two months off work, which is double his normal vacation time. In exchange, he offered to take on extra work projects beforehand. Guess what? His boss said yes!
Let’s be honest – the world is transitioning to a remote workforce. Many jobs already allow employees to work from home one day a week or even more. Why can’t you transition one day a week to weeks or months? Here’s a few great resources: Remote Year, a program that allows professionals to live in a different city each month and still KEEP their jobs. AFAR also has a great article on ways to find great co-working spaces.
Whether you want four weeks to go on tour with your band, three weeks to go to Italy for your anniversary or to work remotely from Australia for a year, there is a way to make it happen. The trick to negotiating is timing, tack and planning. The odds are that if you go to your boss in advance with your plan and have solutions for all possible objections, then you can find a way to make it happen.
Take Advantage of Time Gaps
In between travels, I teach part-time at Texas State University and spend one class period each semester stressing the importance of travel to my students and how to travel on a budget. After all, there’s no better time to travel than summer breaks and after graduation!
The Lacksen sister’s are a year apart in age but still managed to coordinate their long-term graduation trip together.
On a bus in Patagonia last February, I met two sisters from Georgia – Katherine and Elizabeth Lacksen. They planned an epic joint-graduation trip after college: six months in Latin America. The idea started brewing long before they booked their flights. When Elizabeth graduated six months early, they jumped at the chance to travel together and packed their bags. (Read my Travel Tuesday Interview with the Lacksen sisters!)
Aside from graduation, I’ve met people who took advantage of other gaps of time (ranging from weeks to months) to travel when they changed jobs. I met other folks who got laid-off from their jobs and decided to use the abundance of time they were given to travel. It’s the best way to turn a negative situation into a positive one!
When I lived in Australia, I spent a month traveling around the country and spent a few days on Kangaroo Island southwest of Adelaide.
Quit Your Job
I remember sitting in a conference room with my sweaty palms. It was 2008. My resignation letter was neatly folded in my purse. I was quitting my first “real” job to travel.
After I told my editor about my plans to move to Australia, he instantly said he was jealous. That’s right – my boss was JEALOUS!
I had daydreamed about Australia for almost a year. But, my career took off and paused my dream. As the economy started sink, Australia creeped back in to my head. Recessions aren’t good for freelance photographers. I knew had to go. That 13-month trip changed everything. In hindsight, the recession was a cleverly disguised opportunity to start living my daydreams and travel for a living.
My seven-month Latin America trip last year was equally life altering. That trip put me on the radar of some big magazines that I spent years trying to get my foot in the door. The more you do the things you love, the more the world starts to notice.
Was it scary to quit? Yes. Do I regret a single minute? Nope. I have been hired back (in some capacity) by every single job I have ever quit to travel!
The best part is that I am NOT the only one who’s ever quit their job to travel. Everywhere I go, I cross paths with other travelers of all nationalities that did exactly the same.
Martia and Matt quit their jobs to travel for an entire year and stopped in Puerto Varas, Chile to go canyoning.
At a hostel in Argentina, I bumped into an Australia couple (a lawyer and teacher) who quit their jobs to do a year-long around-the-world trip. (We ended up traveling together for almost a month in Bolivia!) When Marita quit her teaching job that she loved, her boss instantly offered to give her a one-year sabbatical so she didn’t have to quit! (Check out my Travel Tuesday Interview with Marita and Matt!)
On a local bus in Peru, I met a 27-year-old guy from Denver who quit his high-paying sales job at a start-up to travel for several months. He did the same thing a few years before to travel in Europe. The best part is that it didn’t hurt his career. He’s now working in the same field for his dream company!
Let’s be clear. Finding the time to travel might not be easy. Nothing worthwhile will ever be easy. There will be sacrifice, but it is always worth it. When you’re 80, you’ll NEVER say, “Man, I totally regret that year I spent traveling around Australia.”
You no longer have any excuses. Make the time, book a flight and go make me proud! 🙂
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COMING UP:
TRAVEL TUESDAY INTERVIEW: Globetrotting Lacksen Sisters
In the next Travel Tuesday Interview, I talk with Elizabeth and Katherine Lacksen. The two sisters coordinated their college graduation trips together and spent six months traveling in Latin America!
