Kristy Shen and Bryce Leung are living the dream. The husband-and-spouse crew at the back of the FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) blog Millennial Revolution retired at the ripe younger age of 31 and tour the sector full-time. They’re spilling the secrets and techniques to their no-agree with-fund-required technique to the FIRE motion in a brand new book, Quit Like a Millionaire: No Gimmicks, Luck, or Trust Fund Required. Here, they percentage an excerpt from the e-book wherein Shen recounts the instant she found out they have been actually *saving* money with the aid of traveling.
Related: How to Save Enough Money to Actually Retire in Your 30s
Traveling is high-priced. That’s just common know-how, proper?
Turns out, now not necessarily. Because after setting off on a year-lengthy ride around the world in 2015, I found that journeying, if accomplished successfully, can be the same or even much less luxurious than staying at domestic.
As a toddler residing on 44 cents a day with my parents in rural China, if you had told me I’d cross from digging for toys on the pinnacle of a clinical waste heap to the pinnacle of the Swiss Alps, I’d have said you have been nuts.
But standing on Fürenalp in Engelberg, gawking on the snow-capped mountains, the obscenely inexperienced grass, and the adorably mooing cows, I realized my dreams had been coming authentic. I felt like I was on top of the world—which I guess I type of changed into.
I didn’t think anything could pinnacle trekking within the Alps, but the life-changing experiences simply stored piling up. I scaled the cliffs of Santorini even as watching on the impossibly blue Aegean Sea. I biked along the canals of Amsterdam. I breathed inside the salty odor of the sea in Howth and skilled culinary heaven in the form of Kobe pork in Osaka. I steamed away a decade of strain in a Seoul bathhouse, and I received my PADI scuba certification in Koh Tao, after conquering my debilitating fear of water.
Related: 10 Top Travel Influencers Share Their Best Tips to Beat Jet Lag
In short, I fell in love with tour. So, it became with a first rate deal of trepidation that I boarded a flight again domestic with my husband, Bryce, after our year of touring the world.
Lying in my old bed, I felt like a fowl in a cage, watching the sky. I tossed and turned from the jet lag. Then I took out my laptop, wherein I had cataloged every greenback, euro, and yen spent on our journey. I tapped away quietly, trying now not to wake Bryce as I added everything up.
“Holy shit,” I said too loudly.
“What?” Bryce mumbled. “Something incorrect?”
I pointed on the screen, at our total: $40,a hundred and fifty. We had controlled to journey the sector for the identical value as staying in at home in North America. But not simplest that, whilst we retired at the age of 31, $40,000 became how a great deal we calculated we may want to sustainably withdraw every yr from our retirement portfolio for the relaxation of our lives.
Let that sink in. We had visited twenty international locations on three continents, and it cost as a whole lot as staying in one place.
Bryce became wide wide awake all of a sudden. The gears were turning in his head, simply as they were in mine.
“You realize what this means, don’t you?” he requested.
I nodded. I knew. We could tour the arena—for all time.
Related: 10 Ways to Save Big on Travel and Vacations
Traveling isn’t expensive. Or as a minimum, it doesn’t must be. By splitting the 12 months between high priced areas (like the UK, Western Europe, and Japan) and less expensive ones (like Southeast Asia), our each day costs averaged handiest $55 in line with person in line with day.
We stayed in Airbnbs and resorts, from time to time going out to eat, occasionally cooking. We even managed to sneak in splurges like sparkling oysters and lobsters in Boston, a four-day scuba-diving certification path in Thailand ($250 USD consistent with person, resorts blanketed), scuba diving in Cambodia ($eighty USD according to person for 2 dives), trekking in the Swiss Alps ($87 USD in step with man or woman), and Kobe beef ($48 USD consistent with character) in Japan!
We saved charges affordable with the aid of including Southeast Asia to our itinerary. Not most effective does it have great climate, it has exceptional expenses too. In Chiang Mai, Thailand, for example, we rented a emblem-new one-bedroom rental with health club, sauna, and pool. It fee $470 in keeping with month. A plate of chook pad thai? $1.25. And an hour-lengthy oil massage? $10, tip blanketed.
So in case you’re making plans to travel and discover it tough to balance your price range, add Southeast Asia into the mixture. The more time you spend there, the less hazard you’ll destroy your price range. You could do the identical element with different decrease-value places, like Mexico, Central America, South America, Eastern Europe, or Portugal.
Since we retired in our 30s, we’ve been travelling constantly for 4 years now. Not simplest did we not use up our retirement portfolio, our net worth has long gone up over time—due to how a whole lot money traveling has saved us.
“Hey, do you want to head for tapas?” Bryce requested, sitting up in bed.
“Hell yeah!” I stated as I booked our flights to Spain.
