Let’s Go: Round the World Tickets

Brian Peters of No Debt World Travel has shared with us how he transitioned from Briefcase to Backpack and also offered some great resources in his eBook “No Debt World Travel: The Ultimate Guide to Traveling the World”. He now shares with us the art of booking round-the-world tickets and how you can travel around the world for less than you thought.

One thing that stops people from traveling around the world is the PERCEIVED high price of airfare. Going to 5-10 different locations all on one ticket must be super expensive and only for rich folks who have the last name of Trump or Hilton.

Far from the truth.

A round the world ticket can cost LESS that $2500US. A year of Starbucks or cigarettes can pay for RTW air travel. Really. It all depends on the locations you pick and the times of the year you travel.

There are two options for purchasing a round the world ticket.

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Married with Luggage: Saving Money to Change Their Lives

It’s easy to think that to travel the world you need to spend a lot of money. And the thought of being able to save enough money can seem daunting. But if you really want to realize your dream, you will find ways to make it happen.

That’s what Betsy & Warren Talbot, of Married with Luggage, have done. In two years they have managed to save $100,000 towards their dream travels, enough to live on the road for three years! But it didn’t come easy. Before saving, they recognized the need to get out of the debt they were in. They made radical changes to their lifestyle, including moving across the country, and found creative ways to still have an active social life without breaking the bank.

They share many of the ways they managed to get out of debt AND save in their free eBook, “How we saved enough money to change our lives (and how you can, too!)”

Among the chapters include:
How We Saved Half Our Income in One Year | Creating a Lifestyle to Support Our Dream | Selling Our Possessions | Determine How Much Money You Need | Find out Where Your Money is Going | How to Have Fun on a Tight Budget | Making Money off Your Junk | and Online Tools for Managing Your Money

Betsy shares with us why they decided to take a career break, some more insight on how they saved money, and their plans during and after their travels.

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Let’s Go With No Debt World Travel

If you’ve decided to take a career break or sabbatical, you’ve already faced a big hurdle. And if you are new to long-term and round-the-world travel, trip planning can seem incredibly daunting, especially if you have other things to take care of like leaving your job, leasing your place, packing up your life, and even preparing for your return. (I know – you haven’t even left yet.)

There is a plethora of information on the web for RTW travel, but Brian Peters has made it easier by putting many great resources in one place with “No Debt World Travel: The Ultimate Guide to Traveling the World”.

Brian is a fellow Briefcase to Backpacker and transitioned from working a white-collar 9-5 job to traveling the world. As he says in his e-book “Admittedly I was not such a big travel fan, even up to a few years ago. I was busy living life, mainly working and playing my part in Corporate America. Travel was for people who had money, or had the free time. I had none of these…or so I thought.”

Brian finally set off on his travels after he was laid off from his job, and a lot of what he learned in preparing and during his six months of travel he shares in this e-book.

Some of the areas he covers includes:

• Deciding Where to Go
• Cash and Credit Cards
• Method of Transportation
• Travel Insurance
• Passports and Visas
• Your Health
• Your Safety
• Hostels
• Food
• Travel Tech
• Language

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Let’s Go: Chris Dyer’s Prep Steps

The decision to take a career break and travel is different for everyone, just as the places you go and the activities you experience will be unique as well. But you can learn a lot from how others made the choices they made.

Here Chris Dyer shares with us how he ended up in Changwon, South Korea teaching English after leaving his position as a Brand Manager for a major toy company and selling his house. “I recently decided to give up all of those things to travel the world and experience different cultures. One might call it a “quarter-life crisis”, but I consider my life just beginning. I only have one life and I want to really live it!

Budgeting Money
(Chris originally planned to do a RTW trip for a year)

After researching websites/blogs of people who have completed a round the world trip already, I came to the conclusion that I needed to have $20,000 before I left. I did not live a lavish lifestyle whatsoever, but I still kept a detailed spreadsheet with my debits and credits.

Based off my calculations, I could save approximately $1,000 a month as long as no problems arose. Saving a grand a month equated to $15,000 so I decided to get a second job serving/tending bar at a local pub. This would bring in a few extra hundred dollars a month. A few other money saving opportunities were: less clubbing/drinking (huge savings potential), making my own food at home (my average grocery bill was only $50 a month), cancel my 401k and company stock options, and end frivolous spending in general.

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Let’s Go: Packing Tips

The first and foremost thing to keep in mind when packing is that you can get just about everything you need on the road. Which translates to: don’t worry about forgetting anything. That said, I offer up some other tips to keep in mind.

1. Pack Only What You Can Carry
Say goodbye to your wheelie suitcase and business suits – you’re a backpacker now! Which means you’ll be carrying all of your worldly possessions on your back. You’re living on the go – at a moments notice you can sling that backpack on and be off. And it’s extremely useful if you need to navigate through crowds or running late to catch your next flight.

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Let’s Go: Accessing Money

If you are going to be on a trip for any extended period of time, you will need to consider how you replenish your cash. There are a number of ways to do this, but I have learned (through some tough lessons) what works best.

Cash:

I really don’t recommend traveling with a lot of cash – unless you have a black belt. Not to scare you, as most countries are pretty safe, however, there’s just no reason to be carrying around large amounts of cash. This certainly isn’t feasible if you are on a trip longer than two weeks. If you are carrying cash with you in any amounts, I highly recommend only taking what you need with you as you explore a city. Lock the rest up in your suitcase or in a hotel safe. Trust me, you really can’t outsmart a pickpocket.

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Let’s Go: Budgeting

Budgeting – the fine art of determining how much you have, how long it will last, and how can you stretch it. I come from a business background, and I have managed million dollar budgets for fortune 500 companies, but sitting down to plan my travel budget for a year was quite a task. Somehow it’s easier when you are planning with other people’s money.

There are many different ways to plan a travel budget, and the key is to adjust it as you go and test your assumptions. Before I took off for my 16-month journey I sat down and tried to create a rough budget of what I thought I would spend. The problem was that I had never really traveled long term before, so I had a hard time determining where to start when I didn’t know where I‘d be staying from one day to the next for a whole year.

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