To wonder how people afford to travel the world?

[chatterbug22]

I’m 20, partner is 23. No DC yet but a consideration within the next several years, as a personal choice I would rather be done in 20s if at all possible.

We both have good jobs and our first home together, we’ve chosen to rent under one of the government schemes with the idea of buying our house at the end of a time period. We get a hefty discount to enable us to save for a deposit on the house however we won’t necessarily buy it as it’s a 2 bed and in time we’ll need more space. Redeeming quality is that it’s way cheaper than extortionate private rent, does not tie us in and enables us to save for a house deposit - whichever house that we choose.

I only just turned 18 when COVID started kicking off hence haven’t had the chance to experience youth and travel, etc. It is something me and my partner both want to do but despite our good, full time jobs, I can’t foresee how we will manage to do this yet also save for a house? I am on a healthy salary for my age and so is my OH with overtime. We are in the north so not having London prices. I don’t know how others get on. I made the mistake of joining a Facebook group for people who travel and seriously can’t comprehend how people leave or quit their jobs for 3-6 months and just go round the world? Where does the money come from? How do you sustain yourself out there? I do appreciate the people in those kinds of groups probably represent an extremely small margin of society but all the same, it leaves me wondering if I’m boring or if they’re out of touch with reality

It’s so hard to know whether to put savings for a house first, or trust that income will go up once we have fully progressed in careers and not to worry about that right now.

I would love to just spontaneously book Bali but also, responsibilities!

Thoughts?

I had three jobs and saved up for a round the world ticket, went twice before settling down and get married

can’t comprehend how people leave or quit their jobs for 3-6 months and just go round the world?

you can get another job, but you can't get your youth back once its gone.

I saved for a year (literally every single penny) and went travelling for 7 months - I spent about 6k so much less than I expected to spend (but this was 2013).

Came home, rented a cheap place and we saved up again to buy our home. I was 26 when we bought our home.

I'd prioritise seeing the world personally!

Save up enough for air fare and a few hundred spare. Go somewhere where backpacker casual work is plentiful - preferably with accommodation provided. Eat very cheaply. Save earnings. Go to Cambodia or India to find yourself, eat street food (very very cheap) and sleep on beaches.

They put it all on credit cards?

Same as your saving for a house, some people save to travel. Then they stay in cheap accommodation in countries where their money goes a lot further.

Different priorities i guess . DH & I have certainly ticked off a lot of the places we want to go to but we havent had the luxury of taking 6 months off work, we balanced it between paying the mortgage and saving every penny towards travelling - and its taken us several years!
You and you DP are still so young, dont tie up every penny into your house, you both need to enjoy life aswell 😁

You’re far too young to be saving to buy a house! Save to go travelling. Presume you’ve not hind your uni, people often go in uni holidays.

I worked on cruise ships for several years so travelled the world for free

A 20 year old saying “responsibilities” is like WTF for me. You’ve got your entire life for mortgages, pensions and babies. Don’t be in a big hurry to rush into that because it all changes once you have kids etc. I’d set aside x number of years to explore some of the more out of the way places before TTC. You can still obviously travel once children arrive it’s just a bit more of a logistical operation and expensive ( particularly when you’re tied to school holidays ). Our friends who have travelled to very far flung places both with and without their DD prioritise travelling above things like clothes etc. They travel in places which are cheap once you are there like India rather than holidays like skiing. They’ve converted a van into a camper and will drive to most European destinations / Scotland rather than flying. They spend a lot of time researching good deals.

Had a decent job. I love travelling tho and it was a priority to me

I worked all the hours God gave me. Offices, restaurants, etc.

Brought up a child as a solo parent,

He's sorted, so am I. Travelling the world now. You just have to save up every penny you get and go for it. Even if it takes to your 60's

It’s incredibly cheap in other parts of the world, homestays and cheap b and bs are $20/n in SEA and night sleeper trains for $10 will save you a nights hotel stay. Flights are cheap too, from country to country.

It’s not actually that expensive, if you’re going for 3-6 months you don’t live like you’re on a 2 week holiday with 2k to spend it’s more like day to day living on supermarket food and cheap local transport.

I saved all my student loans (three years worth, invested it) then travelled for a year working a bit along the way. This was late nineties/ early noughties though when savings actually provided a reasonable return

Depends what you mean by travel the world

You can go to some very cheap places and rough it for not very much money at all. If you mean staying in nice hotels and getting that Instagram Dubai vibe then fuck knows how people afford that

Also you aren’t staying in hotels! It’s huts/ hostels / house shares (even room share when I was in Sydney, three of us), cheap food.

My husband and myself have worked seasonal travel jobs (separately before we met). I left my office jobs for a ski season in France with £200 and then rolled on seasonal work from there. There’s also work always which cover food and board all around the world. More challenging now to work in Europe unfortunately.

Plenty of people I’ve worked with have works on yachts, yoga camps in Morocco, eco lodges in NZ.

Now we’re self employed so work lots of hours and then take 4-6 weeks off a few times a year to travel with our toddler. My husband works mad hours 6 days a week for months on end but it’s all worth it as travel is our passion.

Definitely use your early twenties for exploration and fun!

Get some buy to let properties. We are on 29 (albeit over a 10 year period) and I am 30. The rent comes in each month and we are able to travel and not worry about much.

But it started with again me being young and on a good wage. As was DH who had a head start as he's a few years older.

Life changing, really.

Bali really isn't as lovely as all that. Give it a miss.

You used to be able to buy a round the world plane ticket for about £2,000 with One World Alliance. We did it and took 17 different flights in 7 months travelling. Worked like a charm.

I didn’t travel the world. I went to Australia for a couple of months. Early twenties. Didn’t do uni and had been working from 16 and moved out at 19. I moved into my dads for a bit, I saved previously very little but it was cheaper in 2004. I did everything on the cheap hostels, luggage, clothes etc. Australia was cheaper then too. I also used my credit card bearer the end to pay for some amazing activities/trips and even though I was in debt I don’t regret it at 43. Buying a house wasn’t important to me then but I had some fab holidays and life experiences.

Twenty years later I have the house, no debt but mortgage and a steady job/ NHS vocation, oh and an awesome long term relationship but had an amazing twenties! But that was my path.

I travelled mainly with work (taught English) and volunteered on scheme in South America
Also Oz but stayed in youth hostels aged 33 in my summer holidays - teacher.

Could not travel extensively but have been to Russia (holiday) and lots of European cities. Always go out of season and stay in cheaper accomodation

@SafelySoftly

You’re far too young to be saving to buy a house! Save to go travelling. Presume you’ve not hind your uni, people often go in uni holidays.

On a different thread the o would get grief for not already owning a house and having an amazing pension with savings too

I saved for a good 7-8months! I worked two jobs! I think I had 4k!! I lived at home for those months as I had just finished college. My parents paid for my first ticket to oz, they gave me 1k also (21st bday gift!) and the rest was up to me. I worked in oz! Travelled in my time off. Then I went to South America from there. I had a credit card for emergencies.

We did a 3 month honeymoon travelling across Asia, and spent what people can spend on a luxury 2-3 week trip to somewhere like the Maldives. Some costs are ofset by saving on UK cost of living e.g. reduced fuel consumption, buying food at local prices. An advantage of a big trip over repeated holidays is that you're not paying for lots of long-haul flights from the UK. Being fairly spontaneous and booking as you go at the destination is massively cheaper than pre-arranging at UK prices.

Admittedly this was 10-15 years ago and at 28/38 we were already financially secure. While we had a full wedding, we did it quite economically and as a wedding & honeymoon combined, spent the average of the time.

DH got a sabbatical off work arranged with a couple of years notice and at a natural break point. I did supply teaching.

There are different ways of travelling too. Many doing longer trips such as gap years pause and work for a while along the way.
Travelling gradually by continent is a common approach rather than "travelling the world" in one fell swoop.