HOW TO TRAVEL LONG-TERM
For over a year now, I’ve been travelling around and I’ve managed to reduce the amount of money I’ve spent in a few different ways that I thought I’d share.
Workaway is a site where people post different types of volunteering opportunities. Most of them entail getting food and broad in exchange for an agreed-upon amount of working hours, there are some that offer wages and some where you need to contribute towards the costs, but that is the most usual arrangement I’ve seen. The type of opportunities is quite vast, ranging from babysitting to animal sanctuaries to chocolate making and carpentry, all around the world. Some require experience but most just look for enthusiasm. I have only done one Workaway but it has definitely changed my life. I met some great people (and lambs) and ended up staying there for 6 months.
Click here to see how I spent my Saturdays while I was there!
WOOFing is similar to Workaway, except it’s just agricultural positions. I felt more drawn to Workaway because the fee covers you for worldwide opportunities, whereas you have to pay a fee per country with WOOFing, so I don’t have personal experience of the sites. However if you want to stay within one country and you’re interested in agriculture, this is a great way to go.
This is the site I’m currently using to find places to stay. I signed up in November, and got a sit on the Greek island Samos for 2 months starting in December. I also have a sit lined up for 3 weeks in Amsterdam when this one finishes, so it is working very well for us. When we signed up, we applied for maybe 10 places because we didn’t know how difficult it would be, but it seems to have worked out well for us. We have gotten a good few rejections but we’re very happy with the ones we’ve gotten so far. I think at the beginning you need to be a bit flexible while you build up reviews.
Online work
Having some work you can do online is really the best way to extend your travelling time, and has become more and more popular, often being referred to as being a digital nomad. This can look very different for different people, for example, you may choose to not use the sites above, pay for accommodation and work full time. However, there is also the option of working a few hours while using the sites above, making enough to cover food and transport costs. This is the route I’ve gone. I had a huge chunk of savings from working full time before I started travelling full-time that I’ve utilised, however I’ve also tried to top up my savings by doing some freelance proofreading (using a site called Proofessor), but there are lots of options out there if you looks for work online.
While I was doing a workaway in North Wales in early 2019, I ended up working on a project with a couple other people and in September of last year, we got a £15k grant. Thankfully I’ve been able to do that work remotely and continue to travel. Click here to learn more about that journey!
There are many different ways to travel, and so much of it depends on the person. These are just a few suggestions, most of which I have personal experience of doing. But there are other options, van life, working on cruise ships, volunteering with different organisations etc. My main advice would be to save up some money and be open to whatever opportunities come your way.