Do You Want to Quit Your Job to Travel?
Quitting your job to travel full-time is often something people only dream about. But, realize that it’s just as possible for you as it is for most other people to leave everything behind for a world travel journey.
You know you’re serious about leaving your job to travel when you have a true, gut instinct to do so. Within every person, regardless of whether you’re a traveler or not, there’s some sort of deeply rooted motivation that shapes our decisions and powers our thoughts through the day.
For some, this spark is playing in a competitive sports league, sculpting, or developing mobile apps. If you’re like me, that inspiration is traveling to as many corners of this earth as possible.
Wanderlust pulls travel lovers like us by the wrist, and it just keeps pulling. We spend every vacation from work and every long weekend planning our next adventure. We dream of the day that we can break away from traditional work culture.
If you have a similar urge to travel, then you’re in the mindset needed to quit your job to travel the world.
Quitting Your Job to Travel is an Investment
For many of us travel junkies, we make excuses for why quitting our job is too difficult. Some people think you need to have a ton of money, a certain career trajectory or you have to be willing to accept an uncertain financial future.
While you’ll surely need to prepare for such a journey, leaving your old job behind is possible. The travels ahead will broaden your horizons more than you know. Think of the time away from work as an investment in yourself.
All the different places you’ll see and the cultures you’ll encounter will also enable you to connect with so many people in the future.
You’ll be able to bond with people over past travel adventures and understand different ways of thinking. While on the road, new friends and connections will open up more paths in life. These will be things that you never even saw coming.
Whether it’s an invitation to stay at a summer home or an entirely new career opportunity, the people you will meet after you quit your job to travel will be huge influences in your life. Plus, to put it simply, you’ll be a heck of a lot more interesting!
How to Quit Your Job & Travel Full-Time
If travel is something you’re passionate enough about that you’ve considered quitting your job for it, then ask yourself a few questions. What is currently stopping you? What is preventing you from making the leap?
Extenuating circumstances aside, it is my fundamental belief we should all strive to work for something we love! Personally, this realization hit me hardest in 2018. That feeling only intensified until I finally quit my job and left New York City for greener pastures.
Here are some essential tips to help you prepare to quit your job to travel. It’ll take serious work and you’ll need to be diligent in keeping your goals on track. But in the end, everything will be worth it.
Prepare a Travel Budget Before Quitting Your Job
Personal finances are everything, and you will firstly need to identify how you’ll initially pay for travel expenses. After, you’ll have to identify how you will sustain yourself in the longer-term.
Starting out, you’re going to need a decent bit of savings to draw from. Airline tickets and hotels don’t come cheaply.
Developing a budget is the best first step for figuring out how much savings you’ll need to accumulate. You can also utilize financial management offers from brands like Empower Finance.
Estimate hotel costs considering the quality of places you’ll want to book. Make a rough guess how often you will fly versus take cheaper modes of transport, and what kind of lifestyle you plan to keep when you’re on the road.
Different areas of the world are obviously cheaper to travel in, which is a big factor for many nomads. Those who have smaller budgets love destinations in Southeast Asia as well as the less-expensive Mediterranean destinations.
Budget for a trip length you could reasonably complete along with the costs to return home. Think about food, transportation, entertainment, personal care, etc. Break it down in fine detail for better accuracy. Don’t forget an emergency fund!
Along your journey, you can update your budget as necessary, taking into account your habits and any potential new sources of income. I’ll talk about these income strategies next.
Identify Future Income While Traveling
World nomads do a variety of things to make money while traveling. Some use up savings and then land in a city where they work temporarily to save more money.
Other travelers work on the go, for either companies or self-owned businesses. With the rise of remote work opportunities, part-time freelance gigs can easily provide sufficient income for continued travel.
You’ll need to get creative here. Think about what skills you already have that would be easy to capitalize on while traveling.
If you don’t want to be beholden to a corporate job, you could derive income from gigs like tutoring, house-sitting while traveling, professional photography, a YouTube video blog, social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, or some other type of part-time consulting.
Making Money with a Travel Blog
Creating a travel blog is one way to make income, but this is something that likely won’t necessarily happen in the short term.
Aside from identifying your niche, buying a domain name and building the actual site, you’ll need a lot of time to perfect your search engine optimization, marketing strategy and continue publishing content, among other tasks.
If you do want to make money from a travel blog, consider building your site prior to quitting your job and traveling. This way, you’ll have time to design your site and build an audience. Doing this on the road may be overwhelming.
Most importantly, stick to the plan for whatever method of income you choose. While it’s totally fine to shelve ideas that aren’t panning out, make sure to give it your all before giving up. Slow and steady does win the race.
Keep Your Mission in Mind
If you’re going to quit your job to travel, you have to keep yourself structured. You’ll need to set goals and hold yourself accountable. It’s important to prevent yourself from giving up when times get tough. Believe me, it definitely happens!
Personally, I provide the global LGBT community with lots of inspiring and helpful travel information they can rely on. My mission is to create authenticity in gay travel and I’ve found my niche by offering information that you won’t find on generic gay travel websites.
Immersing myself in other cultures, gay and straight alike, is fascinating. I have set out to share it in a meaningful and informative way, which led to the creation of wolfyy.
So, don’t forget to keep your own passion on the front burner. Don’t let everyday issues sidetrack you from your goals, however big or small. When you quit your job to travel, you’re investing in yourself. You owe it to yourself to fulfill the most enriching experience possible.
My Mission with wolfyy
I’d like to briefly share with you what wolfyy is all about. Focused on authentic gay travel, wolfyy continues to be a guide for LGBTQ individuals and allies alike who love travel as much as I do.
I distill the essential gay travel information for every city I visit while covering lesser-known destinations, events, accommodations, and nightlife I experience along the way. Read more about wolfyy.
If you’re thinking that you’d like to quit your job to travel the world, here are 9 Ted Talks that will inspire you to leave your job behind and turn travel into your career.
See wolfyy’s travel resources page for booking discounts and recommended partner sites.
