1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,880 Welcome back to the Ameropean at Heart podcast, where we dive deep into sharing everything, 2 00:00:05,880 --> 00:00:13,100 crazy travel stories, dating adventures, culture, fusions, and plenty of takeaways to entertain 3 00:00:13,100 --> 00:00:22,020 and feed your inner curiosity and travel bug. 4 00:00:22,020 --> 00:00:28,380 As I always say these days to open up good morning, afternoon or evening, wherever you 5 00:00:28,380 --> 00:00:30,480 are as you're listening to this. 6 00:00:30,480 --> 00:00:34,160 Thank you so much for tuning in on another beautiful day. 7 00:00:34,160 --> 00:00:39,160 In case you're new here, my name is Mary Grace and I am the host of this show. 8 00:00:39,160 --> 00:00:44,420 I spent the majority of my twenties and then some living abroad predominantly in Europe 9 00:00:44,420 --> 00:00:48,720 and Turkey and have traveled to now 45 countries. 10 00:00:48,720 --> 00:00:55,120 I'm really excited to get into speaking more details today about this big money question 11 00:00:55,120 --> 00:00:58,640 that I have personally gotten throughout my twenties. 12 00:00:58,640 --> 00:01:02,240 How do you travel so much, Mary Grace? 13 00:01:02,240 --> 00:01:09,520 I'll go ahead and tell you off the bat in 2024 as I record this, I'm not in the same 14 00:01:09,520 --> 00:01:16,980 kind of flexible, fortunate position that I was a few years ago to be able to travel 15 00:01:16,980 --> 00:01:22,760 as much as I'm sure some of you have seen through my Instagram pictures, podcast, travel 16 00:01:22,760 --> 00:01:25,040 story reels and more. 17 00:01:25,040 --> 00:01:31,200 There's a whole other story and background behind how I gradually got more and more away 18 00:01:31,200 --> 00:01:35,040 from the digital nomad lifestyle and being abroad all the time. 19 00:01:35,040 --> 00:01:37,280 But we'll save that for another episode. 20 00:01:37,280 --> 00:01:44,440 I will say, however, that even though I'm not as flexible as I used to be, I still plan 21 00:01:44,440 --> 00:01:48,560 accordingly and make the most of the travel plans that I can. 22 00:01:48,560 --> 00:01:51,960 And I'll be sharing with you today how I do that. 23 00:01:51,960 --> 00:01:57,800 Before I get too deep into other rabbit holes, let's go ahead and shift gears and talk about 24 00:01:57,800 --> 00:02:05,760 how traveling so much is absolutely possible for all of us with the right mindset, planning 25 00:02:05,760 --> 00:02:07,140 and priorities. 26 00:02:07,140 --> 00:02:13,640 I hope that you can take away some new ideas today from this very detailed, comprehensive 27 00:02:13,640 --> 00:02:19,640 episode and apply them to your own life and travels. 28 00:02:19,640 --> 00:02:24,800 Starting from the time that I was about 17 or 18 years old, right at the end of high 29 00:02:24,800 --> 00:02:31,640 school, I knew already that I wanted to spend my time after university somewhere abroad 30 00:02:31,640 --> 00:02:33,720 and for a longer period of time. 31 00:02:33,720 --> 00:02:41,240 I had even chosen my university, the University of Georgia, not only for the academic credentials, 32 00:02:41,240 --> 00:02:46,160 but also because of the number of study abroad programs that it offered. 33 00:02:46,160 --> 00:02:49,240 Therefore, the opportunity to go abroad. 34 00:02:49,240 --> 00:02:53,240 I wanted to find whatever chance I could to go to Europe. 35 00:02:53,240 --> 00:02:59,280 I went on a trip to Europe for the very first time in my life in summer of 2014 with my 36 00:02:59,280 --> 00:03:02,000 dad as a high school graduation present. 37 00:03:02,000 --> 00:03:08,200 I had the incredible and really fun opportunity to visit and stay with one of my online pen 38 00:03:08,200 --> 00:03:12,000 pals at her beautiful house in Provence, France. 39 00:03:12,000 --> 00:03:18,360 Also, in addition to that, meet a couple of my Belgian pen pal friends in Belgium when 40 00:03:18,360 --> 00:03:20,140 we were in Antwerp. 41 00:03:20,140 --> 00:03:23,120 That trip changed my life. 42 00:03:23,120 --> 00:03:29,200 My mindset from this younger age and experience set the motivation and plan for me to find 43 00:03:29,200 --> 00:03:33,240 some sort of means to get abroad and stay there. 44 00:03:33,240 --> 00:03:35,160 And I was going to make that happen. 45 00:03:35,160 --> 00:03:41,620 Fast forward a couple of years to 2016 and I had my first opportunity to live abroad 46 00:03:41,620 --> 00:03:46,360 on a study abroad exchange for a semester in Southern France. 47 00:03:46,360 --> 00:03:52,920 That time to this day is still one of the most bittersweet and most memorable times 48 00:03:52,920 --> 00:03:56,000 of my whole life and I often miss it. 49 00:03:56,000 --> 00:04:01,320 I made it a priority to travel a lot that semester. 50 00:04:01,320 --> 00:04:05,920 Like almost every single weekend I was going somewhere. 51 00:04:05,920 --> 00:04:13,000 Now, I know you must be thinking as you hear this, but Mary Grace, how did you do it? 52 00:04:13,000 --> 00:04:18,180 How did you have the money to be able to travel every single weekend like that? 53 00:04:18,180 --> 00:04:22,920 You were a student and you know, students are pretty broke. 54 00:04:22,920 --> 00:04:28,640 Here's the first little deeper dive into those questions you've probably got circling around 55 00:04:28,640 --> 00:04:30,600 and around in your head right now. 56 00:04:30,600 --> 00:04:38,060 Yes, I was a student and no, I was not rich by any stretch of the imagination. 57 00:04:38,060 --> 00:04:44,200 What I did to be able to travel almost every single weekend during that time I studied 58 00:04:44,200 --> 00:04:51,720 in France was I used my savings that I had accumulated from working as a waitress at 59 00:04:51,720 --> 00:04:58,240 a pancake breakfast restaurant the summer prior to going to France and also even months 60 00:04:58,240 --> 00:04:59,600 before that. 61 00:04:59,600 --> 00:05:06,320 I can't even tell you how little savings I probably really had. 62 00:05:06,320 --> 00:05:11,560 Only a few thousand US dollars at most at the time. 63 00:05:11,560 --> 00:05:17,680 So all of the money that I used for traveling outside of France on weekends was my own. 64 00:05:17,680 --> 00:05:19,440 My parents didn't pay for it. 65 00:05:19,440 --> 00:05:21,400 My grandparents didn't pay for it. 66 00:05:21,400 --> 00:05:24,240 No one in my family paid for it. 67 00:05:24,240 --> 00:05:30,160 That travel money was very much my own money, albeit very little. 68 00:05:30,160 --> 00:05:37,080 What I will say and be transparent about though is that I did indirectly have financial help 69 00:05:37,080 --> 00:05:42,880 from two different sources for other bigger expenses during my student time that did make 70 00:05:42,880 --> 00:05:47,240 it possible and easier for me to travel as a student. 71 00:05:47,240 --> 00:05:55,080 The first of those two sources was student debt and loans for my study abroad program 72 00:05:55,080 --> 00:05:57,340 and staying in a homestay. 73 00:05:57,340 --> 00:06:00,440 If you're American and listening to this, you get me. 74 00:06:00,440 --> 00:06:07,440 And the second source was my parents and grandparents for helping me continue to cover my small 75 00:06:07,440 --> 00:06:14,800 apartment rent back in Georgia at the time, which was about 400 US dollars a month. 76 00:06:14,800 --> 00:06:21,080 Unthinkable for Americans and most Europeans, I believe, in this day and age. 77 00:06:21,080 --> 00:06:27,320 I also didn't have a car payment or car insurance because my parents had gotten me a used car 78 00:06:27,320 --> 00:06:31,960 to use at school and were paying the insurance on that. 79 00:06:31,960 --> 00:06:38,680 Another luxury that I really understand many people as students don't just have. 80 00:06:38,680 --> 00:06:45,320 In that sense, being completely transparent again, I did cut corners indirectly like this 81 00:06:45,320 --> 00:06:50,480 by having my family and student debt chip in a good bit to make it possible for me to 82 00:06:50,480 --> 00:06:52,920 go somewhere every weekend. 83 00:06:52,920 --> 00:06:59,520 But even then, I bet some of you are still thinking, but Mary Grace, even with just a 84 00:06:59,520 --> 00:07:05,920 few thousand dollars, you can blow through that so quickly as a student. 85 00:07:05,920 --> 00:07:10,720 How do you still make traveling that frequently happen? 86 00:07:10,720 --> 00:07:12,640 Cost add up. 87 00:07:12,640 --> 00:07:18,540 Unlike in the US, and maybe I'm wrong about this, but this is what I understand. 88 00:07:18,540 --> 00:07:24,600 In Europe, I think the traveling on a budget is much easier and more organized than it 89 00:07:24,600 --> 00:07:25,880 is in America. 90 00:07:25,880 --> 00:07:33,760 It is much easier to keep your costs down and cut corners by taking cheap Flix buses, 91 00:07:33,760 --> 00:07:40,380 Ryanair flights, blah blah cars, trains, a bigger quantity of hostels being available 92 00:07:40,380 --> 00:07:43,640 and taking free city tours around. 93 00:07:43,640 --> 00:07:51,320 The US is getting a little bit better as time goes on about these things, but I think it 94 00:07:51,320 --> 00:07:58,860 still has a long way to go before it comes even remotely close to having a similar sort 95 00:07:58,860 --> 00:08:05,160 of travel infrastructure that European countries have simply because of the vast size of the 96 00:08:05,160 --> 00:08:07,520 American continent. 97 00:08:07,520 --> 00:08:12,520 Europe's budget travel infrastructure and having cheaper means of transportation and 98 00:08:12,520 --> 00:08:19,440 options made half of the expense struggle bus easier for me to navigate around as a 99 00:08:19,440 --> 00:08:20,440 student. 100 00:08:20,440 --> 00:08:26,880 But I also will say that I was fortunate in another sense that I don't think many people 101 00:08:26,880 --> 00:08:30,840 necessarily had at the time that I was a student. 102 00:08:30,840 --> 00:08:37,480 And that was having made online pen pal friends in different European countries before actually 103 00:08:37,480 --> 00:08:38,760 traveling there. 104 00:08:38,760 --> 00:08:45,980 I often would cut costs by making plans with a friend I met virtually from another country 105 00:08:45,980 --> 00:08:51,500 and a lot of the time they had a place that I could crash at and we would see their city 106 00:08:51,500 --> 00:08:54,360 or take day trips together. 107 00:08:54,360 --> 00:09:00,960 Now I know some of you, especially if you're a little older than I am, may be thinking 108 00:09:00,960 --> 00:09:04,340 that this seems so sketchy and unsafe. 109 00:09:04,340 --> 00:09:09,320 How do you know that this isn't like a serial killer behind the screen before you take the 110 00:09:09,320 --> 00:09:14,640 chance and travel all the way to another country and stay with them? 111 00:09:14,640 --> 00:09:20,760 I know there are horror stories out there of catfishers and that sort of thing online. 112 00:09:20,760 --> 00:09:26,440 And with all the crazy travel stories that I have, I luckily have never had a catfish 113 00:09:26,440 --> 00:09:29,240 unfortunate experience before. 114 00:09:29,240 --> 00:09:33,540 I always met who I saw and believed in online. 115 00:09:33,540 --> 00:09:41,280 With the beauty of Snapchat, FaceTime, social media, WhatsApp, and other apps, it's easier 116 00:09:41,280 --> 00:09:48,280 for us younger people to more easily discern and validate, so to speak, people. 117 00:09:48,280 --> 00:09:53,160 And I always had a good gut instinct about who I was talking to. 118 00:09:53,160 --> 00:09:59,240 Clearly that instinct served me well in this case and I capitalized on connecting and essentially 119 00:09:59,240 --> 00:10:03,160 networking with these online friends in other countries. 120 00:10:03,160 --> 00:10:08,980 Navigating their cities and countries together with them also saved on costs because they 121 00:10:08,980 --> 00:10:14,560 would take the local routes and we wouldn't be paying an arm and a leg for tourist food 122 00:10:14,560 --> 00:10:16,820 traps or attractions. 123 00:10:16,820 --> 00:10:18,760 That helps a ton. 124 00:10:18,760 --> 00:10:25,160 The main website I used to find these people, if you're wondering, is called InterPals. 125 00:10:25,160 --> 00:10:31,980 I think it's interpals.com or it may be interpals.net. 126 00:10:31,980 --> 00:10:36,960 You can Google that to find what it really is and it was free for me to use. 127 00:10:36,960 --> 00:10:43,460 I would personally recommend it as a starting source in befriending locals in other countries 128 00:10:43,460 --> 00:10:45,120 if you're interested. 129 00:10:45,120 --> 00:10:51,020 Or if you don't want to do that, then you should consider using Couchsurfing, another 130 00:10:51,020 --> 00:10:55,480 website or Meetup, the social meeting up with people app. 131 00:10:55,480 --> 00:10:58,760 I think there's also Facebook groups too that you can join. 132 00:10:58,760 --> 00:11:04,560 So that was how I finagled my way through travel in my student days. 133 00:11:04,560 --> 00:11:09,280 I would use my savings that I would get from my part-time job as a waitress. 134 00:11:09,280 --> 00:11:15,840 My family helped pay for big expenses like my apartment, car and car insurance, and I 135 00:11:15,840 --> 00:11:20,860 accumulated student debt to pay for huge school expenses. 136 00:11:20,860 --> 00:11:27,560 In addition, I would use my online virtual friend connections to my advantage by visiting 137 00:11:27,560 --> 00:11:33,420 them in their countries in Europe, staying with them and choosing the cheaper transportation 138 00:11:33,420 --> 00:11:40,120 options, like 15 euro one-way flights with Ryanair or 20 euro Flixbus rides that took 139 00:11:40,120 --> 00:11:42,520 like half a day to get somewhere. 140 00:11:42,520 --> 00:11:48,200 But it worked perfectly for that chapter of my life as a student. 141 00:11:48,200 --> 00:11:52,880 Now we're transitioning and we're going to get into the more prolonged chapter of my 142 00:11:52,880 --> 00:11:59,740 post-university and majority of my 20s traveling time, which I'm sure you may also be curious 143 00:11:59,740 --> 00:12:02,880 about since this doesn't involve school. 144 00:12:02,880 --> 00:12:09,360 Mary Grace, how did you travel so much after school and for as long as you did? 145 00:12:09,360 --> 00:12:16,040 So here's the next deeper dive into how I was able to do travel so much and live abroad 146 00:12:16,040 --> 00:12:19,880 as someone in their early and up to mid 20s. 147 00:12:19,880 --> 00:12:26,000 The first leg of this involved me getting a temporary eight month work program opportunity 148 00:12:26,000 --> 00:12:32,300 and visa in the north of France as an English as a second language teacher, which I jumped 149 00:12:32,300 --> 00:12:39,440 on and made the most of right after I graduated from the University of Georgia. 150 00:12:39,440 --> 00:12:46,860 I lived in this semi dorm semi apartment set up at a boarding school with one other American 151 00:12:46,860 --> 00:12:51,840 girl on my floor who was also in this same program as me. 152 00:12:51,840 --> 00:13:00,320 We both made about 750 euros per month at the time after tax and that fun stuff, which 153 00:13:00,320 --> 00:13:07,600 I can't remember what the exact US dollar conversion was back then, but I'm guesstimating 154 00:13:07,600 --> 00:13:13,280 that it was about 860 US dollars a month. 155 00:13:13,280 --> 00:13:15,920 Doesn't sound like a whole lot, right? 156 00:13:15,920 --> 00:13:21,800 Here we are kind of on a student salary again, but this was actually a really manageable 157 00:13:21,800 --> 00:13:24,640 salary to work with at the time. 158 00:13:24,640 --> 00:13:31,720 Given that we paid so little to stay in our little boarding school hall, which I swear, 159 00:13:31,720 --> 00:13:37,860 I think it was like 50 euros a month or something like that to stay there. 160 00:13:37,860 --> 00:13:45,040 It was dirt cheap and pretty decent quality for having our own rooms and sharing the shower 161 00:13:45,040 --> 00:13:47,960 and bathroom with just this one other girl. 162 00:13:47,960 --> 00:13:53,760 Like my time as an exchange student in the south of France, where I traveled almost every 163 00:13:53,760 --> 00:14:01,560 weekend, I did the same exact thing for my time doing this teaching program in northern 164 00:14:01,560 --> 00:14:02,600 France. 165 00:14:02,600 --> 00:14:08,880 I was fortunate in the regard that my rent was like nothing and I almost always had three 166 00:14:08,880 --> 00:14:13,200 day long weekends throughout that entire program's run. 167 00:14:13,200 --> 00:14:18,440 On top of that, schools in France had a lot of one week breaks. 168 00:14:18,440 --> 00:14:24,160 I think about four of them, a couple in the fall, one or two around Christmas and another 169 00:14:24,160 --> 00:14:25,400 in spring. 170 00:14:25,400 --> 00:14:32,960 So the beauty of time was there in abundance and I took full advantage of it, used my same 171 00:14:32,960 --> 00:14:39,000 cheaper ways of traveling by doing a lot of research beforehand, staying in hostels, going 172 00:14:39,000 --> 00:14:44,800 on free walking tours, befriending people in other countries, either on my trips or 173 00:14:44,800 --> 00:14:51,040 time in the hostels or online, taking cheaper buses and cheaper flights when I could and 174 00:14:51,040 --> 00:14:56,920 eating local food or sometimes food my friends would make me at their homes. 175 00:14:56,920 --> 00:15:02,560 During that teaching program time, I went to London a couple of times, Ireland, the 176 00:15:02,560 --> 00:15:08,680 Netherlands, Germany, Belgium many, many, many times since I live so close to the border, 177 00:15:08,680 --> 00:15:16,200 Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Spain, Ukraine, Morocco and some others that I may be drawing 178 00:15:16,200 --> 00:15:18,880 a blank on at this moment, but you get the point. 179 00:15:18,880 --> 00:15:21,080 It was quite a handful of places. 180 00:15:21,080 --> 00:15:26,320 It's also easy to travel to many countries fairly quickly when you're in Europe since 181 00:15:26,320 --> 00:15:32,240 transportation again is well connected and countries are pretty close to each other, 182 00:15:32,240 --> 00:15:37,520 just like US states, but with better connected infrastructure for tourists. 183 00:15:37,520 --> 00:15:44,480 The second leg of how I traveled so much after finishing university and then after finishing 184 00:15:44,480 --> 00:15:50,560 my teaching time in France was finding an online teaching opportunity that allowed me 185 00:15:50,560 --> 00:15:57,040 to be completely my own boss and decide how much or how little I wanted to work. 186 00:15:57,040 --> 00:16:00,080 And this wasn't a temporary position. 187 00:16:00,080 --> 00:16:03,360 I could keep it for as long as I wanted. 188 00:16:03,360 --> 00:16:07,560 Now, of course, there are strings attached here. 189 00:16:07,560 --> 00:16:15,360 I made very little money and had to work very hard to even make a thousand US dollars a 190 00:16:15,360 --> 00:16:16,360 month. 191 00:16:16,360 --> 00:16:24,360 I averaged probably between that 1000 and on the high end, 1500 US dollars over the 192 00:16:24,360 --> 00:16:27,160 course of the next few years. 193 00:16:27,160 --> 00:16:34,320 In the US, you simply cannot live on this type of salary without assistance. 194 00:16:34,320 --> 00:16:39,280 But in a lot of Europe, this salary is actually pretty okay. 195 00:16:39,280 --> 00:16:44,440 Given you're not paying your ass out of taxes, which I was in a sense excluded from doing 196 00:16:44,440 --> 00:16:47,640 that since I wasn't a European citizen. 197 00:16:47,640 --> 00:16:53,560 I also didn't have any insurance of any sort through this job. 198 00:16:53,560 --> 00:16:58,600 No paid days off, no sick days off, no coworkers, really. 199 00:16:58,600 --> 00:17:02,200 It was just me, me and my students. 200 00:17:02,200 --> 00:17:03,520 That's it. 201 00:17:03,520 --> 00:17:09,960 But for the circumstances during this chapter of my life, this was good enough to me and 202 00:17:09,960 --> 00:17:17,760 allowed three of the most important aspects when it comes to being able to travel so much. 203 00:17:17,760 --> 00:17:24,800 And that was time, a little bit of money and flexibility from being location independent. 204 00:17:24,800 --> 00:17:30,720 Anyway, I found this online teaching opportunity and had that for several years. 205 00:17:30,720 --> 00:17:34,700 I would travel so much by making my money go farther. 206 00:17:34,700 --> 00:17:40,900 And I did that by spending the majority of my time living out of Airbnb's predominantly 207 00:17:40,900 --> 00:17:46,320 in Eastern Europe, where the cost of living was quite a bit lower than in many countries 208 00:17:46,320 --> 00:17:47,920 in Western Europe. 209 00:17:47,920 --> 00:17:53,240 I spent quite a bit of time circulating Airbnb's in the Balkans. 210 00:17:53,240 --> 00:18:01,400 So in countries like Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria and Bosnia, I was able to get pretty nice and 211 00:18:01,400 --> 00:18:10,560 spacious Airbnb's with great wifi for my online job for about 700 euros a month or less. 212 00:18:10,560 --> 00:18:16,000 And 700 euros was the higher end and considered me splurging. 213 00:18:16,000 --> 00:18:17,520 It was really nice. 214 00:18:17,520 --> 00:18:23,880 I would take free walking tours in just about every big city I ever visited in Europe. 215 00:18:23,880 --> 00:18:29,760 I would recommend that you do this too when you travel and can find a free walking tour. 216 00:18:29,760 --> 00:18:34,440 Granted, you haven't done that already before listening to this. 217 00:18:34,440 --> 00:18:42,020 The first hack, if we can call it that, as to how I traveled so much is maybe a little 218 00:18:42,020 --> 00:18:44,660 different than you'd expect. 219 00:18:44,660 --> 00:18:52,180 Would it surprise you to learn that I spent probably only 20 to 30% of my time in a given 220 00:18:52,180 --> 00:19:00,220 place actually traveling and the other 70 or 80% was spent doing my online work? 221 00:19:00,220 --> 00:19:05,720 I did mention a little earlier that I had to work really hard just for a little bit 222 00:19:05,720 --> 00:19:07,540 of money, right? 223 00:19:07,540 --> 00:19:12,820 Be sure not to overlook this detail as I lay this out here. 224 00:19:12,820 --> 00:19:18,920 Maybe on social media, for some of you who have followed me and my travels for a long 225 00:19:18,920 --> 00:19:26,600 time, you might think I didn't work so much or didn't spend many hours alone in my Airbnb's 226 00:19:26,600 --> 00:19:29,640 working, but I did. 227 00:19:29,640 --> 00:19:36,920 The majority of my travel content that you see was done in a short time window of my 228 00:19:36,920 --> 00:19:39,840 actual full time in a given country. 229 00:19:39,840 --> 00:19:46,440 I wasn't an influencer or a travel blogger, someone who could spend all day, every day 230 00:19:46,440 --> 00:19:51,440 out and about in a country exploring every little depth of it. 231 00:19:51,440 --> 00:19:53,800 Unfortunately, that was not me. 232 00:19:53,800 --> 00:19:59,480 I just planned really well and capitalized on covering a big amount of ground in short 233 00:19:59,480 --> 00:20:06,380 periods of time, ate mostly grocery store food and cooked my own meals at home and worked 234 00:20:06,380 --> 00:20:13,320 the rest of it to be able to afford the majority of what I was even seeing and doing. 235 00:20:13,320 --> 00:20:17,240 What you see isn't exactly what you get. 236 00:20:17,240 --> 00:20:23,380 And I'll do a whole separate episode later on this subject, but I do want to emphasize 237 00:20:23,380 --> 00:20:25,640 this one point to you. 238 00:20:25,640 --> 00:20:32,780 This bulk traveling in a short window of time concept is a hack that I still apply to my 239 00:20:32,780 --> 00:20:36,700 traveling even in present day and you can too. 240 00:20:36,700 --> 00:20:42,960 You just need to focus on creating time opportunities by taking a day trip on a holiday weekend 241 00:20:42,960 --> 00:20:48,640 where people are off on Mondays or on Fridays or take one or two of those days off from 242 00:20:48,640 --> 00:20:50,580 work and have at it. 243 00:20:50,580 --> 00:20:56,320 I did this, for example, for my solo four day Columbia trip back at the beginning of 244 00:20:56,320 --> 00:21:03,400 twenty twenty three and that went over the American holiday of Martin Luther King Day in January. 245 00:21:03,400 --> 00:21:11,140 I took two of my own off days from work, used that one Martin Luther King Day holiday and 246 00:21:11,140 --> 00:21:14,120 the weekend and boom, I had a trip. 247 00:21:14,120 --> 00:21:17,360 I planned and prioritized and made it happen. 248 00:21:17,360 --> 00:21:23,140 If you've seen my Columbia pictures, maybe it looks like I did a ton and I was there 249 00:21:23,140 --> 00:21:24,960 for a long time. 250 00:21:24,960 --> 00:21:31,440 I did do a ton and I slept very little, but I still had to work with the small amount 251 00:21:31,440 --> 00:21:34,380 of time I had and I did. 252 00:21:34,380 --> 00:21:40,100 Those Mondays and Fridays are so valuable and need to be given more credit when it comes 253 00:21:40,100 --> 00:21:45,000 to bridging the weekend gap for a trip to become possible. 254 00:21:45,000 --> 00:21:50,780 The second little hack that I applied back in my earlier twenties and that I also still 255 00:21:50,780 --> 00:21:57,800 apply to present day is the beauty of planning and paying for big expenses in advance. 256 00:21:57,800 --> 00:22:02,900 I didn't make a whole lot at all back then, as you already have heard in this episode, 257 00:22:02,900 --> 00:22:08,960 but I got by in the sense that I would research flights, oftentimes months in advance, and 258 00:22:08,960 --> 00:22:13,580 buy flight tickets and also book Airbnbs far in advance. 259 00:22:13,580 --> 00:22:20,000 Paying in this sort of installment method definitely made affording bigger travel and 260 00:22:20,000 --> 00:22:23,900 the actual activities of a trip much easier. 261 00:22:23,900 --> 00:22:29,480 Since by the time I'd actually take the trip, I will have already gotten the biggest expenses 262 00:22:29,480 --> 00:22:35,480 out of the way months prior or I would have already paid off the installments. 263 00:22:35,480 --> 00:22:42,080 I didn't use any special flight search engines like some people would recommend like Scott's 264 00:22:42,080 --> 00:22:45,360 Cheap Flights or Skyscanner. 265 00:22:45,360 --> 00:22:52,480 And the reason I don't use those is because I personally had a kind of near scare scam 266 00:22:52,480 --> 00:22:57,160 experience where I was really stressed out because I thought that I was going to lose 267 00:22:57,160 --> 00:23:00,160 all my money by booking through a third party. 268 00:23:00,160 --> 00:23:03,280 But anyway, more on that in another episode do. 269 00:23:03,280 --> 00:23:09,600 I simply just use Google Flights, the most trustworthy source to booking direct airline 270 00:23:09,600 --> 00:23:10,600 tickets. 271 00:23:10,600 --> 00:23:17,320 I took flights with often a lot of layovers or inconvenient times since they were cheaper 272 00:23:17,320 --> 00:23:23,160 and they still got me to my destination since I had the time. 273 00:23:23,160 --> 00:23:28,600 The third and final little hack that made it possible for me to travel so much abroad 274 00:23:28,600 --> 00:23:36,800 in my earlier 20s was essentially having no ties to obligatory expenses in the US that 275 00:23:36,800 --> 00:23:40,040 had to be paid off in a short period of time. 276 00:23:40,040 --> 00:23:47,120 I didn't own a car for a few years, which is wild to any American listening to this. 277 00:23:47,120 --> 00:23:49,720 But yeah, no car for a few years. 278 00:23:49,720 --> 00:23:56,320 And I went at least two years without ever driving any sort of car at all. 279 00:23:56,320 --> 00:24:00,680 I therefore didn't have car insurance with no car. 280 00:24:00,680 --> 00:24:03,880 I didn't have an apartment that I was renting. 281 00:24:03,880 --> 00:24:06,260 So no rent back home. 282 00:24:06,260 --> 00:24:13,680 My rent was through whatever I was booking in Eastern Europe and elsewhere for Airbnbs. 283 00:24:13,680 --> 00:24:20,520 I wasn't paying taxes every year because of how little I made by American standards. 284 00:24:20,520 --> 00:24:24,380 I didn't need to start paying off my student loans right away. 285 00:24:24,380 --> 00:24:27,120 I was able to keep postponing them. 286 00:24:27,120 --> 00:24:33,500 I didn't have doctors or dentist appointments for at least three years. 287 00:24:33,500 --> 00:24:39,640 And the latter of which later really bit me in the ass when I came back here to the US. 288 00:24:39,640 --> 00:24:44,040 But I won't get into that now since this is already really long. 289 00:24:44,040 --> 00:24:50,820 Essentially no huge obligations, no huge mandatory expenses at home made traveling 290 00:24:50,820 --> 00:24:55,740 and living abroad much more sustainable and easier for me to do. 291 00:24:55,740 --> 00:25:01,960 So to sum up everything we've just covered here, I was able to travel so much by having 292 00:25:01,960 --> 00:25:08,680 the time and flexibility through my small paying but doable online English teaching 293 00:25:08,680 --> 00:25:14,680 job, spending the majority of my time in cheaper cost of living countries in Eastern Europe, 294 00:25:14,680 --> 00:25:21,200 Turkey, and a small bit of Asia before the pandemic, taking free walking tours, planning 295 00:25:21,200 --> 00:25:27,980 as much as I could in advance, finding flights I liked on Google flights and paying for those 296 00:25:27,980 --> 00:25:33,760 flights months in advance, often in installments and the same goes for accommodations with 297 00:25:33,760 --> 00:25:35,840 Airbnb and hotels. 298 00:25:35,840 --> 00:25:41,920 And occasionally I couch surfed for free for short term accommodations and I would bulk 299 00:25:41,920 --> 00:25:49,760 travel all of my activities and energy in 20 or 30% of the time that I was actually 300 00:25:49,760 --> 00:25:55,080 in another country and work online the other 70 or 80% of the time. 301 00:25:55,080 --> 00:26:02,600 And finally, having no ties to obligations or expenses to worry about back in the US 302 00:26:02,600 --> 00:26:05,600 as I was traveling during this time. 303 00:26:05,600 --> 00:26:12,960 Now that I'm living a fairly mundane, regular nine to five life here in the US, like the 304 00:26:12,960 --> 00:26:19,260 majority of people in this world, so to speak, and given the fact that I'm no longer single 305 00:26:19,260 --> 00:26:27,200 and can't just get up and travel on a whim to wherever I can and when I want my perspective 306 00:26:27,200 --> 00:26:33,760 and ability on how to travel so much looks a little bit different than a lot of what 307 00:26:33,760 --> 00:26:36,640 you've just listened to in today's episode. 308 00:26:36,640 --> 00:26:44,600 I don't have the same power of flexibility and I get an average of 15 paid time off days 309 00:26:44,600 --> 00:26:51,040 per year from my job, but I do still believe in the power of planning, making travel a 310 00:26:51,040 --> 00:26:57,240 priority, bulk traveling in short periods of time, like over long weekends and holiday 311 00:26:57,240 --> 00:27:02,760 weekends, accumulating and using credit card points for travel. 312 00:27:02,760 --> 00:27:09,040 Side note, I personally use Capital One Venture X credit card for points and credit and it's 313 00:27:09,040 --> 00:27:14,840 awesome cutting corners here and there with choosing to cook meals instead of eat out 314 00:27:14,840 --> 00:27:19,600 or choose a cheaper cafe option compared to a five star restaurant. 315 00:27:19,600 --> 00:27:24,920 The beauty of travel at the end of the day will lie in the memories you make with the 316 00:27:24,920 --> 00:27:31,200 people you either meet in another city or country or with the people or person you're 317 00:27:31,200 --> 00:27:32,880 traveling with. 318 00:27:32,880 --> 00:27:38,440 I hope that you found this very in depth episode of my traveling so much throughout the years 319 00:27:38,440 --> 00:27:44,680 to be helpful, interesting and beneficial to go about your own future travel plans, 320 00:27:44,680 --> 00:27:49,720 whether you're a solo traveler or traveling with other people or a significant other. 321 00:27:49,720 --> 00:27:55,020 If you enjoyed this episode and would like more of this type of content or have a specific 322 00:27:55,020 --> 00:28:00,320 suggestion you'd like to hear on the podcast, please give the show a five star review and 323 00:28:00,320 --> 00:28:07,120 let me know your feedback and beyond on Instagram at AmeriPian at heart or send me a message 324 00:28:07,120 --> 00:28:10,800 on my host account at Mary Grace Crawford. 325 00:28:10,800 --> 00:28:16,080 Thank you once again for tuning in and I look forward to being back here next Tuesday with 326 00:28:16,080 --> 00:28:19,880 you for another fun episode. 327 00:28:19,880 --> 00:28:37,320 Much love from the Ameropean at heart.