How I Afford To Travel Long Term On A Budget Of $2000 Per Month
Travel on $2000 per month
Have you ever wondered how people can afford to travel long term? Whether it's several months, or several years. One of the questions I get asked the most is how I afford this lifestyle of what seems like constant travel. In today’s post I want to open up and talk about how I’ve afforded and financed my long term travel over the past 6 years, and how we, meaning my husband and I, budget for long term travel now. Everyone has a different situation, and there's no one size fits all formula on how to do it. This is going to be a longer read than usual because I really want to go into depth and try to explain the ways I’ve learned to minimize my expenses and stretch my money as a long term traveler.
If you’re new here, I’m Kristy, and this blog is all about traveling, living, and working in different parts of the world as a digital nomad, or an aspiring one.
Travel History
Just a couple weeks ago, my husband Nico and I returned to our home base in Switzerland after 6 months of traveling around the USA, Mexico, and Argentina. The previous year we spent 6 months between Bali and California, and before COVID, which was before I met Nico, I spent around 3 YEARS nomading around the world as a solo traveler, visiting over 40 countries.
Traveler Profile Comparison
That being said, I’m going to share with you the 2 different scenarios which I’ve traveled in and while they both have a lot of similarities, each involves a different fundamental mindset.
So first I will share what I call the “fast, budget traveling backpacker” way, and this is great for someone who has some savings and wants to travel and see a lot of different places in a specific window of time. It’s perfect for people who are taking a leave from their job, have some time off, are doing a gap year, or maybe someone who just retired. It’s more of a temporary way of traveling long-term, as opposed to a sustainable way of living, if that makes sense.
And the second which I will share later is my current way of traveling, and what I call the “slow traveling digital nomad” and for me this is a more long-term, sustainable way of traveling and living, So for someone who wants to travel slower, settle down in places for longer periods of time and really get to know a place on a deeper level, as opposed to trying to see as many places in the shortest amount of time. If you’re an entrepreneur, work remotely, are building an online business, or are retired, this would be my preferred way of traveling. It gives more of a work life balance, so you aren’t constantly on the move and can develop a bit more of a routine wherever you are, whilst still being able to explore a new place.
Both ways of travel have a lot of similar budgeting strategies, but achieve very different goals. One way is not necessarily better than the other, it really just depends on your current situation, and what your long term goals with work, travel and lifestyle are, which is why I think it's interesting to share both.
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Scenario 1: Fast, Budget Traveling Backpacker
So let's jump to scenario one, the fast, budget traveling backpacker way. When I first started long-term traveling in 2017, I did the classic: save up money, quit my job, sell all my possessions, break my lease, pack up a backpack, and I caught a flight over to Southeast Asia with no real plan involved. However, I knew at the time I had no intention of living in the US again, so giving up everything back home to be “free” was what made the most sense for me. I wanted to get out of my comfort zone, meet new people, and explore the world. I had been working in wine sales for the previous 4 years and managed to save up $36K US dollars, and my goal was to have that last me for one to two years- which it did. It lasted me about a year and a half! So, do the math, I was living on about $24K per year, which equates to $2K per month, $500 per week, or $71 per day on average. Obviously this daily budget varied based on where in the world I was. Keep in mind this included literally all my life expenses, my travel and health insurance, flights, accommodations, meals, activities, unplanned expenses, etc, and looking back, had I known what I know now, I definitely could have done this on an even lower budget than I did.
During this first year and a half I had absolutely no income streams setup, I was relying completely on my savings. I was super into photography and building my instagram at the time, but not treating it like a business, just doing hotel and brand collaborations every so often, maybe a couple per month, but not getting paid for any of it.
So how did I afford to travel nonstop on this amount of money? There are a few major factors you need to think about when planning your travels to align with your budget, and those factors are: your expenses back home, where you travel to, your accommodation choices, food, activities, and transportation. So I'm going to go through each of these categories and explain how I work with them to fit my budget.
Your Expenses Back Home
First, before you hit the road, you need to evaluate all your expenses back home, and see where you can save or eliminate costs, with the goal to get them as close to zero as possible. For example, can you sublet out your place, or do you plan on moving out of it? Can you put your phone plan on hold? What are your health insurance requirements, and do they cover you abroad? What subscriptions do you currently have that you can cancel? Do you have a car, and if so do you want to hold onto it, sell it, or store it somewhere? In my case, I sold everything so had virtually no expenses aside from health and travel insurance, which I always recommend SafetyWing Nomad Insurance which starts at $45 per month, its super easy to get started with it only takes a few minutes to sign up, and it will cover you for all sorts of medical and travel related emergencies. So all of these factors I just mentioned are things that I would start thinking about 3-6 months before your trip. In the end they will drastically reduce your monthly expenses while traveling, and allow your money to stretch further.
Where You Travel
My grand strategy, and possibly the main reason I was able to constantly travel on a budget of $2,000 per month, is by choosing to travel to countries with a lower cost of living. So I spent most of my time in Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe, in countries like Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, Philippes, Albania, Macedonia, Romania, to name a few. If you choose to travel to more expensive countries, your budget will diminish exponentially quicker, especially if you’re moving around a lot. Not to say you can’t do it at all, I probably spent around 20% of my time in Western Europe, but just make sure your budget and the time you want to spend traveling match up. If I would have spent all my time in Western Europe for example, my budget probably would’ve lasted me about half the time. If you’re not sure how expensive different countries are, accommodation prices are usually a good indicator of the cost of living overall. I would recommend jumping onto an accommodation booking website like booking.com or hostelworld.com for example, choosing a destination, and sorting from lowest to highest price, to see what the nightly rates look like. You can then compare them from one place to another to see how the costs differ.
Accommodation
Which leads us to our next factor, accommodation. I was traveling solo at this time, so it made the most sense for me to stay in hostels, which were cheap, and great for meeting people to travel with. Ok so I know a lot of people have a negative connotation associated with hostels being dirty or sketchy or whatever, but I have to say this is far from true, while yes there are some terrible ones out there, on the contrary there are a lot of REALLY nice hostels and it's all about being smart in the hostels you choose, not going for the bottom of the barrel ones with a review score of like anything below a 5, 6 or 7, but spending the extra couple bucks on something that has good reviews. In countries like Cambodia and Thailand I remember paying as low as $3 per night to stay at really decent hostels. But the overall norm in Southeast Asia was probably between $5-10 per night and in Eastern Europe between $10-15 per night, depending where I was and how fancy of a hostel I wanted to stay in. When selecting hostels, I always looked for ones that had a review score of 8 or higher, if it's less than an 8, I’m always a bit weary. I put my trust in the past customers, not just the photos or description, because I’ve had times where what’s posted online is far from the truth, and normally this has been the case when it's a place with a review score below 8. For me, the best place to find hostels is hostelworld.com or booking.com.
If you’re traveling as a pair, it's not a bad idea to also look into hotels and airbnb or VRBO type accommodations, because oftentimes you can find cheap rooms, and when split by two, you end up paying about the same or less than you would for 2 people at a hostel. Also keep in mind that in less touristy areas, you may not find hostels, so do some research before you go to see what hotel prices look like. If you are traveling to less touristy places, and if it works out that you can travel with a buddy, that’s not a bad way of doing it. This happened to me dozens of times, where I would meet other travelers at hostels, we would become friends, and then end up traveling to places together and sharing hotel rooms. It works out well because you both have a travel partner, end up saving money, and seeing places you wanted to see anyways.
Side note here: I think one of the biggest fears that people have as a solo traveler is that they will be alone the whole time while traveling. The ironic thing is, as a solo traveler, if you are open to meeting people and are spontaneous, you’ll most likely feel the complete opposite. Watch the video I made How To Meet People Traveling here. I remember as soon as I would get to a hostel, I would randomly strike up conversation with other people in my room, or in the common areas. At first it may feel out of your comfort zone, but keep in mind, most people in hostels are there to meet people and want to talk to you. In doing this, I met hundreds of people that I wound up traveling with, whether it be for a day or a month, and a handful of these people I still have strong friendships with today. So moral of the story, try to open up and don’t be afraid of talking to people, I mean, you’re already out of your comfort zone, you’re on the other side of the world, what do you have to lose?
Another thing I want to mention is that I never planned or booked accommodations more than a few days in advance, unless I knew 100% I would be staying somewhere for a specific amount of time. In general, I liked to keep my plans open, because sometimes I would arrive somewhere and want to stay longer or shorter than I thought I would, or I would meet people and end up traveling for days or weeks with them to places I hadn’t planned on going. My plans were ever changing, I can’t tell you how many times I would go to the hostel desk the night before I was supposed to leave, or the morning of and ask to extend my stay for more nights. A handful of times I would even just arrive in a new place and go directly to a hotel or hostel and ask if they had vacancies, and sometimes you can get an even better price in person than online, so if you’re feeling more spontaneous I recommend trying this out.
In general, hostels are a great option as a solo traveler, but also keep hotels in mind if you have a travel buddy or even if you feel like you need some time alone outside of hostels. I always do research on multiple websites to find the best deal before booking, BUT, when I can I try to use booking.com for my bookings because the more you use them, the more rewards you receive, which end up giving you upgrades, free breakfasts, discounts, etc.
Food
Now let’s talk about food. One of the first things I would do when I arrived in a new country was compare the supermarket prices to the restaurant prices. Generally speaking, in Southeast Asia, you can eat out for between $1-$5 for a meal, depending on where you are, so it just wasn't worth it to bother with cooking. However, in Eastern Europe for example, I generally found that cooking was a bit cheaper than eating out, not hugely, but enough to motivate me to do some cookin! In general, I found it was easy to cook a meal and spend under $5 on ingredients, whereis going out to a restaurant, I was spending closer to $5-10 for a meal, depending where I was. Still not that expensive, and it can be even cheaper if you find the good budget restaurants in town. If you find yourself traveling in countries that are more expensive, for example Switzerland or the U.S., then supermarkets are definitely the cheapest way to go, and cooking will save you a huge amount of money, which by the way I forgot to mention earlier, MOST hostels have kitchens available for guests to use, which is super convenient, especially in these more costly destinations.
Activity Costs
That takes us to the next point which is activity costs. So in every country, you’ll find guided tours, which sometimes they’re worth it, and sometimes they’re just not necessary. I would say I’ve always leaned in the direction of self-exploring as opposed to jumping on a group excursion, but it also really depends where you are and what you want to see. For example, in Southeast Asia, let's say the Philippines, if you want to go island hopping, really your only option is to do a boat tour, so in this case it's worth it to spend the money on a tour. In case you’re wondering what that costs, I remember these boat tours being around $20 per person, for a full day including a seafood barbeque lunch, so really not that bad. Another example was in Myanmar, we wanted to explore this entire region in a day, so we hired a tuk tuk driver for $20 to drive us to the mountains, rivers, villages, basically 8 hours of exploring different places, and that was well worth it.
On the other hand, when I was in Eastern Europe I don’t recall doing any guided tours. I remember there were options to go on tours for hiking, beaches, cities, etc, but my main rule of thumb is if I have the means of doing things on my own, there’s no need to spend the money on a tour. Oftentimes you can hop on a local bus and get to the nearby beaches or towns, and many hostels even offer free walking tours. That’s just my personal way of traveling. I prefer to go off on my own exploring and see what I find. I'm less into seeing the major tourist attractions, and would rather get immersed in a place and experience the more authentic side of the culture. Plus, in doing this you end up meeting more locals from the place you're visiting, eating in off the beaten path restaurants, and in general it's just fun because you never know what you're going to discover. The only exception for me not doing things on my own would be if I were in a country where safety was a major issue. Then obviously I would talk to people there and decide what’s best from there. However, that being said I have felt pretty safe everywhere I’ve traveled, and in places like central and south america taken extra precautions like not wandering around alone at night. If you are someone who prefers guided tours I recommend booking them on Get Your Guide here.
Transportation
So let’s talk about transportation costs. These are normally the biggest lump sums of money you will spend on your travels. When I was a fast-traveling backpacker, this was definitely the category that I spent the most on, and that’s because of how frequently I was moving around. This includes airplanes, trains, cars, buses, boats, or anything that gets you from point A to point B. In general, from what I have found in every country is that buses are the cheapest way to travel from place to place. Then comes trains, then planes, and rental cars are a wild card because the rental prices and gas prices differ greatly from one country to another. Also you’ll have to see what the country you’re traveling to offers, because not every country has every transport option available, obviously. As far as planes go, I have definitely learned that the earlier you book, the cheaper the prices, and this is especially true for budget airlines like Easyjet, AsiaAir, etc. With buses and trains, you can normally book them a few days before or the day of, and the prices won’t differ much, if at all. However in Europe this is not the case on long-distance journeys from one country to another, If you're traveling by train or bus. Generally you will want to book them in advance, or you’ll end up paying more. And, if you’re a spontaneous traveler, you may end up having to eat the extra cost for booking things last minute. I would say for me, throughout my travels this is where I have personally screwed myself the most. Had I planned and booked in advance, mainly I’m talking about flights here, I would've saved hundreds if not thousands of dollars per year. But, then again, had I done that I wouldn’t have gone to many of the random and amazing places I discovered along the way. So no regrets, it’s all part of the journey.
Here is a list of my favorite transportation booking websites:
Rental Cars: RentalCars
Buses: BusBud
Everything Europe Travel: Omio
Trains: Trainline
Flights: Wayaway or Skyscanner
Credit Cards
One of the biggest ways I’ve saved money and have gotten dozens of free flights over the years is through my travel credit cards. There are so many out there with amazing sign up bonuses, that can literally save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars on your travel. I treat all my credit cards as if they were debit cards, so I never spend beyond my means or get myself into trouble with debt. I normally wait until I know I have a lot of expenses coming up, and then I will sign up for a new credit card, spend the minimum amount to get the bonus miles, and then book free travel with those miles. For example, currently the Chase Sapphire Reserve, which is the card I’ve had for almost 7 years, is offering 60,000 bonus points, worth $900 on travel, when you sign up and spend $4,000 in the first 3 months. This means in the first 3 months you need to spend just over $1300 per month on the card, and you’ll literally get 22.5% of that money back to use on travel, plus the points you earn from each of those dollars spent. That’s a crazy return, it’s literally like free money, and this is how I can really get these transportation costs down. You can check out their current offer HERE. If you own a business I also recommend the Chase Ink Credit Card.
Baggage Fees
Another way to save money is by packing light to avoid excess baggage fees on flights. My norm is a carry-on backpack which houses all my camera gear, and then a larger backpack, anywhere between 40-70 liters, and depending on the airline, I will either carry on or check the larger bag. I’ve found that on budget airlines you need to be very careful with your baggage and pay attention to the rules, making sure you pay for all the baggage when booking your ticket, to avoid getting hit with high fees at the airport. On longer haul flights in bigger airplanes, I’m usually able to carry both bags on.
SIM CARDS
Lastly, SIM cards are something I want to briefly touch on. In the past, I bought local SIM cards in every country I traveled to, however, I recently upgraded to an iPhone that has an eSIM, and discovered it to be more difficult to find eSIMs in other countries. Earlier this year I came across this amazing company called Airalo who offers eSIMs in specific regions, or even Global eSIMs that cover you worldwide. I bought one of their monthly plans while I was visiting the US a couple months ago and it was fantastic! Their prices are super reasonable, like sometimes even cheaper than paying for a plan if you lived in the country. If you don’t have an eSim and are interested in a regular SIM Card, then I recommend checking out DrimSim HERE. You can also buy a plan in advance of your trip, so you make sure you stay connected at all times, which as a business owner is a necessity.
How I Became A Digital Nomad
Okay so that basically summarizes how I afforded to travel as a fast traveling budget backpacker wanting to see as much of the world as I could. But after some time, I started to feel burnt out from constantly being on the move, and also, my savings started to dwindle down to very low levels. It was an amazing year of my life and I wouldn’t take back a thing BUT I knew this was not a sustainable way for me to travel long term, and I also knew I did not want to go back home and there was something else out there for me. That takes me to the second scenario, but first I will briefly explain how things changed in my life and led me to becoming a slow traveling digital nomad.
So after just over a year of traveling I ended up going back to Bali and “settling down” there for some months. As I mentioned, my savings had dwindled down and I knew I needed to figure out another income stream to support myself and this lifestyle. During my travels I had met dozens of digital nomads, people who were working remotely or had their own businesses set up so they were able to live and work from anywhere in the world. Long story short, I stayed in Bali for 5 months and during that time I created and launched my very own brand, Nomad Nextdoor, an online shop featuring rattan bags and jewelry, all handmade by artisans I had met while living in Bali. If you want to see what it’s all about and support not only my mission, but also my team of artisans in Bali you can check it out at nomadnextdoor.com. If learning how to start a business or making money online is something of interest to you, then definitely subscribe to the channel because I’m planning on making more videos about this in the near future.
So after launching it took a few months for me to see a significant income from it, but after about 6 months it became enough for me to support myself traveling or living in countries with a LOW COST OF LIVING. This was KEY, being able to spend less and save up money to reinvest in the business and it changed my entire mindset on travel. Not only did I need to learn how to develop a new routine of working while traveling, but I didn’t have my savings to rely on anymore, and was completely dependent on the income from this business to support myself. So rather than going constantly from place to place, I slowed down my travel pace and focused on settling into areas for longer periods of time. This reduced my transportation expenses drastically, and also allowed me to lower my accommodation costs by booking for a week or a month at a time, rather than just a few days. And in case you didn’t know- many places will give you discounts when you stay longer, you just need to ask.
During these months I started to stay in more hotels, or studios, as opposed to hostels. I found it easier to focus on work, and as a slower traveler, I found it more difficult to stay in hostels because there were so many distractions. I would sometimes meet up with other digital nomads that I met during my travels and share apartments with them, which helped lower my costs and was also fun to see what they were up to. In general I just loved being around other digital nomads because most of them had this limitless and creative way of thinking that I found so contagious and inspiring.
Finding My Homebase
I traveled like this for about half a year until I decided I wanted to base myself somewhere more permanently, and decided to move to Switzerland (I know, ironic since it’s one of the most expensive countries in the world) but I found a super low-cost masters program there focusing on online marketing, and having traveled to Switzerland before and falling in love with the country, I decided this was where I needed to be. I also knew it would be financially possible if I lived in a shared apartment, which I paid $700 per month for, and limited my spending, because I wouldn’t be traveling around as much, which is a savings in itself.
Watch my video Why I Moved to Switzerland.
So I moved there in February of 2020, and little did I know, that plane ride there would be the last one for the next couple of years, because we all know what happened in 2020. Fast forward to a few months later, I met my now husband Nico, and then fast forward to the end of 2021, almost 2 years after moving to Switzerland, we were ready to travel long term again.
Scenario 2: Slow Traveling Digital Nomad Strategy
So let's jump into the method of the slow traveling digital nomad. By now my business had grown to the point where it could support me living full time in Switzerland, which was a great accomplishment. However, on the contrary, my husband's line of work, construction, is not something that can be done remotely, so we came up with another strategy to be able to support our travel, and keep our apartment here while we were away.
We planned to escape the winter and go to Bali and California for a total of around 6 months. Bali was for business and travel purposes, and California was to visit my family and participate in some local markets. So our plan was for Nico to save up as much as he could from construction before we left, and that would cover our necessary expenses that came up back home, like health, home and auto insurance. We would sublet our place out to someone for the duration of the time we were gone, so that would cover our main expense here, which is rent. And then we would rely on the income from the business to support both of us while we were gone. So, in case you’re wondering what that budget looked like, we gave ourselves around $2,000 per month total to support both of us. In Switzerland, that would be very difficult to live off of. But we figured again, if we traveled somewhere like Bali with a lower cost of living, we could both live off of one income. And then during our time in California which was about 2 months, we were staying with family, which offset the costs we would be spending on everything else over there.
Now I want to touch on some of the factors we mentioned earlier and explain how slower travel has saved us money all around.
Accommodation
So we reduced our expenses back home, we chose a country with a lower cost of living to travel to, and now let's talk about accommodation. So, traveling as a couple or a pair has some big advantages accommodation-wise, because the cost per night of an apartment or wherever you stay is shared by two. When we arrived in Canggu, Bali, we had booked a few nights at a hotel where we were paying around $20 per night for a room, and during those days our main goal was to find a longer-term place to rent for a couple of months. We actually asked the place we were staying what their monthly rate was, and it was around $420 per month, but being that we were on such a tight budget we continued searching, and found something for $210 per month, which pans out to be $7 per day, and that’s where we planted ourselves during our time there. Our intention was to use this as a homebase, and then take some short trips to other parts of the island while we were there. So it worked out perfectly because we had a home base where we could unpack and get comfortable, but also we didn’t feel guilty for spending nights away. And if you are interested in Bali Travel, make sure you checkout my Bali Arrival Guide video or read the blog post that goes deeper into all of this.
So my biggest tip for accommodation would be to do research online before you go. Look at sites like Airbnb or VRBO to see if you can find anything long term within your budget. You can also try reaching out to the properties directly online or via Whatsapp in advance to ask about long-term stays. And if you still can't find anything that suits you, then look for something once you arrive at your destination.
I want to quickly touch on the negatives we experienced with the place we chose to stay and that is not having a kitchen or common areas to work from or hang out in. We just never felt like we wanted to spend time there, which got tiring after a while. We really craved having a place where we could just relax, work, and cook from, and we didn’t feel like we could really settle into such a small space- the room just had a bed and a bathroom, no desk, refrigerator, seating area, nothing else. So since then we have decided that having our own kitchen is a priority, and let me tell you, it is something that is worth spending extra on. We’ve found it also ends up saving us money on coffee and food in the long run, so it ends up evening out in the end.
Food
So, briefly touching on the food category, the strategy for saving money on food is basically what I mentioned before, however the main difference is with having a kitchen, you can keep more ingredients at home to cook, so we definitely find ourselves cooking more often than going out when we are staying somewhere long term.
Activity Costs
As far as activity costs, with being somewhere longer term, there is less of a rush to pack your days full of different activities, especially when you are there working as well. We filled our days with exercising, hiking, exploring nearby areas on our scooter, working from cool cafes, and then occasional short overnight trips. So we just never had a reason to spend money on excursions or tours.
Transportation
Transportation-wise, the only flights we booked were the ones to and from Bali, and we used credit card points to do that. Once we were in Bali we rented a scooter for $45 per month which was what we used to get around almost everywhere. And aside from that we paid for some fast boats to take us to the nearby islands, as well as some taxis when needed. In comparison to the backpacking days, my transportation costs were significantly lower because we were moving around less, and I was able to book our flights further in advance since we had a bit more of a plan.
Create Your Personal Strategy
So that basically summarizes the slow traveling digital nomad way. As you can see there are pros and cons to both ways of traveling, and you can really create a budgeting strategy to do a mix of both if that's what you want. Everyone will have a different budget and timeframe in mind, so my biggest recommendation is deciding what’s most important to you, and then planning your personal strategy around that. I see the first way as a great option for anyone who wants to see a lot in a shorter period of time, and the second as a way of living, where you can travel and work simultaneously where and when you want, without feeling exhausted.
5 Digital Nomad Locations Under $25/ Day
That’s all I have for you today! I hope you have a better idea now for how to travel long term on a budget. I recommend watching my video 5 Digital Nomad Destinations Under $25 Per Day for some of my top picks for low cost of travel and living. Make sure to subscribe to the channel so you don’t miss out on future videos about topics like this one.
Disclosure: some of the above are affiliate links, which means without additional cost to you, I might receive a small commission on a purchase if you buy something through my links.