Please help suggest where we could stay in Europe! :)

My husband and I want to take 2 months to travel with our girls (2 yrs and 6 months old).

Looking to stay in 2 places for a month each.

Interested in suggestions for cities in Europe (thinking Spain, Portugal, Italy, or Greece)

Looking for cities that are:

• budget friendly (less than 2k per month for accommodation)
• safe for our children
• close to beautiful nature (beach or inland)
• don’t need a car for everyday

Thank you!

I (27M) am at a bit of a crossroads in life, and I’m seeking advice from both those who value travel and those who value financial security.

I’ve been working at a 9-5 office job for over a year; although it isn’t toxic or mentally exhausting, and pays pretty well (85k salary), it’s incredibly boring and not at all what I want to be doing with my life right now. Because of this, I made it a goal of mine to save up $30,000 (USD) so that I can quit my job and go on a year (or longer) solo travel journey around the world. This is something I’ve been dreaming of for years, and something I wanted to accomplish before I turned 30. It would also force me to get out of my comfort zone and finally start doing the things I’ve always wanted to do (travel, start a business, create content, etc.)

I’m now realizing that I also have the option of paying off my student loans in full, as they are just under $30,000. This would be a huge burden off of my shoulders and leave me with no debt, but would totally wipe away my savings and would require me to work another 1-2 years at a job I’m deeply dissatisfied with in order for me to save $30,000 again. Financially, this is obviously the better option, but I can’t help but feel like I still would rather travel.

I don’t own a house, a car, and have very few possessions, so I have nothing really holding me back from traveling (I am in a relationship, but that’s for another post).

I try to think, what would my 40-year-old self want? Would he want the memories and experiences of traveling for a year straight, or would he want the financial security of not having to pay off student loans years after he graduated? I also think about the fact that the future isn’t guaranteed, let alone tomorrow, so if I really want to do something, I need to do it now. I just want to be smart about it, as I didn’t grow up around financially intelligent people.

If anyone has been in this situation, older or younger, please give me any advice of what you did or would have done. I appreciate any and all responses. Thank you!

I bought one and activated in Guatemala, now in Honduras and going to Panama and Colombia. Can I just recharge my sim and it’ll work in all these countries or how does roaming work? I notice on my app the currency is still quetzales (Guatemalan money)

Gracias

Hi! So after spending a month in Mexico and Guatemala, I realized that I have had the travel bug since I was young, and my dream to is to successfully do a few long term trips. My goal is to work for the next 1.5-2 years and save up close to 25-30K USD. I am planning on doing most of South America. I'd love to figure out a way to bring in remote income, maybe half way through the trip. I also feel really drawn to the Mediterranean region. Am I thinking too big to do maybe hop over to Europe after SA...should I wait to do it another time? Or work to save up more and do it all at once? I just have so many questions, and am so eager to start saving. So I'd love to hear stories, experiences, and advice from fellow backpackers. Did you stick to one continent at a time? Hop around? Tell me everything

I caught the travelling bug after getting married but once I looked outside my country I realised I am poor

In my yearly income I can go for like 4 budget trips (7 days) in my country,I earn decently and well above average income of my town

But I will have to pay 1/3rd of my yearly income to travel abroad to a decent location plus I travel with my partner so it will be more like 2/3rd of my income

I see people (of my social strata) going out for say 3 days covering very limited places(which will be affordable )and that’s the only vacation they take

I am willing to move out if it facilitates travel, I hear all these stories of solo travellers moving around with next to no money ,but I think it’s impossible with a partner

Please guide me how to sustain travelling, theoretically I can move to another country for 5-7 years work at a higher wage rate and fund my travel but I am in mid 30s and don’t know how useful I can be outside (your advice about continues and way to do this would be welcome)

Or I can start a much more profitable business or YouTube channel but then again it would probably take all my money and Effie with quite a high risk factor (not affraid or risk but don’t want to end up in a situation worst then my current)

The strange thing is I never realised this (that I am poor ) because I really have everything I need if I stay put ! But want to see the world before I get too old

Hey All!

My husband and I are about to start at year+ of travels, starting in South America and then heading towards East Asia.

We both play Dungeons & Dragons (among other tabletop RPGs and board games), and we're thinking about hosting some one-shot while we're traveling and staying in hostels. If there is anyone who is interested, we are happy to help new players get oriented and share dice.

The real question is, are there any of you tabletop players out there that would enjoy meeting up to play if we're in the same area?

#Dungeons&Dragons #D&D #LongtermTravel #Hostels #TabletopRPG #Gaming #OneShot

Hi!

My partner and I are considering long term travel, we’ve both travelled extensively but never for more than 6 months ish. Im Canadian and he’s British, and we live in the uk. I’m not particularly worried about this but he really, really is. I’m wondering if anybody has any guidance or resources about the practicalities of being gone so long in regards to calling the uk home.

Does the HMRC care if you’re gone for ages? Will you lose residency? Can you just come back easy as pie whenever you feel like it? Do you need a physical address for govt purposes like HMRC or to have access to the NHS? What if you need a background check later for job purposes, and they ask for history of address? What do you write?

Or anything else like that!

Has anybody gone long term travelling as a uk citizen and then come back? What hurdles did you encounter?

You can google your heart out but from what I’ve seen, there’s very little information out there. Any help greatly appreciated :)

Hello,

My partner and I are going on a 3-4 month sabbatical trip to a handful of different countries. Does anyone have any recommendations on travel insurance that covers both emergencies and if something goes wrong at a hotel and we need to switch to another or if a flight is significantly delayed?

In the past, we always used Allianz for travel, but two of the trips in the last two years had major trip delays and issues with safety at a hotel and when I submitted claims I thought were covered, they denied them completely saying we weren’t covered. One was a flight delay of 22 hours and having to rebook, missing prepaid activities and lost baggage and another was a hotel safety incident walking into a room to find blood stained sheets and walls and leaving and going to another hotel. They refused to provide any assistance for the delay, baggage, incidentals, and the hotel change fee and lost cost of the other room. It was very frustrating as how I read the top level policies we had, those events were covered.

I am very disappointed with those services and how Allianz treated us when I sent copious records and receipts and emails on each incident.

Does anyone have any recommendations for other companies that would provide better peace of mind?

Thank you.

I’d like to keep this whole thing short and sweet, but I think I need to talk about myself and my goals a little bit. I hope anyone reading can abide my pretty boring stream of consciousness.

As a teenager, on discovering that countries outside of America exist, I fell in love with the idea of travelling around the world. I worked part-time through college to afford a “globetrotting” journey, and after graduating in 2022 I did basically just that. Over the span of ~8 months I visited ~10 different countries across 7 different trips. Then the pressure of not even having a job lined up got to me, I found work in my field immediately, and got to it. I’ve been on the job for almost a year now.

I won’t say that I was dissatisfied with my travels – basically the opposite – while I have a romantic idea of travelling, the reality is that I’m extremely introverted and I was happy to start to get time to myself again after settling back home. I’m not overflowing with happiness every single day, but I’m extremely satisfied with the life I live now. I love my job, I’m secure, I have friends, I’m exceeding my fitness goals daily. That said, I’ve also noticed that every day I’m more worn out than the last. I usually get laughed at when I say this to anyone over 30, at 25 I know I’m not raggedy or anything, but I am absolutely not bustling with energy as I was in college, and I’m not under any illusion that that fact will change. Ever. And while I don’t think that there’s anything wrong, per say, with continuing to live each day as I have, I’ve been haunted by the fact that I know if I make it to an old age, I’m going to look back on what I’ve done and think “so… that was all I could do?” In terms of bodybuilding and programming I have long-term personal goals I intend to achieve, but I see those as quite different than bigger picture life things like a first girlfriend/having fun in college/travelling the world/etc. I love them, but they’re not going to make memories that last forever.

I know there’s a lot of possibility for things to try, but by far the most difficult and energy-consuming thing I’ve done is my postgrad travelling, and to be honest I do in some way feel that there’s still something “left on the table” when it comes to that. Something about my journey didn’t quite match how I thought it would go in my head (which I know is a slippery slope). I didn’t even see the Middle East or Africa, about 50% of my travels were at the same places, and I didn’t like my out of shape look or how tired it made me when moving around (which affected me more than I thought it would). All things considered, I’m thinking about taking one more final, loooong journey out. Essentially – quit working for a few months to do nothing but focus on travelling and seeing the world.

That said, if I’m going to do this, I have a few specific concerns in mind (well… as any reasonable person would, a ton of concerns in mind). The first two pertain to something specific I’ve learned on my journeys before: being abroad is much more fun with other people. I know that sounds contrarian for my introvert speal from before, but all of my high points when travelling, by far, were when every day I woke up and hung out with someone. It was never as fun alone. To this point, I have two big things in mind:

A. I don’t want to travel when it’s freezing out, I want to take this on when it’s warm in the Northern Hemisphere (a lot of the places I’d intend to go would be Europe/N.A). If I’m planning a real “journey of a lifetime” thing here, am I starting too late? In order to leave on good terms, the earliest I’d be out of my job would be mid-May 2024. I’m honestly not too hot on the idea of pushing this whole thing back a year, but if there are more experiences that I need to put more advanced planning, time, and thought into, then I’m willing to do that.

B. Currently, I have in mind about 6 possible trips I can take – and after last time I learned that this is really going to equate to maybe 3 or 4 if people are as flakey as they were last time (which people always are). Not considering breaks at home, this equates to about 1.5 to 2 months of moving around which… isn’t a ton. If I wait a year, probably half of these won’t even be able to happen. This is a weird question, but does anyone know how to get… involved more? How to find more places to go? I’m not opposed to solo travel, but I’m not in love with the idea. I’ve looked into things like ETF, WorkAway and WWOOF – but even though many of these would stick me into a group I still don’t feel great about going at them alone.-All that aside, is it more worthwhile to go after several different experiences in different parts of the globe? Or would it be better to for something like a Europe -> Asia backpacking trip? It would be great if I found a job that would essentially force me to be a digital nomad, but as a programmer – that kind of work doesn’t really exist. Not in the format I’m looking for, at least.

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Planning concerns aside, I also want to ask about what people think in terms of work and how I would recover when I’m done:

C. Quitting my job to travel the world on 0 income is a terrifying idea. I want to hear about anyone who’s done anything even vaguely similar. Is it realistic that I could have a job lined up for AFTER I finish travelling? Do people hire workers 6 or 7 months in advance?

D. Realistically, are there any places that I should avoid for future job security? I’m not likely to travel to any country that isn’t a safety level 1/2 travel advisory anyways, and I know that this sounds like a dumb question. But fact of the matter is, if in the future I wanted to work for a defense contractor, take up residency in Canada or my parents’ home country, etc – there are some places I imagine I’d get grilled for visiting. It’s true that I want to hold back as little as I can on this trip, and at some point I’ve just gotta take the leap, but I’d like to know a fairly secure future awaits once I’m done and not… joblessness and suffering.

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All-in-all, I’d really like to hear what people think about the “Journey of a Lifetime” idea, and if anyone who’s tried it has any advice to give me, I’m all ears. If there are right things to do and wrong things to do. Secrets nobody knows or would expect. Ways to be safe, things to practice beforehand… anything. I’m really on the fence on weather or not I want to do this, and the thing that helps me make decisions best is talking to others.

As a sidebar: I’ve saved up quite a bit over the last year, realistically I could probably travel for 6 months and follow that up with 6 more months of job hunting before I start to dip into emergency funds. That said, finance isn’t much of a concern if that effects answers.

Hello all,

With permission of the mods, I wanted to invite you to a subreddit I just started. Its primary purpose is to help people connect while nomading/wandering. Please feel free to check it out. It is my first subreddit so I appreciate all feedback!

https://www.reddit.com/r/digitalnomadgroups/

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Additionally, I posted a trip I am taking to Normady in July (Olympics!). Feel free to check it out and let me know if you want to join!

I heard that PayPal will permanently suspend the account if someone uses VPN and there are many cases of this. So how do you guys access the account when out of the country?

I have a US business, US bank, US address, and US number. But I live in Asia now while running my US business online.

I am not planning to close my US PayPal account as it’s used to collect payments for my business. But how do I safely access the account and transfer money out of the US PayPal account into my US bank without the VPN? Can I just log in to PayPal from the country that I am in normally without any flags getting triggered?

Advice from those that have gone through similar situations greatly appreciated.

Edit: I don’t meant to scare those that have not had a problem with PayPal on VPN, I want to still hear from you about your experience! I’m just concern because I’ve read the PayPal user agreements saying proxies are not allowed: https://www.paypal.com/us/legalhub/useragreement-full?locale.x=en_US#restricted-activities. Have also read a lot from the PayPal subreddit about this. I also saw this YouTube video where the PayPal suspension reversal message says the suspension happened because of a VPN IP: https://imgur.com/a/XfrZib1

Ideally, I'd like to find a rental house in the Algarve region, for 3-6 months. It seems look everywhere I look, ends up at VRBO, or Air BnB, which is not what I'm looking for. I'm not even sure what rental costs are but I'm thinking around 2,000 Euros, give or take 500.

Is this in the ball park and who do I get in touch with to not be steered to VRBO, or Air BnB?

Hey guys. I’ve talked to a few people about this but it’s hard to feel understood when most people haven’t had this personal experience.

I’m currently 22y/o, I took 1.5 years off of university to travel, and just over two months ago I returned to Boston to finish my degree (one full year left in Boston now). I lived a lot of dreams while I was away (trekking in Nepal, trekking skiing & climbing New Zealand, climbing India, etc)…

Readjusting to life here has been very up and down. I’ve been feeling insecure, very uncertain of what I want (short and long term), and at times despondent / without motivation to do things I know I love.

Reconnecting with old friends has been hard as many people have graduated from uni now, but more so that I don’t know many people that can relate to many of the experiences I’ve had, which makes it hard to form deeper more authentic friendships. This branches a bit beyond traveling, as I’m very into adventure sports (rock climbing/alpinism/backcountry stuff) and I don’t find that this community is easy to come by in Boston. Maybe I’m wrong / too close minded about it.

Anyway, has anyone had a similar experience returning from long-term travel? Things seem to have improved mentally from when I first returned, but I’m still feeling this way at least enough to post this. Any advice is helpful

EDIT: Thanks for all the advice. Sorry if this came off self interested.. Definitely didn’t intend to inflate my experiences as this is a travel subreddit so I figured it makes sense to ask in here about readjusting post-travel. I’ve just been struggling a bit so that’s more the point.. Nice to feel the solidarity. I’m just going to focus on creating more of a community around climbing and all that. It’s been hard because I’ve had a broken big toe since I got home so all that advice is great and true but thats the reason I haven’t been able to go as hard into the climbing community as I would’ve been. Anyway, thanks guys

27 M USA

Was touring New Zealand by motorcycle for a couple of months and lost my drivers license. I ordered another and had it expedited to Australia when I’d be there. It got lost in the mail for a while and showed up after I left. I had plans to ride in Vietnam and India but I have only digital copies of my licenses now. does anyone have any clever ideas for still being able to ride in either of these countries? I’m pretty tight for time so ordering another and risking expedited shipping again isn’t an option.

Any and all creative ideas would be helpful

For those who don't have friends or a special situation that offers them free accommodations. What are you spending all in (per week) and what are some of the tricks you've used to cut your costs down?

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Has anyone stayed somewhere more remote and surrounded by nature and manage to still keep their costs down? Did you need a car / motorbike or were you close enough to town to get any necessities?

Hi I need some advice on were to promote a platform for long term rent besides Facebook groups. My friend said that I needed to invest time and search on Facebook groups were people are looking for a long term residence to promote the platform but I need some advice of other options. I've been doing that with some success and I've also tried on Instagram but not with the same results. Can someone give me some advice?

Hi! I started a journey of long term travel this year, I started by leaving the U.S. for Brazil and I lived in São Paulo for 6 months. I’ve just arrived in Lisbon, Portugal after my stay in Brazil, I’m here for 2 months, then Italy, then Montenegro and Istanbul. I am interested in meeting travelers like myself. Does anyone have tips, groups, etc.?

Hi all! I’m leaving in 2 weeks to live in New Zealand for a year and one of the terms of my visa is travel health insurance. I’ve been doing loads and loads of research about the best companies to use and I keep coming to a dead end. I’m mostly looking for just basic coverage, a few GP visits and emergency coverage. I’ve looked into world nomads, IMG, genki and April. I thought genki was the one but now I’ve looked into it more and it doesn’t seem to be reliable. Does anybody have first hand experience filling a claim with any of these companies or have a recommendation for a company that will actually pay out a claim. Thank you!!

Does anyone have any experience good or bad with traveling long term and using their contacts and not glasses? Any advice/dos and donts for this? Planning to start my year long travel in February of 2024, TIA!

Hey r/longtermtravel. Im just on the brink of filling my passport for the first time, although luckily I already had a trip home in January planned so it won’t be too much of a headache.

Anyway, this got me wondering what other long term travelers tend to do in this situation. Fill every page with 6 stamps each? Follow the official advice and plan on two full pages per country? Not think about it at all until you suddenly realise you can no longer fit a full page visa?

Nb: I considered getting the extra long passport at last renewal, but I didn’t expect to travel enough to make it worth it. That was less than two years ago 😅

Hi all,

You may have seen by now that the latest iPhones do not have physical SIM card slots. And seems like android phones will be following suit.

What does this mean for long term travel? eSims today seem much more expensive. I just got 30 gigs of data for a month here in Laos for $9 with a physical Sim.

I can’t even find an eSim close to that price (i.e. Airalo).

In the future, will kiosks at the airport or local shops just have a cheaper eSim option?

Kinda worried about losing my physical Sim slot with a future phone upgrade.

If you're seeking a long-term residence, especially in the rural areas of Portugal, visit ecorustics.com

Hello fellow long term travelers. I have found myself in a pickle and Im not really sure why I am writing this, I just want to know if anyone can relate and what the outcome of their situation was. I am a 28F from the US and I have been travelling full time for the last 5+ years. 3 years ago I met my partner, 29M from Spain. We met in Australia and are currently residing there. We both have less than a year left on our visas and then alas, we have both run out of viable visa options in Australia. This means a lot of big decisions are coming up. We love each other more than anything. Unfortunately for us, to live in the same country we basically have to get married which isn't necessarily bad, we just aren't ready for it. There are SO many things we have to figure out individually and what we want to do career wise ect before we even start to think about that. We both want to make sure we each are going after what we want for ourselves before we try to work our relationship into it to avoid one person giving something up and creating resentment down the line.

We both planned to only leave our homes for 1 year, so when the travel bug bit all those moons ago, it really derailed our plans for our lives (in a great way!) But nonetheless, now that this chapter is coming to a close, it has made us both feel more lost.

To anyone who has long term travelled,

HOW THE HELL DOES SOMEONE CHOOSE WHERE TO LIVE, WHERE TO SETTLE DOWN?!!! It's beyond me. There are so many places in this world that feel like home. Actually legally being able to live there full time definitely decreases the options luckily I suppose, lol.

Anyways, back to my ramble. We don't want to break up, we realize we will have to be long distance at least for awhile while we are in our own countries trying to figure things out.....I just don't know what to do. I could go to Spain, but unless I'm married I personally will be pretty limited to only teaching English and he could come to the US but the longer I'm away from there, the more terrifying it feels to go back. Neither of us are absolutely jumping at the opportunity in each other's countries. My reasoning being that I am feeling like I need to apply myself to something (I want to get into kelp farming) and so going to Spain for a year not doing a job in my field keeps me procrastinating and in turn causes inner turmoil. His reasoning is that he's never really tried to make a life for himself in Spain so he's keen to try that first. Eventually he would most likely want to come to the states, buttttt bla bla bla. You get the story.

Has anyone been in this situation and didn't get married right away and remained together? How did you work around the visa situations?

I guess I am just feeling lost. I am not someone who gets into relationships lightly, I am with him because I love him more than I can explain. I suppose eventually we would just need to bite the bullet and get married if we really want to even live in the same country. I just wish there was a way to live together somehow in the meantime...