After growing up with a dream of travel, and eventually making the decision to leave everything behind to chase down the dream, I had to start to walk the talk. Here are the nuts and bolts of how I Became The Professional Hobo.

In Part I of this series, I discuss how adversity forced me to celebrate the present moment and seize my dreams of traveling the world slowly. Now it was go-time.

Telling my Boss, and Selling the Business

I’ll never forget the day I walked into the office to meet with my divisional and regional directors. Although I’m not an egotistical person, it is safe to say I had garnered some attention in the financial planning industry, and specifically the company I worked for. In addition to my media appearances, I mentored new financial planners starting out in their businesses, was featured in training videos, and addressed groups as large as 3,000 people representing the company as a whole – the largest financial planning company in Canada.

So I wasn’t particularly surprised when my announcement of plans to sell my practice and go off to “play” in Costa Rica (an arbitrarily-chosen first destination) was met with open mouths and wide eyes.

“See, I told you,” said Bill the regional director, to my division director when he recovered from the initial shock. “I knew something was up.” Bill had seen my downward spiral of both health and happiness over the last few months. In the weeks leading up to my announcement, I was hardly in the office at all. My division director, however, continued to sit in shocked silence, opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water.

“Tell you what we’re going to do,” chimed in Bill, who seemed even more prepared for this announcement than I had anticipated. “We’re going to manage your business for you. Go do what you need to do, for six months, a year, whatever. When you get it out of your system, you can come back and step right back into your life here. There’s another consultant I know who does this; he builds mud huts or something for four months out of every year in a developing country and has somebody hold down the fort while he’s gone.”

This was a tempting offer. After six long hard years of work, I was earning six figures, and had reached the point in my business where I could follow a trend of working less and earning more. In many ways I had done all the hard work of building up a business without fully reaping the rewards. If all I had to do was “get something out of my system”, then this arrangement would have been ideal. Traveling with the security of knowing there is something to come home to can be a wonderful safety net, especially if you’re not sure what you’re looking for or what you’ll find.

However, instead of seeing this offer as a “safety net”, I saw it as a limiter. A hindrance. How could I embrace whatever was on the road for me to discover if I knew I had to come back to a life so stressful for me that I burnt out mentally and physically from it? And how did I know that when I came back, I’d even want to live in the same city? I was drawn to western Canada’s vast landscapes and giant mountains, and having a business waiting for me in Toronto seemed to complicate things more than simplify them.

I was also looking for a truly fresh start. Having anything tying me to “home” was difficult to comprehend; everything had to go. The business, the car, the motorcycle, the skydiving gear, the chic urban loft on the beach (I do miss that loft), and all the “stuff” that was inside of it. In so doing, I was letting go of the traditional definition of “home” in its entirety, knowing that letting go would reveal a new definition of “home” and a new way of life.

So I kindly declined the offer and proceeded to sell my business outright. But despite my confidence in this move, I still wasn’t looking forward to the next three months of transition.

Selling Everything Else

Not only was I selling my business in as responsible a way as possible (in fairness to my clients who I had emotionally invested in – often waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat wondering how they’d react), but I was also selling everything else I owned.

There was no family home with lots of space to store my things, and I wasn’t prepared to pay for monthly storage. And as with my business, in the name of transitioning to a new definition of “home” and freedom, I needed to divest myself of everything; not put it on hold.

So I sold all my crap over the next few months, deciding to store only the absolute “necessities”: those things I deemed priceless or irreplaceable, as well as official paperwork and files I had to keep. In total, I had five boxes that I reverently stored in a friend’s garage.

Deciding Where to Go

I’d arbitrarily chosen Costa Rica as a starting point, having heard of an Outward Bound instructor course that sounded ideal. I could enjoy nature and train to be an outdoor education instructor, which would be a skill I could travel with and enjoy using around the world. It was also a ticket to potential income for sustaining my travels, since I had no idea how to make the finances of full-time travel work (yet).

But for some reason I couldn’t book the ticket.

Then my boyfriend at the time got a call from his brother who was getting married in western Canada and wanted him to be in the wedding party. So, west we went instead.

(You may note that in this tale so far, Kelly is only now being introduced, despite his role in the first few years of my travels. This is because I believe that my process to becoming The Professional Hobo was very much an individual one, as can be evidenced in this post. Although I treasure our relationship for what it was and what we learned from each other, I don’t believe the dream of travel was a shared one. This is my story.)

And with our last-minute decision to spend the first summer “abroad” in western Canada, also came the faith and understanding that the next travel move will always reveal itself when the time is right. And so it did (and does)…every time.

Writing…for Pleasure, and Money

Barely being able to define a blog, and with no idea that anybody else in the world was doing what I was, I started a travel blog as a way to stay in touch with family and friends while I was gone and to chronicle my travels online without needing reams of paper.

But as I did more research, I found people making money online with writing and blogs. I still didn’t see a market for my blog in particular, but I found a few others that invited me to write for them, including Wise Bread and Vagabondish; two fledgling websites at the time who were willing to give me a chance.

“Hey, wait a minute!” I said. “If I can write and making a living with nothing more than an internet connection, I’ve got it made for full-time traveling!”

What a revelation.

I had no delusions of this being an easy or quick way to riches; in fact I expected it would take years of relatively full-time work to build up a portfolio and reputation to crack into the industry. Luckily I had an income from the sale of my financial planning practice to cover me for 2.5 years; hopefully long enough to generate a new stream of income from writing.

Niche Writing

I also had the advantage of a niche expertise in personal finance to combine with travel that differentiated me from the masses of people trying to be travel writers.

So I wrote about travel for various financial publications, and I wrote about finance for travel publications. The two topics married quite nicely (since you need money to travel!), and soon thereafter I identified another niche in lifestyle design and location independent career management – since that was the life and career I was hacking into, one steep learning curve at a time.

So after a couple of years (and a lot of hard work with very little income), learning the ins and outs of traveling inexpensively using various tips and techniques, I eventually found the perfect balance; I had figured out how to make full-time travel financially sustainable.

“The Professional Hobo” is Born

Along this journey, I was often asked by people I met what I do, where I’m going, and how long I’m traveling. (This is standard “cocktail party” conversation on the road). Without having firm answers for any of these questions, I self-deprecatingly dubbed myself a “Professional Hobo” to get a laugh (which it often did).

But after a while it stuck. A “hobo” in its early definition was a migrant worker without a home who hopped on a train and rolled into a new town, found temporary work, then moved on to a new town when the time was right.

I was certainly a “hobo” – without a home I was rolling from one place to the next, often finding volunteer jobs that covered my accommodation expenses (allowing me to delve deeper into the local culture than I could as a tourist), before moving on to a new destination and volunteer gig.

But I also had a “professional” edge to my hobo-ness, with a fledgling writing career and finance background. I was putting a science to the hobo-lifestyle.

Eventually when it became apparent that I’d outgrown my blogspot blog and needed to upgrade, I embodied the “The Professional Hobo” through and through.

It has now been five years since I walked into my regional director’s office to announce my decision to sell everything for a life of travel, unknowns, and the stuff (my) dreams are made of. Over five years of full-time travel later, I’ve found a way to make full-time travel financially sustainable and I’m still going strong.

When Will I Stop?

This is one of the most common questions I get; my lifestyle couldn’t possibly be soul-satisfying for ever onwards, could it? Surely I’ll want to “settle down” and adopt some sort of normality to my life.

Right?

Well….maybe. Maybe not. Since my dream of travel is much more about living around the world rather than merely passing through it, I travel slowly, spending months – if not years – in a given destination. So travel fatigue is no longer a prominent issue to deal with, since I’m usually quite excited to explore a new horizon by the time I move on.

And although I may eventually set up a “home base” of sorts, I don’t ever think I’ll rid my blood of the travel bug. My thirst for exploration, breaking bread around dinner tables around the world, climbing the mountains of the world, shopping the markets around the world, volunteering around the world, and – most of all – celebrating the human connection – will never wane.

The mechanics of what I do and where I go will continue to evolve with me and my lifestyle, as it should. So please stay tuned to The Professional Hobo to see what the next curve will be; if it’s anything like the first five years have been, I’m sure it will be one hell of a ride.

I’m regularly asked how I got my start as The Professional Hobo. What was the catalyst for my decision to sell everything in favour of full-time travel? How did I do it? And most importantly – why?

Although I’ve answered many of these questions in one form or another over many interviews for other websites and newspapers, I haven’t properly documented the process on my own site.

Here goes…

Tough Questions

“What are you running away from?” was a question recently asked of me by a friend who was trying to help me through a rough emotional period of confusion about what I wanted to do.

Travel is commonly seen as running away from something or an act of withdrawal, but try as I may to psychoanalyze my actions, I simply can’t see how I’m running away from anything. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

Best to start from the beginning so I can illustrate my point.

Success in Business – and Life?

In 2006, I was running a busy financial planning practice in Toronto, Canada. I was what you could call a “medium-sized fish in a big pond,” having achieved a certain level of success and a reputation for helping people engineer their finances to enable their life’s dreams. I focused on the emotional issues of personal finance in an effort to transform our vision of money from a taboo hindrance into something that empowers and enables instead.

I regularly appeared on television, gave interviews in newspapers opposite financial “celebrities”, and I spoke in front of audiences as large as 3,000 people.

But something wasn’t right.

There was a little voice inside of me – a voice that has been a lifelong friend or pest, depending on how you look at it – that said “Nora…you’re not doing what you’re supposed to be doing. There’s something else out there for you.”

Those dastardly words. I’d heard them so many times before, and in the past when the voice kicked in I changed careers. I’d been a television producer and host, stage manager, professional actor/singer/dancer, operations assistant, assistant property manager, I started an administrative business, and – most recently – I ran a financial planning practice.

Not this time

But this time when “the voice” chimed in, I refused to listen. I’d put way too much blood, sweat, and tears into my business to leave it callously for yet another career. So instead, I filled my life with other things that I hoped would satisfy the ever-growing void in me. I became a Toastmaster, an active Rotarian, I sat on boards of directors for large charities, I got back into film & television acting, and I performed in numerous stage musicals.

Soon enough, I was busy 18 hours a day, and the voice was getting louder, not quieter.

In January of 2006, I was in two car accidents in one week. People said “the universe is trying to tell you something,” but I was only annoyed at this diagnosis. “What is the universe trying to tell me, for goodness sake? That I shouldn’t drive in the snow?! Get outta my way; I’ve got work to do”.

Forced contemplation

It wasn’t until a few months later when two bouts of bronchitis devolved into walking pneumonia that I was forced to stop everything for a spell. Shortly thereafter, the ball dropped. I was in absolute tears about having to go into the office to do some work that I’d been avoiding for weeks.

“What do you want to do?” was the poignant question asked of me when I had my head in my hands, at wit’s end.

“I just want to…retire!” I wailed dramatically. Shortly thereafter though, I considered what retirement meant to me. What was the retirement vision I had for my golden years? I counseled my clients to describe a day in the life of their retirement so we could plan towards it, and I’d neglected to do the same for myself.

Retirement….meant traveling around the world, slowly. Meaningfully. But not just passing through; rather, living around the world.

Rewind: Some history about my view of travel

Before I go further, there’s some back-story required.

When I was 8 years old…

I was sitting in class when the teacher showed us a documentary about Europe. I was fascinated. I saw people, but I didn’t recognize their garb, the language they spoke, the food they ate, the markets they shopped at, or any part of the architecture or scenery. It was so completely foreign to me. And I desperately wanted to know how the children my age played, and what daily life was like inside their homes.

This is the very root of my literal life-long dream of travel.

As the years passed….

Travel being important to me, not a year passed in my adult life when I didn’t go away for at least one vacation each year. But with a paltry vacation allowance and limited funds, most trips were only a week long, and were often superficial attempts to escape Canada’s long winters rather than culturally immersive experiences.

Then, in South Africa….

I took the month of December 2005 to go to South Africa. People at home thought I was nuts.

“You’re going away for a whole month?!” They said incredulously, implying that I was somehow irresponsible.

And the ultimate disconnect: when I was in South Africa, the heavily European-influenced locals asked “And how many months are you here for?”

“Months?!” I’d reply in disbelief. “I’ve only got days – no, hours – here! What do you mean?”

And at the end of my month, as I flew out over low-lying South African fields, watching the farmers tend to their livelihoods, I realized that I still had absolutely no idea how they lived. I’d thought that a month would be long enough to crack the code of the South African mentality; long enough to gain even a faint understanding of the people, their way of life, and their own dreams and ambitions.

Instead, a month of travel throughout this large and convoluted country left me with more questions than answers.

…Back to my breakdown…

So here I was, bed-ridden, considering what retirement meant to me.

I wanted to climb the mountains of the world.

I wanted to break bread around dinner tables round the world.

I wanted to shop at markets around the world.

I wanted to understand daily life in remote corners of the world.

I wanted to volunteer my services to help people around the world.

I knew I couldn’t achieve these goals in the way I truly wanted with week-long – or even month-long – vacations. I had to go much deeper than that. It had to be a lifestyle.

Could I wait another 30 years for a conventional retirement to live out this life-long dream? What if I did, then come retirement age, I wasn’t willing or able to do these things any more? How would I view my life as I lay on my deathbed? I already had a few close calls with the car accidents and my illnesses…what would I feel about my life if it ended right then and there? Would I have regrets?

Early Retirement

After considering these things, it became obvious to me that with only one shot at this life, I had to make the most of it. I had to “retire”. Putting in time for another 30 years was not possible; time wasn’t to be wasted or bided – it was for living.

Finances

I had the good fortune to have saved and invested for my future from a very young age, and had a good nest egg socked away for later years when I can’t work and need income. And in selling my financial planning business I was granted a small income for 2.5 years; long enough to figure out what form my travels would take – or even just to play out whatever dreams I had of long-term travel and return to the “working world” re-energized and enthused.

Ultimately I had no idea what form my travels would take or how long they would last when I made the decision to go. I just knew I had to go. And for once – the voice agreed. Despite the counter-intuitive move of selling a business I’d just built to the point where it could run itself and generate increasingly larger amounts of income, my inner voice actually applauded this decision to break out of the mold and chase down my dreams.

And so it was with a good financial footing and a large dose of faith that I put the wheels in motion for a life of travel.

Stay tuned for Part II, where I discuss some of the logistics of how I became The Professional Hobo; from quitting my job, to selling everything, to deciding where to go and what to do, to developing a location independent career as The Professional Hobo.

A while ago we talked about travel insurance with its pros and cons. Some aspects you need, while others you can omit and save your money.

But do you need life insurance when you travel?

I believe the answer to this would be the same regardless of whether you are traveling or not: it depends.

Some of the factors that affect whether or not you need life insurance (and in turn what kind of life insurance you need) include your current financial situation, whether or not you have dependents and/or a partner, and your estate planning needs. (Don’t know what an estate plan is? Stay tuned for next week’s tip!)

I believe in insurance, but I also believe it’s possible to over-insure ourselves, thus spending too much money on insurance premiums and not having as much in the budget for the things we like to do while traveling. With the right knowledge about what our needs are and what insurance plans can satisfy those needs, we can get just the right amount to protect ourselves (and our loved ones) from financial ruin in the event of “life happening while we’re busy making plans”.

Want to test your knowledge of life insurance and determine your needs? Check out this Financial IQ Test to see how you measure up.

Financial IQ Test: Life Insurance

Greetings from the British Virgin Islands! After trying my hand at sailing a 32ft sailboat for a day in St Martin (as seen above), I was offered an opportunity to join a charter on a 43ft sailboat for a week in the BVIs. My job: one that I love – cooking! There are four of us on the boat (the captain, myself, and a couple who are friends of the captain), and although it’s cozy, it really is amazing how ingenious the use of space is on these boats.

The 12 hour sail from St Martin to the BVIs was not without its grief, however, as I was seasick from about the three hour mark onwards, and my only relief was to be unconscious. But my spirits remained undeterred, and since then I haven’t felt any pangs of nausea as we hop around this tightly knit group of islands in the northern Caribbean; the sailing capital of the world.

I’m not sure what my future holds in store (as early as next week), but I’m fairly sure I won’t attempt the sail back down/over to St Martin; it’s officially called the Anegada passage, but unofficially known as the “Ohmygodda” passage – and for a reason. The wind was at our backs enroute, but I can only imagine how relentless it would be with the big swells going the other way. Although I’m feeling somewhat confident that I might have gained my sea legs, I’m not entirely willing to test that theory.

All this time on sailboats (something I would never have imagined myself doing a few mere months ago), it gives me pause to consider some of the amazing opportunities I’ve had in life so far….and some that are yet to come. Check out my article below on Reverse Bucket Lists for more about this. While you’re voraciously reading, check out my Flaskpacking article; are you a flashpacker?

Wise Bread

Reverse Bucket List: Look Back Before Looking Forward

Before you make a “bucket list” of things you want to do in life, don’t skip this vital first step ― it could be the key to happiness.

Care One

An Introduction to Flashpacking

Are you not quite a backpacker, but not quite a tourist? Do you like to travel with certain comforts and style? Are you on a budget but not willing to sacrifice experiences because of it? Then read on; you just might be a Flashpacker.

Pia is a mother, travel addict, journalist, and troublemaker. She and her son Paul have been traveling the world since Paul was two years old, and together they’ve crossed a few countries and continents. Please enjoy this week-in-the-life of Pia and Paul as they travel through Israel.

I have always travelled off the beaten path with my backpack and when I turned mum I continued, except that I had some extra luggage named Paul then. Usually we backpack. But this day we decided to took a guided tour through Israel. Not because I was to scared to go on my own but because I need to have someone who teaches Paul all the stories about Jesus and his mates.

Day One

“What are all these police officers doing here?” asks my seven year old son Paul when we arrive at the counter of El-Al, the Israeli airline. We are on our way from Frankfurt, Germany to Tel Aviv, Israel where we will start our tour around the country. The police officer explains to Paul that the German and the Israeli government have an agreement about security measurements. The officers are here to help prevent any attacks. Israel must be a very scared nation.

Really, as soon as you are in the queue in front of the El-Al counter you feel like you have already left Germany; so many checks and questions! It is unbelievable: a question before you get to the counter, another one at the counter, you get directed to a special gate where there is a security check right before you board the plane and everyone gets a body-check – everyone head to toe. It is impossible to make it in less than three hours and I am glad someone told me before because I am one of those who comes when the “Last Call” announcement is made.

Day Two

Paul is dead tired. We arrived late yesterday and had to get up way too early for us. What the heck is a holiday when you’re scheduled to be at brekkie at 7am? And for those of you who read this and don’t have kids: No, they don’t get up a 6am by themselves and start to stress you out unless you force them to go to bed at 7pm. Paul gets tired around 10pm and I am happy with that.

Usually we backpack on our own pace but this time we joined a tour group. Paul wanted to learn about Jesus and his life and I know nothing about him – I deleted most of my religious knowledge at some point. Therefore someone else has to teach Paul: The tour guide and the parents of the other kids (there are another five with us).

I thought traveling with a tour group could be nice. When you are a parent on holiday with your kids you never have a proper holiday. Before you go you dream of relaxing and one day into the trip you realise how delusional you were. You are always on duty. It might be okay if you have two of the little ratbags and they keep each other busy, but if you have only one you feel like a human game center. Play this, say that, make this tune. I hoped to get somehow away from that by joining a group with a few other kids. I didn’t take into account that other parents actually put their kids to sleep at 7pm…

Day Three

Do you believe in miracles? Can you turn water into wine? Can you walk on water? “Mum, I think it isn’t possible”, Paul says.

We are exploring the area around Lake Khalid where Jesus did most of his stuff. I am already getting sick off this getting on the bus, getting off the bus, listening to a story, get on again and start all over again. I’d rather talk to people than just listen to one who knows it all.

I get confused by all the names. All girls Jesus was close to were called Mary. If Jesus would live today he would be one-of-a-kind casanova with smartphone and he would have all those Marys in his address book. Maybe he would put notes in brackets behind their names. Like Mary (mom), Mary (sis of Lazareth), Mary (gal from Migdal). It is sort of what the Bible does too.

I am not really familiar with all those Marys in detail so I am getting really confused every now and then. Paul has already zoomed put. He is sitting in the bus and playing Nintendo. “Another church?” he asks when we get off on our second stop. And this is only our third day! Plenty more churches to come. I begin to think that a mono-thematical holiday isn’t the best for kids. There should be some animals and splash-pool fun involved at some stage.

We stay in a Kibbuz-Hotel at the shore of the lake. A Kibbuz is a little village with a few hundred people that is self-sustained. That is a neutral definition. You could also say: It is the old socialist idea of community realised in Israel. I love it. Everyone has their own house but they have a shared laundry, a place where old people can go, a kindergarten, common rooms – and bunkers. Bunkers and soldiers are everywhere.

Day Four

This is Israel. Everything is complicated. There are Israeli Jews and Israeli Muslims and Palestinian Christians and Muslims. It is not even that there is just Christianity; there are Russian-Orthodox, Druids, Catholics, Protestants, and so on.

Our bus driver is a male Israeli Muslim, our guide a female Israeli Jew. We say “Boker Torf “ (Hebrew) to one and “Merhaba” (Arabic) to the other. We are still at Lake Khalid which is also where Israel borders Syria and Jordan. Israel occupied the Golan heights about forty years ago. This is an area where tourists don’t go.

Our bus is the only one on the road. No other pilgrims around. The streets are tiny and the turns are scary. A wide endless hilly beige-coloured landscape lies in front of us. An area of war. There are bunches of big rocks in bends that could be blown up in case the Syrians attack. There are tanks and bombed houses along the streets. There are bomb shelters everywhere. The land is empty, lonely, lost. Israel is such a small country! Everything is squashed next to each other.

Paul and the other boys on the bus like it. To them, war is a game they know from their Nintendo games – it is far off reality. Their little minds can’t grasp what it means when thousands of people are dying. So they keep on playing Star Wars while we gaze at a landscape of real war.

Day Five

Change of scenery: We are at the Dead Sea. One majesty of a lake. It is like a mirror. A sunset couldn’t be more kitschy. On the other side the mountains of Jordan rise.

“Why is it called Dead Sea?” Paul asks and adds “Is it because this is a war country and there are so many dead?” He learned his lesson yesterday. So I explain to him about the impossibility of living in salty water.

The children go together down to the beach with just one parent. We others have time off. Great! Exactly what I was looking for. I head to the sauna and Spa. I didn’t know that Israelis are so into saunas but they seem to be everywhere. I try to talk to a bunch of Russians while I am floating in the water. The Jacuzzi is filled with water from the Dead Sea – it’s just not as cold as the Dead Sea.

There is no late night entertainment. This is very unusual for us. We tend to have dinner on the streets wherever we stay and then hang around and watch people for a little while. Yes, me and my seven year old son! I don’t drag him to bars or clubs – don’t worry. But life isn’t just the thing we experience when the sun is up.

The children have sat in the bus for too long for too many days. They are running wild in the lobby but none of us parents feels responsible.

Day Six

We are allowed to sleep in! I can’t believe it. We don’t depart until 9.30 am. That is as late as it gets.

Not far from our hotel is En Gedi, a waterfall – in the desert. We have to walk and climb a bit to get there. We are allowed to walk, I should say. I feel like have never moved so little on a holiday.

Here is something other than a church but Paul is still not impressed. The kids can’t grasp the contrast between this dead dry landscape and the running water. They don’t care either. Instead, they look for sticks and stones and play around. At the end of the day I have a huge collection of sticks in my suitcase that I am not allowed to throw out.

On this tour, there is just too little to do for children. They have much more energy than we adults have and can’t get rid of it. And it won’t get better today because we’re on the bus and heading for Jerusalem.

Day Seven

Jerusalem, the middle of the world. This place is amazing. There are so many layers of history that you have to dig into. It seems like any civilisation that has ever been megalomaniac made it to the Holy City: The Romans, the Byzantines, the Ottomans, and so on.

Temples have been built and destroyed and with the same stones something else has been built. I guess you could tell the story of this city by just telling the story of one stone of the Western Wall – the wailing wall as it is called. There is a high speed connection to God here, our guide tells us, and we could write a wish on a piece of paper and stick it in the wall. Paul asks if it works like Santa Claus. Sort of, I tell him, just without the elves.

We walk along the Via Dolorosa, the path Jesus took to get to Golgatha, the place where he died. The children have all sorts of funny questions: The alleyway is narrow and they wonder how Jesus could walk here with the big cross behind him without hitting the walls all the time. They wonder how heavy the cross was and how long it took him for the walk. They wonder if the streets were as busy with vendors in former times. They wonder about all the normal things and not the miracles and pain. I want to buy them each a crown of thorns but they laugh at me.

“So, what do you think of God?”, I ask Paul at the end of the day.

“God was only Jesus’ dad and dads aren’t that important”, Paul says.

There you go: The decline of belief through single mothers.

Pia is planning to go to Sweden at the start of February (without Paul) to a Hot Air Ballon Festival, then Panama just after Easter, and on a Mediterranean cruise at the end of April. You can read about her adventures at Are We There Yet.

Last week while discussing using your credit card on the road I made mention of currency conversion rates. No matter how you manage and spend your money while you travel, you’re going to have to pay for the privilege of spending money in another currency.

Whether it’s converting cash (hint: don’t do it at the airport!), pulling money out of an ATM, using traveler’s cheques (what are they, again?), or charging that credit card, you’re gonna pay.

Quite often the currency conversion charge is a percentage of the amount you’re converting, and it’s hidden no less. So you have to rifle though the fine print to discover what you’re actually paying. Add some flat rate user fees on top of it in some cases, and you may be paying way more than you realize – and way more than you need to.

Here is an article that summarizes all the ways you can pay for things while you travel, and the fees to be aware of in so doing.

Managing Your Money Abroad: Currency Conversion Rates

Shortly after arriving in St Martin to live on a friend’s sailboat for a few weeks, we took a drive to Sunset beach.

With a name like that, I had visions of a stunningly romantic scene perfect for admiring the setting sun with a mojito in hand and toes in the sand.

The warning signs along the roadside suggesting I might lose my life should have been my first clue that this wasn’t your average beach.

At the beachside, people were studying a chalkboard with what looked like airline arrivals information. Being close to the airport, I presumed that many of the beach-goers were awaiting friends arriving by plane and were just killing time near the airport until the plane landed.

Little did I know…

While settling into my beach chair, suddenly there was increased activity. People stood up and grabbed their cameras, looking expectantly at the ocean. Some people even ran to a point in the middle of the beach, and positioned themselves carefully and strategically near a fence post.

My gaze followed the collective’s, to discover that coming straight towards us over the ocean was a very large airplane. A very large, very low-flying airplane.

Like, I-could-see-detail-on-the-landing-gear sort of low.

Panic struck me. Is this normal? A plane like that, flying so low? Is it making an emergency landing somewhere close by? Will the plane even make landfall, or are they preparing for an emergency water landing?

And for god’s sake, should we not be moving out of the way?!

Before I had a chance to save my own life (much less the hundreds of other beach-goers who were way-too-casually contemplating their own impending deaths), the plane flew directly overhead with a deafening roar and landed 100 feet away on St Martin’s airport runway, which perpendicularly meets the beach.

I could have practically touched the plane. I could see individual bolts on the belly of the plane. The sound of the jet engines was so loud I had to cover my ears. A small sandstorm erupted beneath the plane’s flight path and a wall of sand flew violently and horizontally towards the ocean. People tumbled into the ocean along with the sand.

The plane touched down on the runway and cacophonously turned all thrusters on to slow its thunderous body down.

A wave of gratitude washed over me for surviving such a near miss, along with the other beach-goers and plane passengers. We all survived.

Then people cheered, and raced back to the “arrivals” board to see when it would happen again.

Welcome to Sunset Beach in St. Martin.

I’m not sure there’s anywhere else in the world you can go and actually find yourself standing directly underneath (and so close to) the flight paths of landing aircraft. The blast of air that gets displaced from a plane landing is incredibly dangerous, and can knock you off your feet – or worse.

But here, despite the warning signs, some people are brazen enough to grab onto the fence and brace themselves for this event, as if it were an amusement park ride. If the plane is big enough (and low enough), its final approach will actually lift these thrill-seekers off the ground, their feet waving almost horizontally behind them as they hang on to the fence for dear life. Other people stand closer to the water and allow the airflow to carry them into the surf where they tumble and giggle.

It’s surreal.

I don’t know about anybody else on the beach that day, but with each landing, I had to work hard to ignore the knowledge that if something should go just a little bit wrong with the landing, we all could be in a world of trouble. I do believe that Sunset Beach in St Martin must be tops among the world’s most dangerous beaches.

So it was with gritted teeth and a charge of adrenaline that I joined the ranks of the other beach-goers with my camera in hand to capture an experience that I wasn’t likely to see again (assuming I survived).

For your viewing pleasure (or terror, depending on how you see it), check out this video of the experience:

Can’t see the video here? Check it out here on Tripfilms or Youtube.

Every year I summarize my cost of full-time travel. It’s a great exercise in travel budgeting and expense tracking. And believe it or not, with the creative travel strategies I use to get free accommodation, travel slowly, and fly for pennies on the dollar, my cost of full-time travel is less than staying in one place.

Click here to see my cost of full-time travel in 2010.

What I Did in 2011

My full-time travels in 2011 had a lot of variety. The first five months was spent recovering from 2010(!) in New Zealand, then I had five months of hectic travels through North America, Europe, and Asia (including the Ultimate Train Challenge which spanned 10 countries on 29 trains in 30 days), and I finished off the year catching my breath once again on the Caribbean island of Grenada.

All in all I traversed 13 countries and 73,000kms in 2011. (Click here for a more detailed summary and video of my 2011 full-time travel adventures).

Price Tag for 2011

I was surprised to discover that my total expenses in 2011 were almost exactly what my full-time travel expenses were for 2010 (within $400)! This was far from intentional, and even a little surprising given some big-ticket purchases I had to make in 2011.

Drum Roll, Please…

My total cost of full-time travel in 2011 was $17,615.

All in. 

If you were to follow in my footsteps, you might have spent more, or you might have spent less. Travel is so very different for everybody (hence the popularity of my week-in-the-life series), and we tend to spend money on the things that are important to us and make adjustments in other areas that aren’t.

I could have spent less. But the end-goal for me is not to spend as little as possible; rather to simply spend within my means. (Which I do).

Because I specialize in finding free accommodation and flying for (almost) free, I am able to keep my overall expenses low enough that I don’t need to earn a lot of money in order to financially sustain my full-time travels.

Something must be working, because it has been five years and counting….

Breakdown

Following is a breakdown of my 2011 expenses, month by month. I’ve converted expenses from native currencies to US Dollars for ease of comprehension and comparison.

January

New Zealand

$524 USD

I started off the new year in New Zealand. January saw me traveling around the North Island, from Rotorua to Keri Keri. But I was exhausted from an incredibly busy 2010, and a desire to slow down the pace of my travel brought me back to my favourite haunt of Mana Retreat.

(I don’t have a specific breakdown of expenses for January, as I didn’t start recording my expenses in full detail until February. The month’s expenditures was largely a function of bus travel, food and drink, and gifts for hosts that I stayed with).

February

New Zealand

$725 USD

I volunteered in trade for accommodation and food at Mana Retreat for the month of February. Most of my expenses were discretionary and entertainment-related, with the exception of some banking fees, and $100 to extend my New Zealand visa.

February Breakdown

Food & Drink $177

Transportation $99

Phone $33

Personal Effects $74

Entertainment $133

Visa $109

Bank Fees $100

March

New Zealand

$467 USD

March was a relatively quiet month, spent largely at Mana Retreat, enjoying the views, the hikes, and the people. I also took a course in Reiki that makes up almost half the month’s expenses.

March Breakdown

Transportation $54

Personal Effects $55

Food & Drink $128

Bank Fees $35

Extras (Reiki course) $195

April

New Zealand

$604 USD

In April I continued to recover from travel fatigue at Mana Retreat, as well as making a few weekend trips to Auckland to “splash out” from my rural routine as well as to strut my vocal cords at a few performances.

$130 of the transportation cost was my plane ticket from New Zealand to Canada (where I would be heading for the summer – North American summer, that is).

Yes. I paid $130 to fly half-way around the world – and in business class no less. (Click here to see how I did it).

April Breakdown

Transportation $238

Personal Effects $40

Entertainment $98

Food $223

Bank Fees $5

May

New Zealand

$1294 USD

By my fifth month of living relatively rurally one place in New Zealand, I realized it was soon time to get moving again. My itchy feet resulted in me “splashing out” whenever I went into town! (I always spend more money in urban vs rural settings). My food & drink allocation is testament to said splashing out.

I also took a gospel singing workshop (that accounts for $130 of my entertainment expenses) at Mana Retreat that I count as one of the year’s highlights.

May Breakdown

Transportation $100

Food & Drink $453

Business Equipment $142

Entertainment $410

Personal Effects $173

Phone $16

June

Canada, USA

$1,641 USD

I’m on the move! With the onset of summer in Canada, I made the shift from southern hemisphere to northern (on my permanent mission to avoid winter). Most of June was spent in Toronto visiting family and friends. At the end of the month I took a quick trip to Florida (accounting for most of the transportation expenses) to visit a friend as part of the No Baggage Challenge.

You’ll see my food & drink allocation shot up, partly because I was no longer getting free meals (as I did at Mana Retreat), and also because I’ve consistently found that visits “home” end up involving lots of social calls, which in turn means lots of restaurants and cafes.

June Breakdown

Transportation $432

Food & Drink $747

Passport Renewal $117

Business $12

Entertainment $176

Personal Effects $157

July

Canada

$2,301 USD

I took a quick train trip to Quebec City on another No Baggage Challenge experiment, then spent most of the rest of the month in northern Ontario’s cottage country with family.

The high cost of transportation is made up of train tickets to/from Quebec (over $200), renting a car for the cottage ($300), and visa applications for China, Mongolia, Russia, and Vietnam in anticipation of the upcoming Ultimate Train Challenge in September.

I also got a nasty case of bronchitis (who gets bronchitis at the height of summer, you ask? Me. I do.) which cost me a few hundred dollars in doctor’s visits and pricey antibiotics.

July Breakdown

Transportation $1266

Food & Drink $502

Entertainment $244

Medical $289

August

Canada, Sweden, Portugal

$4,863 USD

August was my most expensive month by far, for a few reasons:

• I bought a new laptop and a pile of related business accessories
• I traveled to Sweden for the last half of the month (which, between airfare and cost of living, wasn’t a cheap proposition)
• I flew from Sweden to Portugal in preparation for the Ultimate Train Challenge start date of September 1st
• My trusty wheeled backpack luggage finally gave up on me after almost four years of full-time travel abuse. I was in northern Sweden at the time with very few shopping options and no time to order anything online. Luckily I found an expensive but great replacement in my new Osprey wheeled backpack

August Breakdown

Transportation $1217

Personal Effects $297

Food & Drink $290

Business $2260

Accommodation $173

Luggage $288

Gifts for hosts $338

Note: Notice a new expense category? August was the only month I spent anything on accommodation! I splurged with a few nights in a hotel in Stockholm.

September

The Ultimate Train Challenge: Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Russia, China, Vietnam

$2,148 USD

Sorting out expenses this month involved converting and reconciling expenditures in nine different currencies! With the fast and furious Ultimate Train Challenge, September’s costs were largely transportation (train reservations with the Eurail pass) and food-related.

September also marks the annual renewal of my expat medical insurance, which provides global coverage in the event of a medical emergency. (Stay tuned for a detailed post about this in the near future).

All in all given the sheer amount of territory I covered, September was a pretty reasonable month. Of course, I had lots of help through Ultimate Train Challenge sponsors like HostelBookers, Eurail, Real Russia, China Odyssey Tours, and more. This is one of the benefits of long-term travel blogging; with a reputable blog and social media outreach, travel expenses can be offset with strategic partnerships.

September Breakdown

Food & Drink $455

Transportation $400

Phone $47

Entertainment $10

Medical Insurance $1128

Gifts for hosts $78

Personal Effects $30

October

Vietnam, Grenada

$1,901 USD

After a little recovery time in Vietnam (where I rode motorcycles, drank coffee, and ate as much as I could), I counter-intuitively backtracked across Europe and across the Atlantic ocean to the southern Caribbean island of Grenada.

And despite the cost of transportation to get there, it was a worthwhile trek across the world, as I discovered a paradise in Grenada in a house-sitting/dog-minding gig that kept my expenses nice and low for the rest of the year.

October Breakdown

Transportation $1193

Food & Drink $260

Personal Effects $51

Entertainment $42

Business $320

Gifts $35

November

Grenada

$538 USD

I spent much of November settling into the relaxing pace of Caribbean life in Grenada, and really enjoyed having my own space, with a kitchen to cook in, beach to walk on, use of a car, and time to just be.

November Breakdown

Transportation $41

Food & Drink $385

Personal Effects $67

Entertainment $11

Business $34

December

Grenada

$609 USD

Despite a slow start in Grenada, by December I had a nice routine and a great group of friends to ring in the holiday season. I had time to reflect on my year covering over 73,000kms and 13 countries, and to plan a few more adventures for 2012. (Hint: I’ll be in the Caribbean for a while, and trying out some travel adventures of the watery persuasion).

December Breakdown

Transportation $100

Food & Drink $328

Phone $18

Entertainment $118

Gifts $45

Summary: Financial Choices

How we choose to spend our money – full-time travel or not – varies dramatically from person to person, dependent largely on our respective dreams, priorities, and income.

I used to be a skydiver, spending every weekend and vacation on a drop zone, jumping up to 10 times per day. Skydiving is a very expensive sport. And yet, I managed to sustain this lifestyle for many years with my entry-level income and meagre savings. How? I made conscious choices about how I spent my money so that I could budget for the things I really wanted to do.

Full-time travel is no different. I don’t make a lot of money with my location independent career as a writer, but I also don’t need to – and frankly I don’t want to either. I make up for the small income with creative travel strategies and a slow travel style that keeps costs low.

I am financially sustaining my life-long dream of full-time travel; living around the the world. For this, I feel so grateful – almost incredulously so – every day.

On to the next adventure!

Having discussed credit card insurance, it’s time to take your credit card on the road! I prefer to charge everything I can to my credit card, since it provides me with records of my purchases, I get a good conversion rate (more on that next week), there is a degree of theft protection, and (quite importantly) it’s a great tool for accumulating frequent flyer miles.

But credit cards are not always accepted, or ideal, and there are a few pitfalls to beware of. For example, cash advances should generally be avoided whenever possible, since interest is charged from the day you withdraw the money (as opposed to regular charges, which afford you a grace period).

I also have the discipline and wherewithal to spend within my means, and pay off my credit card in full each month (something I manage online). This is important, because if you don’t pay off your balance in full and on time you’ll be charged interest (not good), and ultimately it’s possible to work yourself into a financial pickle while traveling that could get ugly – especially if your credit card is your last resort. (See my Financial Travel Tip on Debt Management for more on this).

As with so many financial matters, knowing the best option is mostly about knowing yourself.

Here’s a comprehensive list of the pros and cons of using your credit card on the road, with a list of rewards cards you might like to consider.

Travel & Money: Using Your Credit Card on the Road

For just shy of two weeks now, I’ve been living on a boat anchored in St Martin.

This is ironic for me; in September I met a traveler in Portugal who said he’d be hanging out on his friend’s boat in the Caribbean come Christmas.

“You should come join us,” he said. “You’d look great on a sailboat with a big sun hat on!” (And no, he wasn’t coming on to me).

I guffawed. “No way you’ll find me on a boat, thankyouverymuch. I get seasick at the mere thought of it!”

And that was that.

So you can imagine my own surprise when, come Christmas, I was hanging out on a friend’s sailboat in the Caribbean in Grenada. A mere dip of my toes into the seafaring sailing culture in the Caribbean, and I was hooked! So I made the decision to test my sea legs by living on a boat for a while – hence my trip up to St Martin to board a friend’s boat.

And despite my previous disposition toward seasickness (even in calm conditions), I haven’t even fought pangs of nausea! I’m working on a theory that seasickness is much more fear-based than physiological.

So far, so good!

Check out my latest article on how to get free accommodation, as well as a few places I’ve been interviewed recently.

Care One

Four Ways to Get Free Accommodation on Your Next Vacation

Read this article to discover one of my biggest secrets to making full-time travel financially sustainable: free accommodation!

Profiles & Shout-Outs

Fellow traveler and Wise Bread writer Myscha of Trekhound wrote this lovely profile of my life, along with some of my general tips on keeping full-time travel affordable.

How to Be a Professional Hobo

I also chatted with Jon of Tantric Traveler for quite a while about how I came to travel, some of the challenges of the full-time travel lifestyle, and some tips and resources for how to do it. Have a listen! It’s broken down into four easy-to-listen-to segments.

Living the Travel Dream with Nora of The Professional Hobo