Do you dream of handing your notice in to quit your job and travel the world, but don’t know where to start? We can assure you, everyone who’s travelling now has been in your position. It probably seems far-fetched, one of those pipe dreams you always think about but talk yourself out of. You tell yourself it’s not possible, you’ve got too many commitments, work responsibilities, finances, family and friends, and anything else holding you back – we’ve been there.
By no means is it easy but the journey is so worth it! Here are 6 things we did to get the ball rolling and put us in a position to leave the U.K. behind for a life of adventure. So, if you’ve got the bug and want to know how to and travel full time, read on.
6 Things to do to Quit Your Job and Travel Full Time
1. Assess Your Financial Position – Income vs. Savings
First things first, you need to assess your financial position – this will drastically affect the travel lifestyle you choose and plan for. Understanding how to afford to travel full-time is your first hurdle. Would you plan on saving to travel for a certain period of time, then return home and start saving again? Or, are you planning to work while you travel, meaning you have a reliable income?
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The cash you have available will dictate where you can travel and how long you can sustain your travel lifestyle. If you’re living off savings, budgeting is all the more important, and it likely puts a time limit on your travels. However, if you’re generating income as you travel, you have more flexibility when choosing destinations, budgets, and dates.
Once you’ve assessed your position and desired lifestyle, begin researching the places you want to travel to. Things to consider include:
- Cost of living – accommodation, food, activities, excursions, nightlife, etc.
- Cost of travel – flights, insurance, visas, vehicle rental, etc.
Compare your research with your current financial position. Everyone has outgoings of some sort and sometimes, people believe travelling requires lots of money. But, once figured out, it may even be possible to travel for less than your “normal” lifestyle costs where you pay rent/mortgage, bills, expenses, fuel, etc.
Everyone’s financial position is unique. For us, we saved for 18 months before we quit our jobs to travel and head to Bequia. However, even though we had savings, we wanted to make this a permanent lifestyle choice. Lauren was able to continue working remotely as a consultant on a part-time basis, and I left a Marketing Manager position to become a freelance SEO copywriter and marketing consultant.
It may not be possible for you to convert your job into a remote position. Not every job in the world can be done remotely, but nowadays there are tons of remote opportunities out there. Get creative about how you can adapt your skills to suit work that you can do while jet-setting around the world.
Read about: 7 Ways To Earn Money While Travelling
If you need some ideas, check out jobs such as; teaching English as a foreign language, virtual assistants, marketing, design and media jobs, translator, coaching, customer services, program tester, just to name a few.
2. Talk to People Who Are Living Your Dream Life
Reading articles like this is one way of learning, and we want to share our thought process and journey with you so you can do the same. However, not everyone has a blog about how to quit your job and travel. This is where you can use social media to your advantage.
Reach out to people who are doing exactly what you want to do. Ask them about their journey, what they did to prepare for travelling and how they sustain their lifestyle. You’ll find most people are more than happy to share advice and tips – they’ve all been in your position and will want to help you quit your job and travel.
Not everyone’s path will be realistic or relatable, but you’ll pick up nuggets of information and inspiration from everyone you have conversations with.
Your chosen social media platform is great for finding people you relate to. Whether it’s old school friends on Facebook or people you’ve never met on Instagram or TikTok, reach out and ask questions – you’ve got nothing to lose.
Top tip: be friendly and genuine. Please don’t slide into someone’s DMs or respond to their content messages along the lines of ‘how do you make money then’, or with assumptions about how they sustain their lifestyle.
People are much more likely to give you helpful guidance and tips about how to quit your job and travel if you’re genuinely asking for advice and go about it in a friendly manner.
3. Explore Ways To Travel – Backpacking, Volunteering, Housesitting, Slow Travel and More
There are many different ways to travel the world and platforms you can use to make it easier. When you’re researching how to become a full-time traveller, you should attempt to find a lifestyle that will suit you.
Are you someone who can pack light, doesn’t need a lot to get by, and would like the freedom of moving from place to place relatively easily? If so, then backpacking is probably for you.
Do you want to tie travelling in with doing some volunteering on projects that make a real difference to communities around the world? Try platforms such as Workaway. They make travelling cheaper and incredibly rewarding.
Housesitting is an incredible way to immerse yourself into local life and experience what it’s like living in a destination. It comes with the responsibilities of maintaining a house and sometimes caring for pets. So if you love animals as well as travel, it’s a win-win! We use TrustedHousesitters and couldn’t recommend this platform enough – it’s global, easy to use and incredibly cheap for an annual membership, which we figured out we ‘got back’ after just one sit. If you’d like to give it a try, here’s 25% off your membership plan:
Don’t like moving around as much, have a work schedule you need to maintain, or want to experience absolutely everything a destination has to offer? Slow travelling is a good way to keep costs down (most accommodations discount long-term bookings) and enjoy a more relaxed way of seeing the world.
We like to see as much of every destination as possible and immerse ourselves into local culture and traditions. With housesitting and slow travel combined, we’re able to stay in some beautiful homes with the most adorable pet, see areas that most people would never visit and experience local culture on a deeper level.
4. Set Goals, Make a Plan and Take Action
Ok, you’ve researched finances, spoken to travellers, and found your perfect travel lifestyle – now it’s time to set some goals and make a plan. To quit your job and travel, you need to decide your first destination, set a date and compile a list of everything you need to do to make your dream travel life happen.
Deciding a date is one of the most important steps. If you know you’re working towards a specific date of when you’re going to start travelling, you won’t put it off until it’s the ‘right time’. It’s never going to be the right time – you just have to do it.
In terms of a travelling plan, map out your first month to 2 months only. You’ll find that you want to be more flexible than you thought. You may fall in love with somewhere and want to stay longer, or you’ll wind up in a place you can’t stand and want to get out of quickly. The point is – don’t pre-book a year’s worth of flights or tie yourself to a strict structure because, honestly, you’ll kick yourself.
Setting goals and holding yourself accountable is the best way to turn your dream into a reality.
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If you need to save a certain amount per month, you’ll have to get strict with your budgeting. Want to have a source of income while travelling? Start working on it now.
The sooner you get clear on your goals and understand what action you need to take, the more realistic you can be with your leaving date. In other words, the sooner you’ll be living your dream life!
5. Don’t Listen to the Opinions of Others
One thing you have to accept is that most people won’t be on board with your decision to quit your job and travel full time, and you’ve got to be prepared to block out the haters.
People who disagree with your choice to travel full-time will attempt to question everything. They’ll say; what about your career? What about your family? What about your friends? Where you’re travelling to isn’t safe (even though they’ve never been).
No matter how much research you’ve done, how certain you are that what you’re doing is the right choice for you or how well you answer their concerns, some people won’t be on board.
But it’s your life and your decision to make, not theirs.
Please don’t let people talk you out of what you want to do for their own benefit, or because they doubt it. There will always be another job if it doesn’t work out for you. But sadly, there won’t always be a time for you to follow your dream.
You can’t please everyone, and if you take everyone’s opinions seriously, there will never be the ‘right time’ to leave your “normal” life behind to quit your job and travel.
6. Get the Courage To Quit Your Job and Travel
This sounds simple, I know! But believe it or not, it’s a hurdle that stops so many people.
Everything doesn’t plan and work out overnight, which means there’ll be weeks, months, and sometimes years between now and the ‘leaving date’. This, in turn, means there’ll be stumbling blocks along the way, you’ll have times when you think it’s not possible to quit your job and travel and doubt your choices, but you’ve just got to power through and focus on your end goal.
Invest in your own self-development right at the start of your journey of planning. Invest time into self-development books, podcasts, affirmations, meditations, etc. There are several self-development books that we truly believe helped us in realising our goal of travelling.
Self-development might seem totally unrelated to the dream of travelling the world, but building confidence in yourself and your decisions and taking steps to make positive changes in your life will enhance your quality of life overall and contribute to the realisation of your dreams and aspirations (travelling).
Trust your research, trust yourself and follow through with your plan. Do you want to live your life in regret, questioning ‘what if?’.
If things don’t go to plan, you can always come home and pick up where you left off!
Don’t ever let fear hold you back – go for it!
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