How I managed to travel for a year with no salary

I wanted it

I'd watched colleagues leave on this kind of adventure before, and while it made me quietly dream, I couldn't really picture doing the same — it didn't seem like a life for me, and besides, I couldn't imagine having the funds, short of winning the lottery. Except that one particular week, my life took a different turn and the urge became irresistible. I explain it in this post here.

It was September, and I had just worked out that if I started now, I'd be leaving in January of the following year.

I realised it was possible

I realised it was actually possible the day I sat down in front of a spreadsheet and started doing the maths. Until then I hadn't tried to dig into the question, but this time I started by skimming a few blogs, and I quickly found that budgets for a year around the world with no salary varied enormously — the figures ranged between €5,000 and €40,000, depending on whether you want to travel rough or in comfort, and on which countries you pick... for something in the middle, €22,000 seemed about right, with all the flights included. That was my first surprise... I'd assumed it would take a lot more.

Once I had the figure, I took stock of my savings and of what I could put aside each month. After a few additions and subtractions, my first conclusion was that it would take me more than two years to gather what I needed… ouch… But I didn't let it discourage me, and after running a few more scenarios — if I cut this and that, if I gave up having a car… in short: if I trimmed my monthly spending a bit further, how much could I gain? Well, after various cuts I got to a number that let me leave in less than a year and a half! It was September, and I had just worked out that if I started now, I'd be leaving in January of the following year. I can't tell you how I felt at that moment. In my head, right then, it was settled: I was going. I'd just defined an action plan to get there.

I followed an action plan

Once that plan was set — as a schedule, laying out what I could spend and what had to be left in my account at the end of each month — there was no going back! All that remained was to follow it. In practice, one of the things that kept me on the rails was limiting my card use. To do that I withdrew cash once a week, the amount needed for all my day-to-day spending, and from then on I wasn't to use the card, just the cash I had on hand (it's the good old envelope method).

In the end, sticking to that regime was far easier than it looked… having an objective, a goal, motivates you and helps you hold the line. In fact I even took a certain pride in making those sacrifices — what I felt in those moments wasn't the frustration of giving something up, but the pleasure of closing in on my goal, because holding my spending down indirectly grew my savings and brought my departure nearer.

Conclusion

That stretch of apparent sacrifice before my trip was actually a delight, and I'm not saying that with hindsight. Or maybe just a little bit :D. I enjoyed the road that led to my objective; the route and the destination were clear, I was determined, and above all I could see how lucky I was to be in that frame of mind.