I like to travel, learn and tell stories.
Travel podcast here
New episodes Wednesdays and Saturdays.
Q&A community: https://crazypeople.online/c/bitofarambler
Any travel questions are welcome, they don’t have to be podcast-related
FAQ
how do you travel long-term?
The cost of living in most countries is around $500 USD a month for transportation, rent, utilities and food altogether; teaching English pays $2000 USD a month with zero qualifications or experience.
every month I taught English, I had a few exrra months of my cost of living.
I taught English for about 7 years.
as long as you’re making more than 500 USD a month remotely in any job, you can travel long-term.
if you want to backpack, CoL shoots down to $200 a month real quick.
both.
I taught in person in China at first, and then after I started traveling full-time I taught online because all you need is a smartphone.
and no, the market is not at all saturated, it is wide open. there are literally thousands of jobs available right now across dozens of countries and online.
if you have any interest in traveling, or you need money, and are a native or fluent English speaker, teaching English is such a great deal.
I’m happy to answer any other questions you have.
it’s a great job.
teach as little or much as you want, save as much money as you want, go pretty much wherever you want, and then chill out the rest of the time.
I taught for several years and am still traveling on the savings a decade later.
if you’re a native English speaker, you can start doing this next week.
every month you teach english generally results in 2 to 3 months of savings.
fucked up is also my jam, so I’ll be looking all of those up.
thank you very much.
do you know of any other series like kino no tabi?
or that have a similar vibe regardless of the plot and like this meme avoid the objectification and sexualization that so many animes allow?
jut rewatched the originals and then started reading the light novels for the first time, I’m loving that there are so many original stories in the novels.
I thought that first season and then the reboot was all I would ever get.
such a good series
Kino no Tabi
The few of us awake appreciate your antics.
i copy pasted the English language comic onto the info for you:
kelsiebru on IG?
i see this:
“OK… could you…”
Me? Sure. Did, as far as you mean.
I don’t recommend others leave everything behind when there’s no want or reason for it, though.
Common misunderstandings of travel are that you can’t take your life with you, and that your life is statically limited to your possessions, job and relationships.
“…worth more to me…”
great!
flights out of the US start at 20 bucks.
hm.
don’t know why Mexico is left out of that general search, but flights to Mexico are 20 bucks also:
I see what you mean now.
I thought you were mainly concerned about shipping things from the US, which neither I nor anyone I’ve known has had intercepted or interfered with en route to dozens of countries, frequently containing valuables. It must happen, but it seems very rare.
The other way though, if you’re sending packages to the US from other countries, you could have that problem occasionally, which I have experienced twice and heard of from other travelers shipping things to the US.
As far as I know, that’s a one-way problem, US-tagged packages seem to slip through sticky fingers.
people usually ship their belongings by sea or air(ocean freight is cheaper and slower, but I’m not sure by how much with Costa Rica being so near) with a company like DHL, I’ve used them and found them to be a reliable international shipping company, FedEx and UPS are also options.
I wouldn’t worry about customs taking your stuff, especially if you have insurance or tracking or anything like that on the ticket, and especially with a wealthier country like Costa Rica where paper trails are more important.
I’ve actually never heard of customs taking anything legal in real life from anyone who’s shipped belongings overseas(my friend’s yak jerky got confiscated because it’s illegal to import a lot of international meat products into the US) so I personally don’t believe customs pocketing things is very common.
Legos aren’t apparently valuable on their face and with the paper trail of receipts/documents I wouldn’t think you have to worry about anything getting lifted by customs. plus, if you add some fragile notices and insurance on there the agents responsible for transporting the packages will be a lot more careful, for sure.
yup, it’s called the Schengen area:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area
you do not have to be rich to live in Europe, Europe is much cheaper than the states, especially in the situation you’re describing as a long-term traveler.
Three big ones are:
There are lots of international families, so they’ll have company, support networks and infrastructure.
There are tons of safe, affordable countries with easy access to good education.
Native English speakers are all but guaranteed jobs as ESL teachers, so the parents will have access to available, steady income abroad.
A lot of people don’t know about international schools, which is where most international families send their kids.
Other than the first two points, there are not many differences between my individual and family advice. For many families, moving from the US to a country like Thailand means safer, more affordable lives with a better quality of life.
at this point, visas are very easy to get in general, but Thailand is still one of the easiest and is one of the friendliest and most affordable countries around.
if you’re a US citizen, you have visa-free travel in Thailand for 60 days.
if you need a visa, go to the evisa website, thaievisa.go.th, fill out the form, pay the fee, they’ll email you the visa in a couple days.
I usually recommend Thailand or somewhere in Southeast Asia as a first destination. good food, great healthcare, cheap living, great people, beautiful environment, and they’re very used to travelers so there are local and expat support systems nationwide.
another nice thing about Southeast asia is that there are tons of other friendly places close by.
it’s about as easy to live there as anywhere else, but the support systems and the country being very used to travelers might make first time travelers more comfortable.
oh PS thailand has a lot a lot of really good all you can eat buffets for 3 to 10 dollars per person.
for sure! I love talking about this stuff.
if you join an online platform with in-place curriculum, then they assign you to classes so the students are already there.
I didn’t want a schedule, so i made myself available to casually chat with ESL learners on an app called palfish.
enough people called me up for me to make a few hundred a month, which is all I needed to travel. dorms are $100 a month in SE Asia, food is 1 to $4 a portion in all of asia, and I was backpacking half the time anyway.
when I landed in a country, I bought the unlimited data-only plan, clicked the “online” button, and then people called me up whenever they wanted to practice their english with me.
that online work was partially to offset using my savings, but i had already taught in person for ~7 years.
with each month of in-person teaching affording me ~3 months of living expenses, i had enough savings to travel for a couple decades by the time i started traveling full-time.
quick note: there’s no competition for ESL students at the teacher level. there are way too many ESL students and not nearly enough English teachers to fulfill the demand. it’s not even close.