How Can You Travel Full-Time Without Spending a Fortune?

I've been doing for the last, uh, 10 to 15 years now. Uh, who am I, for those of you who don't know, I'm, uh, Jeff from Island Hopper TV, I've been traveling pretty much full time for the last few years. Um, I'm haven't been home to a bed. That's called my bed for over a year now. Uh, last year I went to 24 countries this year. I've already been to four countries and I actually feel like I'm moving kind of slow and I want to slow down a little bit because, you know, now I'm 42, uh, I need to pace myself a bit because the travel schedule that I had was pretty intense. I've now been to 90 countries. Uh, some of them I've been to many times over like Philippines, Thailand, Costa Rica, um, Peru, uh, several places, Europe I've been to many times over. But anyway, this video is to give you guys some insight. So let's get into it. You're 20 or 30 years old. You guys can ask me questions in the comments and I'll do my best to respond. So the very first thing that I would say is stay physically healthy, uh, because you cannot travel and keep up with the lifestyle of being abroad if your health is not in good shape. And one of the things that I did when I was young was I thought I was bulletproof. I thought I could eat what I want. I thought I could drink as much as I wanted. I thought I could basically party and stay up all hours of the night and not really worry about my health. Thankfully I was in the military, so I was, uh, you know, staying fit because it was part of the mandatory curriculum. Part of being in the military was, you know, staying within a physical fitness. But when I got out, I'll be honest with you. That was when I started traveling. Right. But I didn't, I didn't really take care of my body. I actually was kind of a workaholic actually. Uh, but I wasn't working for someone else. I was working on my own stuff and most of it was online. But health exercise, staying fit, very important. So, uh, now I always try to go to the gym. Sometimes I even go twice in a day. Uh, I'll ride the pedal bike. I'll do cardio. Or, uh, if I don't go to the gym, I'll just get on a bike and ride around. Uh, and when I ride the bike, I'm just riding the bike for, uh, the fitness. Right. And I like riding the bike. I also go for walks. You can go for runs. It just depends on what you're into. But I try to mix in about, uh, 15 to 20 minutes of, uh, weightlifting with, uh, 15 to 20 minutes of cardio whenever I can, but it's hard being on the road, uh, but they have gyms around, uh, the cities right now I'm in Bangkok. I just got here today from Singapore. Um, so right when I got here, I was like tired, but I was like, I gotta go to the gym, gotta go to the gym. So, uh, and I'm not, I'm not a gym maniac. I'm not one of those people who's like always in the gym or anything like that. I don't even work out for like to really for physique or for show. I work out for health. That's it. It's the most important thing is I work out to make sure I can stay physically fit. Next thing I want to talk about is making investments. I think it's really important that, uh, you make investments in multiple different areas. You know, everyone always says, well, I'm looking for an investor. I'm looking for someone to invest me. Don't even hold your breath for that to come because you know, I've heard so many people say that the best thing that I chalked it up to was just invest in yourself. If that means going and getting a credit line or a loan and investing in yourself because you believe in what you need to do, you feel strongly enough that this is what you need to do. Make the investment in yourself. Go to the bank, get a credit card, do what you got to do, but, uh, make the investment in yourself. Don't wait for anyone else to try and invest in you. I'm not saying that you're not worth someone investing in you with, but, uh, just don't hold your breath with that. I've met many people who are always waiting for investors to come and they never show up or they're looking for grants. But the best thing I can say is what I did, I got a credit card and I invested in myself and I went into debt a little bit and I didn't like that. That's not my friend, but I paid it off. Um, another thing is you should study a lot. Um, study what is study though? Is it like going to college? No, I don't consider it. I think one of the things that, you know, I went to college, right. Uh, cause I got my GI bill. I went to college for, uh, what is it? Social science. I have a bachelor of arts in social science. It's a funny phrase, the way they put it. Right. You think it's a bachelor of science and social science? No. And then I had like almost a, uh, master's degree in cybersecurity. I don't do any of those jobs. So college really was just kind of like, it was, I'm not saying college is bad. It's just, I don't think it's for everybody. But someone says, where did you go to college? I'll say I went to YouTube university because I feel like you can learn almost anything on YouTube. Sure. You have to, uh, have discernment and filter out the, uh, jokers from the, uh, the real people, you know, people who are giving good advice. Um, and I'm not going to sit here and say that, uh, anyone is better than another, but I, I learned a lot from YouTube. I would watch history channel at night that because I'm a traveler, I like the I would always watch travel bloggers. I like Gabriel traveler, um, Harold Balder, uh, bald and bankrupt. I would watch those guys, especially when I wasn't traveling. Uh, you know, and I was just like watching their videos and I'd be like, okay, I gotta get back out on the road. Cause those guys would encourage me. Um, you know, just seeing that they can do it made me realize that I can do it or keep going. Like whenever I felt like I was out of juice, I'd be like, man, I'm not out of juice. I just gotta get out there and just start going and pace myself. Cause for a long time there, I was only traveling for like, I'd go out for like three months and then I'd go home. Like three months was a long time to be gone. And I kind of had it in my mind that three months was all I could do. Now I'm doing like over years, like my, my, I don't have a house anymore. I'm ha I'm a, I'm homeless essentially, but that doesn't mean that I'm homeless. Like I'm destitute. It means that I'm without a house because I travel full time. I'm full time nomadic. I'm a digital nomad. I make all my money from my own and my computer. Literally, I'm not joking. Anyway. So, uh, you got to study and then you got to find the labor of love. So whatever it is that you earn money from, you've got to love it. Like Steve jobs said, reason you have to pick something that you love is because when the hard times come, you can expect our times, they'll come to challenge you because anything worth having, you have to fight for, right? So nothing comes easy and that's not to discourage any of you. That's just to be like more realistic that, yeah, you're gonna have to put in some hard work. You're gonna have to put in some effort to get your goals. You know, they have this a shirt. I remember when I was in, I was a kid, no pain, no gain, right? You know? So like when you're in the gym, you want to get the big muscles, you want to get the good health. You got to stress your body a little bit and I don't know why the universe works that way. I don't know why the nature is that way. It just is. Okay. So you got to be willing to, um, find the labor of love because you're going to have to work hard through it. And if you love what you're doing, that's what will keep you going. But if you're like, I don't like this job, I don't like this career, then you're just going to give up because you don't actually like it. So you have to make sure whatever it is that you're prioritizing as your mission in life, that you actually like it and care about it. Okay. And one of the other things I would say is never give up. Um, I mean, president Trump right now is a great example of never giving up. Whether you like him or not, the point is, is that, um, everything that's been thrown at him, he's never given up. And I watched one of his speeches and he was like, never ever give up. He's like, fight, fight, fight. And you know, it's not just him that says that. I mean, Michael Jordan, Tom Brady. I mean, these were people who were like, look at the story of Tom Brady, how he was one of the last draft picks ended up being the greatest quarterback. Michael Jordan was cut from his, uh, freshman basketball team. I mean, you just got to hang in there just because you, you get knocked down. Like Beyonce says, not if you get knocked down, dust yourself off and try again. Right. So, you know, you gotta, you gotta have the spirit of resilience to just because you get one, no, it doesn't mean that it's not meant for you. It just means you gotta go at it again and maybe take a different route, but you're still going to be able to get there. So never give up, especially if you really strongly believe that that's what you're supposed to do. And then another thing that I would say because of health travel, when you're young, uh, not just because of health, but also what happens when you have kids, you know, are you going to be able to travel? So right now, if you're young, if you're in your twenties or thirties and you know, you, you, you got this time, nothing can replace the experience. The memories, the things that you'll learn from being on the road is going to really grow your mind and expand your, uh, awareness of the world. And it, it makes you more tolerant, but it also makes you more aware, more intelligent, I think, um, and have more wisdom. So, uh, definitely try to travel when you're young. I'm not saying you can't travel when you're older, but, uh, you know, it's definitely easier when you have all that health and vitality of a young person. Um, I would say if something does happen, keep in mind, everything happens for a reason, right? So, um, when something happens, just be, I can look back on my life and look at the time I got into a car accident at the time I got pulled over every time. I always would think, oh, it's the end of the world. This is like, this is it, you know? And then it ended up ending up looking back on it. It was a blessing in disguise kind of thing. You get it. And I know that sounds hard to believe, but really that's kind of been the story of my life and trials and tribulations is everything was, uh, you could almost call it like a redirection. So it was like, Hey, you just need to go a little bit like this. You need to go, you're doing it right. But you need to go around or you need to, you know, it's like being too hard headed, right? So I would say, uh, just keep that in the back of your head. When something happens, first reaction is, oh my gosh, this is happening. And you might've panicked, but then maturity in your mind, you'll say, okay, this is happening for a reason. Okay. Why is this happening? Let me take a moment to evaluate it. Take a step back. Sometimes it takes a week. Sometimes it takes months. Sometimes it takes years for you to realize why that happened, but you have to realize that it's happening for a reason and it's probably for your good. So it's not working against you. Um, one of the things that I would say to be more financially resilient is you want to have multiple streams of income. So you have your main income. Let's just say your main job is you work in cybersecurity, uh, for a company and they allow you to work from your computer. Uh, but then you also have, uh, maybe you have a trading account where you trade, uh, stocks or cryptocurrencies or foreign exchange, Forex or commodities, whatever you're doing with that. And then you also have kind of like a, um, I don't know, maybe you're building like a 401k. You're also building maybe, uh, a Roth IRA or an IRA of some sort. You're doing things that, uh, will eventually lead to more streams of income. Maybe you're building up a pension. Maybe, I don't know what it is that you could be doing. I mean, the list is long. You can go on chat GPT and ask how to build multiple streams of income and they'll give you ideas. Uh, I'm just throwing things out there right now. Um, a YouTube channel. Uh, you don't have to just do a travel YouTube channel to do a YouTube channel. You could do a reviews channel. You could, you could, let's just say in the travel world, you could review airports, you could review hotels. As you know, Island Hopper TV does all of that. I have another channel called Island Hopper TV hotels. I have another channel called Bert cam travel where Bert cam travel reviews, all the transportation. That's not associated with Island Hopper. But, um, I mean, if you go on there at Bert cam travel, you'll see all of the airports that I go to. Whenever I go to a place, I film most of the arrivals and departures. Like today I did Bangkok, Suvarnabhumi airport arrival. I did a Maldives VIP arrival. I, you know, and the cool thing about doing that is you can, you can make the video, you can pay for the experience to get the VIP treatment, which was $180 extra on top of the ticket. But if your video does successful, you can make that money back and then some. So then it becomes an investment. You get what I'm saying? But maybe you do a reviews. You could review a travel backpack. Let's just say I got the new Osprey backpack. That's what I like to travel with. Or I get a new suitcase by a Samsonite and then I review it. You know, people are into that kind of stuff. Uh, you could do a cryptocurrency review channel. You could do a stock finance channel. You could do a food channel. I mean, the ideas are limited. It doesn't just have to be YouTube though. Um, uh, it's a lot of it is on it's unlimited. And, um, so then you can go to, uh, one of the other things that I would say, if you do want to travel full time, do not accumulate material possessions. Material possessions will definitely bog you down over time. Thank you to everyone who's smashed up the likes, by the way. Um, but yeah, material possessions, uh, you know, especially in this day and age with, uh, Amazon and everything, people want to accumulate material possessions. But I would just say, try not to do that. It's a, it's something that will hold you back. And right now I had accumulated some material possessions because I own a house, a condo. I had to put everything in storage and they charged me $120 a month. I'd rather just give it all away at this point, because I'm like, if I'm traveling now for 15 months, 15 months times $180, because that's kind of what they're charging me right now, because they had inflation, they had to raise the price, uh, you know, that adds up like that's over like almost $2,000. And I have to think to myself, are the things in there worth even $10,000? I don't think so. So you get the idea. And then, uh, we also have your mentality, uh, especially with honor or business. There is, I always say there's no business like good business. What that means is when you do business, try to do business and as a good conduct, you want to behave that way. Okay. And one of the reasons that I say there is no business like good business is because you're building a reputation. And then what the next thing on top of that is never burn a bridge because you may have to go back over it. So one of the things that'll happen is you might get into a disagreement with someone and you want to lash out at them and just really do something really bad. Like, I don't know, maybe you want to, I mean, in a bad scenario would be fight them or even worse than that really harm them. Um, but people, to what extent someone would harm someone, whether it's financially or social media or ruin their image or reputation, but then, you know, as time goes by, you're like, Oh, I kind of liked that person. I don't know why I did that. I apologize. You don't want to burn a bridge to where you can never go back over it. So it's better to just blow steam, but don't try and like, you know, don't kill them off or don't like try to throw them under the bus. You know what I'm saying? So best thing you can do if you're, if you're hot like that, just separate yourself, give your chest, give both of you, you or them time to just cool down and let it all kind of heal itself because time always does heal. Okay. So if you're ever in that situation, even, even if you go to like a hotel and you're in a place or you're in a country, you'd be surprised how many times I've had scams happen where I just wanted to lash out and take it out on the country. But then next thing I know, like three years later, I go back and it's a great experience, but I almost gave up on that country. But you know, you don't want to like throw a country or throw anyone under the bus. Okay. Um, but definitely don't burn any bridges. There's a time to reap and a time to sow. What that means is there might be a time where you have to slow down and you have to like, you know, put in the work to focus on your administrative stuff, uh, which is what I'm doing now in Thailand where I've got to, you know, take care of some things, including, uh, administrative stuff, also, uh, health, getting healthy, getting in the gym, taking the vitamins, all that. And then there's a time when I'll have to go back out again and, you know, really, you know, work, you know, film places. I just recently went to Sri Lanka and I went to Maldives. I also went to Singapore, but I made the videos for Sri Lanka and Maldives. Um, both of which were new countries, 89 and 90. Also, uh, there, people are always talking about retirement, retirement, this and that. You know, one of the things I've realized going around to these places is where I see the highest concentration of older people. These are people who they are always staying active, like in Singapore, for example, they have some of the highest, uh, concentration of older people and you go, you go to around Singapore, you always see older people and they're always out. They go, they have like these little, uh, gym parks, these parks with these little gyms and they'll be sitting there going like this and dancing and all that. And there'll be like really old, like maybe even a hundred years old and they're just staying active. So retirement, retirement might be like this. It's retiring from someone telling you what to do or lording over you. That's okay. I think that's an okay goal to aspire for when you're like 40, you know, or 50, you know, being away from that, but you never want to retire from activity or work because I'll tell you what, as someone who's been in a situation where I had, you know, I didn't have to work, but I was like, whoa, I'm bored. This is not good. And you want to have things to work on. You want to have things that you're working on. So retirement, it's not to not work. It's not to not be productive. It's not to be active because that's when things start to fall apart on your body. That's when a lot of things start to fall apart for you. So it's, you want freedom, time, freedom. That's what you're seeking, right? So, uh, take that into consideration. You're not working for a retirement. You're working for freedom. Uh, one of the things I would say is be comfortable being alone in public, uh, without friends. I'm not saying that, you know, it's bad to travel with friends, but if you're trying to travel full time, you have to realize not everyone's going to be able to keep up with your travel schedule or do the things you want to do. And that might put you into a situation where you've got to travel alone. And so you've got to figure out a way to be comfortable, uh, traveling alone and being, you know, sitting down, eating a meal by yourself, that was something that I was challenged with when I was in my twenties, I was like, Oh man, no one's here to, no one's here to eat with me. And everyone's going to think that I'm just eating alone. Now I do it. No problem. But when I was in my twenties, I remember it was a little bit of a thing and it wasn't just me, I remember everyone was like, Oh, can someone come eat with me? You know, like young people, they just don't want to eat alone. They don't want to be seen alone. But when you get older, it's a sign of maturity to be able to, uh, travel solo or do all that stuff. It's obviously better when you're with somebody, but start being comfortable being with your, you know, alone, eating alone. Like it's totally easy. I actually prefer it in some circumstances, depending on who I'm around. I mean, if you're around people who make you laugh, no one's better than being around people to make you laugh. Uh, that's for sure. Um, and I would say what the 15th thing is seek freedom. So again, that was kind of like going in, in, in sideways in with, uh, the, uh, not retiring, but the reason I say that is because you don't want to trap yourself into plans. So I would say pencil in plans and be flexible. So what that means is I always kind of have an idea of countries that I want to go to, but I don't have the, the, the ticket booked yet. I don't have the departure ticket. I don't have the hotels. I travel one day at a time. Almost always. I, I almost never booked more than three days in advance. And it's just, I already have a plan. Like I've already premeditated a plan in my mind of where I would want to go. Like right now I've got Seychelles on the list. I've got French, Polynesia, Australia is out there. I've also got going towards the middle East and Europe, but at any given time, one of those could just be where I booked the ticket. Okay. And then when I get there, I've got to fill out the appropriate documentation for immigration and all that. But once I'm there, it's, you know, I'm, I'm winging it. Um, I have an idea of where I'm going to go in by routes. I'll explore routes, but I might wake up one day and see that it's snowing in Cologne, but it's sunny in Brussels. So instead of going to Cologne where it's going to be snowing for the next three days, I'll go towards Brussels where it's going to be sunny for three days. So I would say being flexible like that, uh, having a plan, but not having a concrete plan, more or less just being penciled in to where you can erase those plans and right over it. Right. So that's really my advice for those of you who want to travel full time. 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