This is the paid follow-up to What's REALLY Stopping You From Traveling? If you don’t have a paid subscription, don’t worry. That post is free, and the next one will be too. This post is for the people who help fund my adventures—and those who have appeared in my blog posts and videos over the years. Thank you!
It was March 2015 when I woke up one morning and said:
You know what? I can’t do this anymore. I’m quitting my job so I can travel.
I had no savings and no idea how I would do it. I was working a “corporate finance job” at a US company that exploited local labor. In just two months, a US teammate earned more than my annual salary, which was under $8,000 US. My monthly take-home pay was about $500-$550. Gross was about $640. My rent alone was $300. It sounds cheap until you realize that’s more than half my paycheck.
After years of befriending the ex-pat community and learning from the digital nomads who went to and from the island, I had made up my mind. I started with the easiest part: downsizing and clearing out my apartment.
I gave my boss notice halfway through June with no new job lined up. I gave up my apartment on July 1st and got $2,000 for furniture I sold. I was on a plane to Atlanta on July 28th, 2015.
Since then, I’ve lived in the US and Mexico—and I’m in the process of moving to Spain. That is the speed with which I turned my life around and gave up a poor but stable existence for an adventure that began on pennies.
So, how did I take that first leap of faith? Is it something you can—or should—do too? Only you can decide what’s right for you, but here’s some insight into the method behind my madness.
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