Budget for Full Time Travel?

Submitted: Monday, Jan 20, 2025 at 08:11
ThreadID: 149484 Views:669 Replies:6 FollowUps:4
How do you do it?

Watching a LOT of youtube travellers looking at $800 - $1200/week

Our example estimate!

2 adults RTT DMAX
House Motgage
Dmax Loan
Insurance, house, dmax, 2 motorcycles
House rates
Electricity
Registration dmax, 2 motorcycles
Repairs and maintenance

Where does the income $ come from to pay for this?

If ya not old enough to retire the savings is the only option so how do you make it last....

Maybe start a YouTube channel :-)
Mature Couple - Still working!! waiting to make the BIG STEP to go travel this big country of ours.
Background of Military Service, Medical and IT

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Reply By: Member - McLaren3030 - Monday, Jan 20, 2025 at 08:21

Monday, Jan 20, 2025 at 08:21
Hi Mark B68,

From the information gathered on these “long term nomads”, the majority of these people have sold their house, and use the money raised from the sale to fund their trip. A lot of them also raise money by working on the road doing odd jobs, or have advertising on their UTube channel, or Facebook page etc.

Macca.
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Reply By: Richard M29 - Monday, Jan 20, 2025 at 10:56

Monday, Jan 20, 2025 at 10:56
Rent your house out, sell or put the bikes off the road, you will cover mortgage and rates plus a bit of rego money, and you should be able to travel, and do the odd job each for extra money, it won't be a rich life on the road, but you will get a good experience.
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Reply By: RMD - Monday, Jan 20, 2025 at 12:32

Monday, Jan 20, 2025 at 12:32
SAVE MONEY FIRST, when sufficient, you can afford some travel. Then spend it wisely. Two Motorcycles cost would pay for a pretty good trip I reckon! Don't live BEYOND your means!
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Follow Up By: Member - Bigfish - Monday, Jan 20, 2025 at 16:31

Monday, Jan 20, 2025 at 16:31
RMD is right. In this day and age so many expect to have everything at once (not saying this about you). If your really keen on a long trip..flog the bikes off and save on rego, insurance, maintenance and no risk of falling off! lol. Whatever you do you do need to have money put aside for that unforseen incident/event that suddenly appears when everything seems fine!

Only you know your financials....so best to decide where, when and for how long you want to travel. Personally I,d allow $1000 a week. Some weeks you spend $300, some weeks $1500...depends on vehicle repairs, food, fuel etc.. Rent the house outbut also ensure you have money aside for unforseen house issues. Sale of motorbikes will help here.

I also wouldn,t do a long travel with a roof top tent. Setting up and packing up would be a real pain after a few weeks...cheap van/camper is the go.

Why not sell the bikes. Buy a cheap but solid van/camper and do some smaller trips a week at a time. After 6 months head off for a month. After this you will be able to gauge whether a long trip is doable and roughly how much it will cost..
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Follow Up By: Member - silkwood - Tuesday, Jan 21, 2025 at 18:30

Tuesday, Jan 21, 2025 at 18:30
We just spent last year towing our 6m boat and living out of our RTT/canopy set up. Found it fine, though I wouldn't like to do the short stay type travel you see so many doing (arrive, spend two days, on to the next place to be ticked off!).

Having said that, this year we are mainly inland and my partner pointed out - much to my dismay - a boat will be fairly useless most of the trip. Damn.. went out and joined the caravan brigade. So much more comfortable but I'm trying to make sure I spend 90% of my (waking) time outdoors.

As for your budget, I see so many deciding to just give everything up and travel. Go for it, I say, but only if you are young enough to get back into the real world to establish yourself again. After 45y-old I wouldn't be recommending it. Each to their own. Depends upon your life view and current situation, no-one can say they have a definitive answer.

Cheers
Mark
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Reply By: Member - nickb boab - Monday, Jan 20, 2025 at 18:20

Monday, Jan 20, 2025 at 18:20
Mark : There is No Doubt there would be youTube videos on how to make money on YouTube but aswel that is going to take some time/ years to get enough followers to make you any more than few $$ . most start off as a hobbie .
And if you were going to do it on travel etc you have a lot of other people to compete with . As well a good gift of The Gab
Good luck .
Cheers Nick b

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Reply By: Member - Cuppa - Monday, Jan 20, 2025 at 18:43

Monday, Jan 20, 2025 at 18:43
I suspect that a lot of the 'full time traveller you tubers' have little in the way of a back up plan & that their full time lifestyle will cease when their money runs out. Few make 'liveable' money out of Youtube. Recently Karstan & Maxine said that each youtube video they release nets them around $600. Helpful money but not a salary. Many would get less. I would hate to be feeling the pressure of 'producing content' all the time, to be seeing my chosen lifestyle compromised by trying to appeal to others

As early retirees who choose a full time travel lifestyle our lifestyle whilst not as 'flamboyant' as some is one that we love & which we think is sustainable for as long as we want, or as long as our health allows.

The key to being in this position was a combination of frugal living, owning our home & becoming debt free as early as we could - when I was in my mid 40's. We gave financial advisers the flick 20 years earlier than that after twice being shafted by them & lived a life of only buying what we could pay for & 'making do' whilst paying off what debt we had(mortgage) as early as possible. We weren't high flyers earning big money. Both of us were nurses. I retired from nursing in my early 40's and ran our small self sufficient hobby farm (not a business) for 20 years & my wife continued working as a nurse until she was 59.

We sold our rural property & downsized, to a small house on 2.5 acres a short drive outside a major rural victorian city, & built a large shed with comfortable but modest accomodation inside, plus a large workshop. The shed has it's own driveway, separate to the house which we rent out. The nearby city has most major health services & any other services we may need in the future, but the location is just enough outside the city boundaries not to be 'threatened ' by burgeoning housing estates, but continues to increase in value as city services get closer.

Rent plus us each getting small pro rata pensions from the UK largely keeps us going on the road, topped up now & then from our super/savings. Finding ways to live for free or very little have helped enormously. We spent almost two years on Cape York for a cost of $0. During that time we paid a few bills back home & saw our bank balance rise modestly. Currently we are negotiating what we hope will be another similar opportunity in the Kimberley for 6 or 7 months. Living for nothing for half a year whilst having unique experiences without working our butts off means travelling for the other half of the year becomes a lot more affordable. We could get paid jobs if we wanted them, but we don't want to be employees. Too much like hard work with accompanying expectations & a different relationship with the property owners than we have with unpaid/mutual benefit arrangements.

Our income is close to, but under the tax free threshold. We live, quite comfortably on approximately the equivalent of the age pension. We could spend more, but believe living on this amount is sensible as later when our funds decrease & we eventually apply for an aged pension that we will be able to maintain our lifestyle if that is what we want to do.

That is about as much as I'm willing to divulge about our finances, but if you want to know more about our lifestyle check out our (100% commercial free) blog. :)
See 'My Profile' (below) for link to our Aussie travel blog, now in it's 6th year.

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Reply By: Sir Kev - Monday, Jan 20, 2025 at 21:13

Monday, Jan 20, 2025 at 21:13
Forget You Tube, best bang for Bucks is start ya own Only Fans page ;)

Russell Coight:
He was presented with a difficult decision: push on into the stretching deserts, or return home to his wife.

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Follow Up By: Member - Bigfish - Tuesday, Jan 21, 2025 at 09:26

Tuesday, Jan 21, 2025 at 09:26
Possibly Sir Kev...biggest drawback is having the compulsory lobotomy and a belief that you will be a real catch for a rich dude.......delusional at best.

I dont bother watching the you-tube campers, reviewers etc.....they are mostly sponsored air heads with anot much idea all out to get the public to pay for their holiday....thats when a sponsor isn,t chipping in for it.
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