The decision to quit your job and travel the world can be both exciting and daunting, trust us, we know, as we had to do this in order for us to be able to travel full time in our motorhome.
On the one hand, it’s an opportunity to explore new cultures, meet new people, and gain life-changing experiences. On the other hand, it can be challenging to leave the security and stability of a job and venture into the unknown.
If you’re considering quitting your job to travel, there are several things you need to know. We know that it can be a difficult decision to make, so hopefully this blog post will be a little reassuring for you if you are worried about taking the risk.
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Financial Considerations:
One of the most critical factors to consider before quitting your job to travel is your finances. Travelling can be expensive, especially if you travel in a campervan or motorhome like we do, and unless you have a solid financial plan in place, it can quickly drain your savings. Here are some financial considerations to keep in mind:
- Create a budget: Before you start planning your travels, create a budget that includes all your expenses, including accommodation (or campsites), transportation, fuel, food, and activities. Be realistic about how much you can afford to spend and stick to your budget.
- Save up: Save up enough money to cover your travel expenses and any unexpected costs that may arise.
- Cut back on expenses: Cut back on unnecessary expenses, such as eating out or buying expensive clothes. Use the money you save to fund your travels.
- Use a good banking app: We find that our Monzo banking app really helps us to save money and budget. Monzo is a great bank to go with whilst you travel as there are no fees for using your card in another country, but we think it’s a great bank in general. Monzo allows you to split the money you have into pots, which you can create for different things such as bills, food, fuel etc. You can then split the money that you have across these pots which really helps you to see how much money you have for each of these things, and how much money you have left to spend on other things.
Planning Tips:
Proper planning can make your travel experience more enjoyable and less stressful. Whilst we don’t like to plan every single aspect of our travels, as sometimes the fun of travel is to just go with the flow, and plans change all the time, we do find that if we do plan, it makes our lives a lot easier and we feel much more prepared. Here are some tips to help you plan your trip:
- Research your destination: Research your destination before you go. Find out about the local customs, currency, what there is to do there, and anything else you may need to know before you go. We always find that if we look at the best things to do in each country, we can make sure we see the best of what each country has to offer, and we can plan our routes around the things/places that we want to stop and see.
- Create a travel itinerary: Create a travel itinerary that includes the places you want to visit, the activities you want to do, and the dates you plan to travel. This will help you stay organised and ensure that you don’t miss out on anything. We travel in a motorhome and we like to pin all of the places/things we want to see on a Google map and then we can plan our route around the pins.
- Book your accommodation in advance: Book your accommodation in advance to avoid last-minute price hikes and availability issues.
- Pack light: Pack only the essentials and leave behind anything you don’t need. This will make travelling easier and more comfortable. This doesn’t just apply to backpacking, but also travelling in a campervan or motorhome too. Obviously if you are travelling in a vehicle like us then you will have a lot more space than if you were backpacking, but still, space is limited and so it’s really important to really spend time thinking about what you actually need to take so that you can make sure you are really maximising the space you have.
Handling Job Prospects Upon Your Return:
One of the most significant concerns when quitting your job to travel is what to do when you return. Here are some tips for handling job prospects upon your return:
- Keep in touch with your network: Stay in touch with your professional network while you’re travelling. This will help you stay connected and make it easier to find a job upon your return.
- Update your CV: Update your CV to reflect your travel experiences and the skills you gained while travelling. Highlight how your travels have improved your communication, problem-solving, and cultural awareness skills.
- Consider remote work: Consider remote work options that allow you to work from anywhere in the world. This can be a great way to fund your travels and maintain a steady income. Just because you have quit your job, it doesn’t mean that you cannot do some freelance work and still make money on the road whilst you travel, which is what we do.
If you’re interested in learning more about how you can earn money whilst you’re on the road, we have a written a blog post which you can check out here – How To Make Money While Travelling In A Motorhome
Quitting our jobs to travel has been one of the best decisions we have ever made. The freedom, adventure and happiness that we get from life now reassures us that we made the right decision.
We’ve had the ability to travel all over the UK and Europe in our motorhome, travelling all over so many countries that it would have took us a lifetime to travel to if we hadn’t taken this risk.
We know that this decision can be a daunting one to make, but we can only speak from our own experience when we say that it was well worth the risk.
It also pushed and encouraged us to work harder to get some freelance work so that we could earn money whilst we were on the road to be able to travel for longer, which also means that we can now work on our own terms whilst we travel, and work on our own projects that we love and feel passionate about.
If you are considering quitting your job to travel, then we hope that you have found this post useful. If you have any questions at all, then please do feel free to leave them in the comments below, we’d be happy to help in any way we can.
Keep up with our full-time van life travels over on our YouTube channel! If you enjoy our videos, please give us a thumbs up and subscribe to our channel 🙂 – Three As A Bird – Vanlife Travel – YouTube
You can take a look at some of our other van life posts which include lots and lots of hints and tips on all things van life here – Van Life – Travel Information, Hints, Tips and Advice (threeasabird.com)
If you’d like to follow more of our adventures or keep up to date with our travel hints and tips, please join our Facebook group, we’d love to connect with you all! –https://www.facebook.com/groups/309295536220437
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I love everything about travel, from seeing new places, learning about new cultures and trying new foods! I believe that travel is one of the best forms of education you can get, I have learnt so much about myself and about the world from travelling all over. Travel is something I feel so passionately about, and I love the fact that we are now lucky enough to have this opportunity to do what we love as much as we can, it’s a dream come true.
Before we started travelling, I worked in local government in administration. I had been in this job for several years and had reached a complete brick wall where I was so fed up, but didn’t know what else to do. The only thing I knew that I wanted to do was to travel, and had wanted to do that for many years.
There were hundreds and hundreds of places on my wishlist that I wanted to go to, and I knew that going on a weeks holiday maybe twice a year if we were lucky wasn’t going to cut it.
After being in lockdown due to the Covid pandemic, and working from home staring at the same 4 walls every day, 2021 seemed like the perfect time for us to take the risk to finally do what we had dreamed of for so long.
It was a hard decision to completely change our lives, but so far it has been the best decision we have ever made!
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