A True Adventure

Now that we have decided to leave our jobs and travel  the world, we can get down to the planning . It is almost impossible to focus on your goals when you have things stopping you from achieving them. Now that we have both handed our notice in at work, we can finally see our goal to travel the world coming true. So my advice to anyone planning on traveling is to simply ‘do it!’. If you have things stopping you from achieving that goal, then make sure you make changes in your life. Don’t let barriers stop you from getting what you really want!

Planning your trip can be tiring, confusing, at times things will seem impossible, but most all the planning stage should be full of excitment. You will have lot’s of questions as I do, about how to go about your travel plans. Here are a few things to consider in the first stage of your planning.

When do you want to set out on your world tour? How long do you want to travel for? How will I make money on my trip? Which countries do you want to visit? Do you want to get a world ticket or seperate flights? How much money will I need? What do I do about visas?

I will answer these questions in more depth on my FAQ page, but I will just share a few of my thoughts so far with you, in regards to these questions.

When do you want to set out on your world tour?

A goal that is not time bound will proberly never happen, as you will keep saying I will get round to it soon. People who say this generally don’t achieve their goals. I strongly believe that If you want something to happen, you have to set a time to achieve it. We plan to set out on our travels in the first week of February. It is no good just setting a date without putting any thought into it. It has to be realistic. You may need to consider things like: giving enough time for handing a notice in to work, time to sort out documentation like visas and passports, saving enough money and you also need to consider your current circumstances. Once you have a date set you can start telling people about your plans. This will make your goal feel even more real.

How long do you want to travel for?

This will depend on your circumstances. Have you got a job to come back to? How much money have you got saved? Once you have considered everything, you should make a budget plan to see how long you can fund your travels for. We have decided to travel between 6- 12 months. This will depend on how much money we can make whilst we are away.

How will I make money on my trip?

Imagine your life travelling the world and getting paid money as you do so. This sounds amazing right? Well it is possible. I will just share a few tips that I have picked up. Making money whilst travelling allows you to extend your travel time. I have looked into various ways of making money. Here are a few ideas:

• Create a Travel Blog, like the one you are reading right now. Travel blogs are becoming more and more popular. You can either set up your own web page or create a travel blog using a popular blog website, like blogger. Once you have created your blog, get writing about interesting places that you are visiting. Your job is to get traffic to your blog, so make it interesting. How does this make you money? I was wandering the same thing. You can put adverts on your blog through various sources, including, google adsense and affiliate marketing programmes, like  AffiliateWindow . Once a website gets popular, advertising can bring in a lot of income. Thats exactly how websites like, facebook, myspace, bebo, twitter and yourtube make their money.
• If you have skills like web designing or other IT skills, why not try and get some work online. If you work for a company, they may have some work for you to do online on your travels. It’s worth asking!
• Busking/Street Entertaining. If you are a musician, artist, actor, magician ect then you could consider street entertaining. This can be a fun and creative way of making money to fund your travels. I busked for a year whilst living in Dublin. This paid for all my living expenses, food and it still left me with a little money to save. Why not give it a go! If you want to read more about my busking experiences then go to http://www.buskingtour.com .
• TEFL. You could consider taking a TEFL course online before you go. This is one of the most popular ways of funding your travels. A TEFL qualification will allow you to teach English as a foreign language all over the world. You could be teaching English in school in Thailand, China, Japan and many more. You normally get weekends off, so you will have time to travel also.

There are many other ways of making money, which I will share with you at a later date. I hope this has given you some hope in knowing that it is possible to bring in money as you travel.

Which countries do you want to visit?

Make a list of the countries you want to visit in priority order. It is good to be ambitious, but you also need to be realistic. Once you have got a list in priority order, you can start to look at various travel pages. You will need to look at your budget and make a decision. You may, like me, want to be more flexible about your travels, and decide certain places as you go. If this is the case you will still need to know roughly where you are going, so you can look into visas.

Do you want to get a World Travel Ticket?

Now for the vital question. Do you want a world travel ticket, or do you want to get seperate flights as you travel? This decison will depend on the type of traveller you are. Are you someone who likes to know exactly what is planned ahead? Do you like order and a set routine? Have you already decided the exact destinations you want to go to? If this sounds like you then a world ticket is proberly the best option for you. A world ticket allows you to select the destinations you want to go to and select the dates of travel for each. This then calculates the amount for your world ticket. On the other hand you may be the sort of person who likes flexibilty. Are you the sort of person who wakes up one morning and thinks, I want to go there today. Maybe you have no exact route planned yet, and therefore you don’t want restricted travel dates. If this is the case you could just get a one way ticket to your first destination and but air tickets as you travel. I will go into more depth with this on my travel tips page.

I hope this information has given you some food for thought. I will go into more depth at a later date. So keep reading! Until then, happy plannin:)