It has always been one of my goals to travel. First I thought I’d take a gap year right after high school. (How I planned to pay for that, who knows). Then I thought I’d work for a few years after uni, save and then go backpacking in Europe. Then over the years I’d slowly make it through my list of destinations.
Except I don’t really want to backpack. I like my home comforts.
And I’m not really sure if I want to work while I’m abroad, although I think that’s more a fear of going over with a plan to find a job, then failing to do so and ending up broke.
And then, would I want to take just any job that I could, or would I be looking to stay for an extended period and try to get an industry position? Would I pay one of those organised schemes to help get me set up with work?
Maybe I should just stay put and save like a demon, using my four weeks leave every year to do big trips overseas. (And I still haven’t even seen the South Island, which I really should be doing before anything else. Hopefully that will happen at the end of the year.)
But that seems so….safe.
Too many choices. Too many decisions.
For those of you who’ve done some travelling, which way did you go? How long for? And if you worked, how did you arrange all that?
I backpacked/stayed with people for two months in Europe during the summer after my 3rd year in university.
Stayed 2 weeks with Bear in Finland.
Stayed 2 weeks in London with G’s aunt who was on assignment there (and then we took a long weekend to see stonehenge and travel about Wales.)
We spent 2 weeks in Italy backpacking.
And then 2 more weeks in France backpacking.
Budget was 75 euro a day for the backpacking parts. Less when we were staying with someone. (This includes travel, accomodations, tickets and entry fees as well as food. Most days food was just water and bread from a bakery).
I wasn’t working at the time. So I was very frugal during the school year so I could use part of my student loan and bursary money. I borrowed some money from my parents and my brother which I later repaid when I came back and started working for the rest of the summer.
Some days I think that I’d like to give it all up and backpack Europe. Then I realize that I , too, like my home comforts. I still want to travel though… I’m not sure what I want, if that isn’t abundently clear!
I still, at 29, would love to backpack around Europe.
I did my trip around Europe for 20 days this past summer and had a fantastic time. However, 10 days of it was a cruise around the Baltics with my grandma – which she paid for. =)
The 10 days I spent on my own were great though. I flew down to Cologne and stayed there, then took a train over to the Netherlands and was there for a week. And then down to Brussels for two nights. I only stayed in a hostel while in Brussels because I have some friends in Germany and a couple in the Netherlands. One however mover to Switzerland, so you better believe that my next trip will include his house as a jumping off point for travel. =D
I’m such a punk so traveling has not been too big a part of my plans. I studied abroad in the Dominican Republic for four months and that is about as crazy as I’ve gotten. Until this year: I plan on hitting up Costa Rica with BF for 1 week in June.
I’m not sure if I’ll ever make it to Europe. I don’t have that urge like a lot of people do (see above). I do want to visit China, Japan, Korea (both North and South…not sure how I’m going to work the former…) and Thailand before I die. I would love to take a month off to explore all of those areas, but I’m sure a month just isn’t enough.
Our upcoming Europe trip is our first “big trip” and basically we have SAVED and saved and saved for three years! Putting a little bit of money away every single month for it!
Since it’s a gap between uni and starting work full-time it’s the perfect timing for me. But, in the future I definitely plan to use my vacation time from work to do some traveling!
Oh, mine was the ultimate in safe travelling. It was a 4-month business trip, a secondment to another project, which turned into an assignment for 6.5 years. All the details were organised for me, I don’t think I’d have had the courage to organise it myself if I’d ha to do it myself. So don’t look to me for inspiration on adventures 🙂
On the other hand, I really do recommend getting a job over in England/Ireland, as it’s SO much more easier to do dozens of little trips across to Europe or even the US, (and easier to fund too 🙂
I’ve spent 2 stints of 3 months each in China. It didn’t require much savings; if you find the right language school and were willing to live like the locals (I lived in a student dorm and sublet a room in apartment) you can spend less than 1000 USD a month for everything. So I guess it all depends on where you like to go.