It’s a few hundred dollars to get to Asia, less to Europe, and usually less than $100 to fly from country to country after that for 3 to 6 months at a time, visa free or filling out a ten minute e-visa application.
stack that up against $1,600 a month for an apartment in the states, plus insurance and car payments and all that bullshit, traveling is the vastly cheaper option.
do not evade taxes, get educated.
If you live outside of the US for 330 or more days out of the year, you qualify for the FEIE, Foreign earned income exclusion.
you fill out one more IRS tax form at the same time as all your other tax forms, and you don’t pay up to $120,000 in US income tax.
That’s the US tax code and is in no way tax evasion.
My bad didn’t realize how easy it is for anyone to have a few hundred laying around then fly to a new country every couple of months. It’s hard enough to move across a state let alone the planet. What visas do you expect to be able to acquire with such frequency? Work visas? Do you need to find a new job in a new country every few months? Pay double taxes for the first year? Learn 10 languages to find work? Have no friends family or belongings? Or instead of working should people be saving up all the money required to do this while paying all those US costs you’re saying are so high? How does a work visa work if you go the savings route? How do you find housing every few months? Blindly apply to places and hope you don’t stumble into a slumlord situation? Only monthly agreements? Where are you finding plane tickets from the US to Europe or Asia so cheap (this one is an actual question I want to travel and need to know)? If this plan works for you honestly that’s amazing I’m happy for you live your best life. But honestly who exactly do you think a majority of people are that they can just stand up one day and fuck off to the other side of the planet like they’re picking out new clothes?
TLDR: no worries, a lot of people don’t realize how easy traveling is. It only seems difficult until you do it.
“It’s hard enough to move across a state let alone the planet.”
You’ll never hear this concern from somebody who has traveled before, so I introduce people to travel and help people when I can.
“What visas do you expect to be able to acquire with such frequency?”
many countries are visa free, but as I mentioned, tourist e-visas are a 10 or 15 minute process.
“Work visas?”
If you want work visas you can apply for them, although tourist visas are much easier to acquire. Over 60 countries now have digital Nomad visas, so if you work online you can apply for those visas.
since you can generally stay for the same amount of time on a tourist Visa as a nomad visa, and it’s legal to work digitally on a tourist visa in most of those countries, I would just get the tourist visa. faster, easier, cheaper, still legal.
“Do you need to find a new job in a new country every few months?”
nope. you can, but that sounds like a lot of work. I would grab any digital job for stability.
I think you’re misinterpreting traveling as some kind of set occupation with rules.
All you have to do is make a small amount of money, and everything else is up to you. your time is your own, and your hobbies are your own.
If you work online for $1,000 a month, you’re going to be able to pay your way abroad without being too financially conservative. If you work online for $2,000 a month, you’re going to be able to pay your way abroad and save $1,000 a month.
there are a thousand different jobs you can do, I often suggest teaching online first if you need money, because you’ll earn about $15 an hour as a new teacher, 12 with zero experience and no confidence and closer to 20 with a TEFL certificate.
online certification, costs 40 bucks, lasts for life.
most of the jobs are teaching primary school students. read from a book or recite colors, they’ll recite them after you, you ask them to write down sentences or practice with each other and get paid 20 bucks an hour.
so for 12 hours a week, you’ve hit your $1,000 a month (that you don’t have to pay any taxes on with the FEIE) and you can spend the rest of your time doing whatever you want. or you could make it a full-time job, 36 hours a week, save two grand a month for whatever you actually want to be doing.
there are tons of other jobs, you can choose whatever job you want, and you can figure out your budget, I lived on $300 a month while I figured out what I wanted to do.
if you’re genuinely interested, i can work with you and give you any number of suggestions and pathways to sustainable nomadic livelihood.
"Pay double taxes for the first year? "
no, Americans have a skewed understanding of how taxes work because we have the weirdest strictest tax system in the world, but most other countries don’t charge you taxes if you’re paying taxes in another country.
as long as you keep paying taxes to the United States every year (filling out your feie to exclude your income up to 120k), you don’t have to pay taxes locally.
there’s like two or three countries where that’s not true, Switzerland or something, but even their double taxes are scaled against the taxes you’re already paying to America.
“Learn 10 languages to find work?”
I learn languages when I move, but I like to learn languages and obviously people are happy to meet someone interested in their culture.
You appear to be an English speaker, which gives you the privilege of not having to learn another language, because people in other countries speak English to varying degrees and most signage has an English translation or is in the Roman language rather than the local language.
“have no friends family or belongings?”
I’m not sure what you’re asking here.
I’m sorry if you don’t have any friends or family or belongings.
It’s very easy to make friends, start families, and accrue belongings while traveling.
travelers are generally much more open-minded, interested and tolerant than sedentary folks.
“Or instead of working should people be saving up all the money required to do this while paying all those US costs you’re saying are so high?”
If I understand this question, yes, the process begins with saving up a few hundred dollars(or whatever makes you comfortable) to pay for the initial move because you’ll have to pay for transportation to leave where you are. after that, you will be saving money because you’ll be paying a fraction of what you pay in the US while receiving better services and higher quality infrastructure.
“How does a work visa work if you go the savings route?”
I’m not sure what you’re asking here regarding the savings route.
a work visa is like any other Visa with a couple added questions about your intended profession, experience, and proof.
Visas are simple ID forms.
you fill out your full name, your passport number, The estimated date you intend to arrive, your hotel name, sign your name at the bottom, and pay the fee.
you get the Visa back, and then you have a visa.
a lot of them are online now, but you can go to the consulate or embassy if you like doing things in person (it’ll take way longer).
“How do you find housing every few months?”
if you appreciate convenience, just use booking.com or hostels.com or whatever, pay for the highest rated one, done.
discerning?
you call up, email or text a landlord of some type, check out the house first, and live there as long or short as you want.
you can stay at a hostel for a few days first so that you have a home base to go to and check out apartments or houses from.
“Blindly apply to places and hope you don’t stumble into a slumlord situation?”
I wouldn’t suggest this since it’s so easy to research a place first, but I know a lot of people don’t like interacting with others so dealer’s choice.
I have blindly booked places before when I get lazy and it’s worked out fine most times.
I would suggest doing research first to find quality houses or apartments with good reviews.
you should probably do that in the US as well, if you aren’t doing that yet.
“Only monthly agreements?”
you can stay as long or as short as you like to.
a lot of people do monthly agreements, so you can if you want to.
“Where are you finding plane tickets from the US to Europe or Asia so cheap (this one is an actual question I want to travel and need to know)?”
I literally have only used Skyscanner for the past 3 or 4 years now.
If you live on either coast but not in CA or NY, you can add 50 bucks to any of these prices to catch a flight to the larger airports, if you live in Colorado add on 100-150.
from New York, South America is $75, canada for a hundred, europe for $300, default settings, zero special searches. If you wiggle with the settings at all, giving yourself plus or minus 3 days, you’ll almost certainly find cheaper deals, 300 from New York to London is way more expensive than I would pay. that’s usually closer to 100-150.
oh! these are return tickets, that’s why. for California I’ll show you one way prices.
From LA, Canada 60, shit 22$ from SF, $147 to France, that sounds much more like what I’m used to.
You mentioned Asia, from SF, $324 to Japan, and then from Japan. everything in Southeast and East Asia from Japan is well under $100.
Japan is visa-free 90 days travel.
“If this plan works for you honestly that’s amazing I’m happy for you live your best life”
I wouldn’t call it a plan, you buy a ticket to a cheaper place with better services.
Choosing a country to live in is like being offered two identical jobs.
In one, you get paid $20 an hour.
At the other job, you get paid $40 an hour. Choose $40.
those are the cheap flight prices to begin, and then once you’re abroad you are saving money.
and I’m definitely not the only person in the world who travels, this is fairly common knowledge amongst travelers.
“But honestly who exactly do you think a majority of people are that they can just stand up one day and fuck off to the other side of the planet like they’re picking out new clothes?”
they don’t have to be an “exact” type of people, nearly anyone can do it.
especially a native English speaker with one of the most valuable currencies in the world and not a terrible passport.
Most people are afraid of new things, otherwise there’s no reason why most Americans aren’t saving money living how they want to, but I believe and have seen over and over again that anybody can do it if they want to.
I know single travelers, groups of friends, families, students, disabled people, all of them can live like this.
people aren’t as fragile or as helpless as they’re told they are, they usually just grew and still grow up in a fishbowl that tells them they’re not allowed to do a bunch of stuff and there are definite limits to what they are capable of, even though there’s no reason why they can’t do any of what I’ve said above and infinitely more.
It’s literally down to buying a ticket on an airplane, and after they land 4 or 8 hours later in a place they’ve been dreaming of for 30 years, they’re usually fairly chagrined that they didn’t do it earlier.
I’ve had a hundred conversations with new travelers asking me why nobody else does this after they’ve finally done it.
when you’re inside a cultural fishbowl that gives you all of the rules they swear you’ll ever need in your life, it seems like you have definite answers to questions.
from outside the fishbowl, you can see the fishbowl for what it is.
It’s a few hundred dollars to get to Asia, less to Europe, and usually less than $100 to fly from country to country after that for 3 to 6 months at a time, visa free or filling out a ten minute e-visa application.
stack that up against $1,600 a month for an apartment in the states, plus insurance and car payments and all that bullshit, traveling is the vastly cheaper option.
do not evade taxes, get educated.
If you live outside of the US for 330 or more days out of the year, you qualify for the FEIE, Foreign earned income exclusion.
you fill out one more IRS tax form at the same time as all your other tax forms, and you don’t pay up to $120,000 in US income tax.
That’s the US tax code and is in no way tax evasion.
My bad didn’t realize how easy it is for anyone to have a few hundred laying around then fly to a new country every couple of months. It’s hard enough to move across a state let alone the planet. What visas do you expect to be able to acquire with such frequency? Work visas? Do you need to find a new job in a new country every few months? Pay double taxes for the first year? Learn 10 languages to find work? Have no friends family or belongings? Or instead of working should people be saving up all the money required to do this while paying all those US costs you’re saying are so high? How does a work visa work if you go the savings route? How do you find housing every few months? Blindly apply to places and hope you don’t stumble into a slumlord situation? Only monthly agreements? Where are you finding plane tickets from the US to Europe or Asia so cheap (this one is an actual question I want to travel and need to know)? If this plan works for you honestly that’s amazing I’m happy for you live your best life. But honestly who exactly do you think a majority of people are that they can just stand up one day and fuck off to the other side of the planet like they’re picking out new clothes?
“My bad, didn’t realize how easy it is…”
TLDR: no worries, a lot of people don’t realize how easy traveling is. It only seems difficult until you do it.
“It’s hard enough to move across a state let alone the planet.”
You’ll never hear this concern from somebody who has traveled before, so I introduce people to travel and help people when I can.
“What visas do you expect to be able to acquire with such frequency?”
many countries are visa free, but as I mentioned, tourist e-visas are a 10 or 15 minute process.
“Work visas?”
If you want work visas you can apply for them, although tourist visas are much easier to acquire. Over 60 countries now have digital Nomad visas, so if you work online you can apply for those visas.
since you can generally stay for the same amount of time on a tourist Visa as a nomad visa, and it’s legal to work digitally on a tourist visa in most of those countries, I would just get the tourist visa. faster, easier, cheaper, still legal.
“Do you need to find a new job in a new country every few months?”
nope. you can, but that sounds like a lot of work. I would grab any digital job for stability.
I think you’re misinterpreting traveling as some kind of set occupation with rules.
All you have to do is make a small amount of money, and everything else is up to you. your time is your own, and your hobbies are your own.
If you work online for $1,000 a month, you’re going to be able to pay your way abroad without being too financially conservative. If you work online for $2,000 a month, you’re going to be able to pay your way abroad and save $1,000 a month.
there are a thousand different jobs you can do, I often suggest teaching online first if you need money, because you’ll earn about $15 an hour as a new teacher, 12 with zero experience and no confidence and closer to 20 with a TEFL certificate.
online certification, costs 40 bucks, lasts for life.
most of the jobs are teaching primary school students. read from a book or recite colors, they’ll recite them after you, you ask them to write down sentences or practice with each other and get paid 20 bucks an hour.
so for 12 hours a week, you’ve hit your $1,000 a month (that you don’t have to pay any taxes on with the FEIE) and you can spend the rest of your time doing whatever you want. or you could make it a full-time job, 36 hours a week, save two grand a month for whatever you actually want to be doing.
there are tons of other jobs, you can choose whatever job you want, and you can figure out your budget, I lived on $300 a month while I figured out what I wanted to do.
if you’re genuinely interested, i can work with you and give you any number of suggestions and pathways to sustainable nomadic livelihood.
"Pay double taxes for the first year? "
no, Americans have a skewed understanding of how taxes work because we have the weirdest strictest tax system in the world, but most other countries don’t charge you taxes if you’re paying taxes in another country.
as long as you keep paying taxes to the United States every year (filling out your feie to exclude your income up to 120k), you don’t have to pay taxes locally.
there’s like two or three countries where that’s not true, Switzerland or something, but even their double taxes are scaled against the taxes you’re already paying to America.
“Learn 10 languages to find work?”
I learn languages when I move, but I like to learn languages and obviously people are happy to meet someone interested in their culture.
You appear to be an English speaker, which gives you the privilege of not having to learn another language, because people in other countries speak English to varying degrees and most signage has an English translation or is in the Roman language rather than the local language.
“have no friends family or belongings?”
I’m not sure what you’re asking here.
I’m sorry if you don’t have any friends or family or belongings.
It’s very easy to make friends, start families, and accrue belongings while traveling.
travelers are generally much more open-minded, interested and tolerant than sedentary folks.
“Or instead of working should people be saving up all the money required to do this while paying all those US costs you’re saying are so high?”
If I understand this question, yes, the process begins with saving up a few hundred dollars(or whatever makes you comfortable) to pay for the initial move because you’ll have to pay for transportation to leave where you are. after that, you will be saving money because you’ll be paying a fraction of what you pay in the US while receiving better services and higher quality infrastructure.
“How does a work visa work if you go the savings route?”
I’m not sure what you’re asking here regarding the savings route.
a work visa is like any other Visa with a couple added questions about your intended profession, experience, and proof.
Visas are simple ID forms.
you fill out your full name, your passport number, The estimated date you intend to arrive, your hotel name, sign your name at the bottom, and pay the fee.
you get the Visa back, and then you have a visa.
a lot of them are online now, but you can go to the consulate or embassy if you like doing things in person (it’ll take way longer).
“How do you find housing every few months?”
if you appreciate convenience, just use booking.com or hostels.com or whatever, pay for the highest rated one, done.
discerning?
you call up, email or text a landlord of some type, check out the house first, and live there as long or short as you want.
you can stay at a hostel for a few days first so that you have a home base to go to and check out apartments or houses from.
“Blindly apply to places and hope you don’t stumble into a slumlord situation?”
I wouldn’t suggest this since it’s so easy to research a place first, but I know a lot of people don’t like interacting with others so dealer’s choice.
I have blindly booked places before when I get lazy and it’s worked out fine most times.
I would suggest doing research first to find quality houses or apartments with good reviews.
you should probably do that in the US as well, if you aren’t doing that yet.
“Only monthly agreements?”
you can stay as long or as short as you like to.
a lot of people do monthly agreements, so you can if you want to.
“Where are you finding plane tickets from the US to Europe or Asia so cheap (this one is an actual question I want to travel and need to know)?”
I literally have only used Skyscanner for the past 3 or 4 years now.
If you live on either coast but not in CA or NY, you can add 50 bucks to any of these prices to catch a flight to the larger airports, if you live in Colorado add on 100-150.
from New York, South America is $75, canada for a hundred, europe for $300, default settings, zero special searches. If you wiggle with the settings at all, giving yourself plus or minus 3 days, you’ll almost certainly find cheaper deals, 300 from New York to London is way more expensive than I would pay. that’s usually closer to 100-150.
oh! these are return tickets, that’s why. for California I’ll show you one way prices.
From LA, Canada 60, shit 22$ from SF, $147 to France, that sounds much more like what I’m used to.
You mentioned Asia, from SF, $324 to Japan, and then from Japan. everything in Southeast and East Asia from Japan is well under $100.
Japan is visa-free 90 days travel.
“If this plan works for you honestly that’s amazing I’m happy for you live your best life”
I wouldn’t call it a plan, you buy a ticket to a cheaper place with better services.
Choosing a country to live in is like being offered two identical jobs.
In one, you get paid $20 an hour.
At the other job, you get paid $40 an hour. Choose $40.
those are the cheap flight prices to begin, and then once you’re abroad you are saving money.
and I’m definitely not the only person in the world who travels, this is fairly common knowledge amongst travelers.
“But honestly who exactly do you think a majority of people are that they can just stand up one day and fuck off to the other side of the planet like they’re picking out new clothes?”
they don’t have to be an “exact” type of people, nearly anyone can do it.
especially a native English speaker with one of the most valuable currencies in the world and not a terrible passport.
Most people are afraid of new things, otherwise there’s no reason why most Americans aren’t saving money living how they want to, but I believe and have seen over and over again that anybody can do it if they want to.
I know single travelers, groups of friends, families, students, disabled people, all of them can live like this.
people aren’t as fragile or as helpless as they’re told they are, they usually just grew and still grow up in a fishbowl that tells them they’re not allowed to do a bunch of stuff and there are definite limits to what they are capable of, even though there’s no reason why they can’t do any of what I’ve said above and infinitely more.
It’s literally down to buying a ticket on an airplane, and after they land 4 or 8 hours later in a place they’ve been dreaming of for 30 years, they’re usually fairly chagrined that they didn’t do it earlier.
I’ve had a hundred conversations with new travelers asking me why nobody else does this after they’ve finally done it.
when you’re inside a cultural fishbowl that gives you all of the rules they swear you’ll ever need in your life, it seems like you have definite answers to questions.
from outside the fishbowl, you can see the fishbowl for what it is.
it’s okay if you never move.
It’s okay if nobody ever does.
but if you want to, you can. anyone can.