How Emily Taught English to Fund Her RTW Adventure

Posted: 06/24/2014 | June 24th, 2014

There are a lot of ways to fund your travels: we’ve met readers who’ve taken odd jobs, worked on yachts, volunteered, saved for their trip, and more. What I love about reader success stories is that they highlight the diversity of ways to make travel a reality — it doesn’t always have to be “have a good job, make lots of money, save, travel.” All you really need is the will. Plus the stories are great motivation!

Today, we’re talking to Emily, a 25-year-old Canadian who moved to South Korea with her boyfriend to teach English. South Korea pays English teachers really well, and she used her earnings to fund her world travels.

Nomadic Matt: Tell everyone about yourself!
Emily: After I finished university in 2012, I moved to South Korea with my boyfriend to teach English. Although my educational background wasn’t in teaching and I don’t want to be a teacher my entire life, I knew I wanted to travel and that teaching jobs pay well. On August 31, 2012, I left my hometown of Toronto, Canada, and, after finishing teaching in South Korea in September 2013, I traveled through Asia, came home for a bit, and then left to travel again for four months. I recently finished my trip and am heading back to South Korea to work and save again.

What inspired you to do this?
I’m a huge believer in living life to the fullest and doing what makes you happy. I’d always known I wanted to teach English overseas so I could travel more (it pays well), and after moving abroad and realizing how easy it was to save while working, I decided to travel long-term after my contract was up. For me, it was never a big decision; it just kind of happened. I’ve been fortunate enough to have a great support network that has encouraged me to pursue my travel dreams and like-minded friends who have the same desire to travel as me (and with me!).

How did you save for your initial trip?
I lived with my parents to keep my costs low and saved at least 20% of my paycheck (I worked at a nonprofit for financial literacy), but it wasn’t until I actually got to South Korea and began working full-time that I realized how far my money would actually take me. While living in Korea I was able to save over 70% of my paycheck! (Matt says: South Korea is cheap and teaching jobs there pay well!)

Although I didn’t make a lot of money by North American standards, because the cost of living in Korea was so low and I was mindful of my spending, I was able to save close to $14,000 by the end of my contract.

What advice about saving money do you have for others?
Research, research, research. One of the biggest mistakes I made was not looking into the activities I wanted to do in certain countries ahead of time, and determining how much things were going to cost. Whereas activities and excursions in Southeast Asia probably won’t break your bank, skydiving in New Zealand and sailing in the Whitsundays in Australia will. It’s important to think ahead and get a rough idea of how much things are going to cost.

I’m not saying you need to plan out your whole itinerary to a T, but knowing approximately how much the big activities will cost makes a huge difference. For example, one of the biggest mistakes was not pricing out the cost of car rentals in New Zealand. My friend and I were set on getting a camper van, but we never actually researched how much it was going to cost to fill up the tank — the $100 a day for gas was definitely a rude awakening! We also didn’t think through the campsite fees to park our vehicle, which were usually $20 per night. I ended up over budget by $1,500!

Had I taken the time to crunch the numbers earlier, I would’ve done things differently, such as planning my trip around car relocation postings on TransferCar, a car relocation service (you drive for free). Although this would have required a lot more preplanning, it would’ve saved me hundreds of dollars.

Planning is definitely important. You need to know what you are getting in to. How did you manage to stay close to being on budget?
I found the one thing that helped me stay on track was keeping a running tally of how much I spent every day. I marked down everything – hostels, food, and drinks, even $2 souvenir purchases. I then plugged everything into a spreadsheet in Excel that I set up with different spending columns, such as “food,” “accommodation,” and “entertainment.” (If you don’t have access to a computer you could easily do this in a notebook.) Visually looking at the numbers is a great way to see exactly where your money is going, and also helps identify where you can cut costs.

Also, sign up for a travel rewards card! I’m all about getting the biggest bang for my buck, and pay tribute to my rewards credit card and my airline miles reward card for helping me travel so extensively (miles equal free flights).

What made you decide to teach in Korea?
For years I’d known I wanted to teach English overseas, the primary reason being to travel. Originally I wanted to teach in China to improve my Mandarin skills and immerse myself more in my Chinese heritage, but after doing some research, I realized teaching in South Korea not only paid better but also came with a bunch of other perks that no other country offered (i.e., housing, round-trip airfare, pension, bonus pay, health insurance, and good vacation time). The final push was when my boyfriend realized he needed better teaching experience to get into his graduate teaching program. South Korea seemed like the best option for both of us because I could save money for traveling, and he could get the teaching experience he needed.

What was your experience like? Was it hard to find a job?
Teaching in South Korea was hands-down the best decision I’ve ever made. Although I don’t want to be a teacher, the soft skills I gained at my local middle school were unlike anything I ever would’ve gotten sitting in a lecture hall or working in a traditional corporate environment. I had to teach 30-40+ students every day and was constantly looking for new, creative ways to keep them engaged despite the language barrier. Korean society is very, very different from Canada, so overcoming the cultural differences was a life lesson in itself. I also made lifelong friends, got to travel around Korea extensively, and now have a life experience on my résumé that sets me apart from the competition.

In terms of finding a job, it actually wasn’t that difficult. I went through a North American recruiter company called Teach Away that specializes in placing people in overseas teaching jobs. After filling out a detailed application and making it through the prescreening process, my recruiter helped me find my job — and at no cost to me (the entire process was free). I ended up working for a public Korean school in Incheon, South Korea, but many people also work for “hagwons” (private academies). It just depends on your preference, your previous teaching experience, and where you’d like to be geographically placed.

Matt’s note: If you’d like to teach English around the world, here’s a great resource for you.

What advice would you have for others trying to do what you did?
If you’re trying to find a teaching job overseas, my biggest tip would be to take your time and do thorough research. I’ve heard horror stories of people applying to the first company they find and not taking the time to do a bit of background checking and comparing different recruiters. Dedicating a few hours to finding a good recruiter or company, and figuring out what country you want to teach in and what type of teaching you want to do takes time but is worth the effort.

What was the hardest part about travel?
The lack of privacy has been a big point of contention for me. Four months is the longest I’ve ever traveled, and not having my own personal space was something I really struggled with. Sometimes I wasn’t in the mood to make small talk, make dinner in a crowded hostel kitchen, or listen to people snore all night. What’s saved me was occasionally switching up the accommodation (or room style) and not staying in a dorm. I was really lucky, and throughout my recent travels was able to stay with friends at least once a month. I was also fortunate enough to have a travel buddy for 95% of my trip, so occasionally splurging on a private room was affordable.

I recommend taking occasional “lazy days” and dedicating an entire day to just relaxing in a café or park, or even at your hostel. Don’t feel guilty about taking time off from traveling. Traveling is a full-time job and can get exhausting. Yes, it’s definitely a great job, but there’s no denying it can be draining. Recently I was visiting a friend in Scotland, and one day all we did was watch TV and relax — I was in heaven. Downtime is essential; don’t let yourself feel guilty for wanting to take a day off, especially if you aren’t in the mood to do sightseeing.

What was it like traveling with your boyfriend? Did you have any “I’m going to kill you” moments?
No matter who you’re traveling with, there will always be moments where you need some space. Lucky for me though, the only fights my boyfriend and I ever had revolved around food and dining out with friends. I myself am not a red meat–eater, so finding a restaurant that satisfied all palates — especially in Korea, where they eat primarily beef — was often an issue. Although we’ve tried to learn from our past arguments, blowups still happened from time to time. We did our best to be respectful of each other’s dietary wants, but when you’re hungry, sometimes a little argument is inevitable. Lucky for us, we were very good at letting things go and didn’t ever let it ruin our experience.

Other than that though, traveling with my boyfriend was amazing. By far one of the biggest highlights of all my travels was when I took my boyfriend throughout China. Although most of the destinations weren’t new for me, it was so special to show him my Chinese roots and watch him fall in love with the country.

Any parting advice?
Although I’m all for saving money and budgeting while traveling, I think it’s really important to strike a balance between enjoying your trip and actually doing things, versus penny pinching. Obviously this varies depending on the length of your trip and your budget, but at the end of the day, you don’t hop on a plane to eat PB & J every meal and sit in a dorm room. Trying new food, sightseeing, and going out with your new friends are essential components of the backpacking experience, and something not to be missed out on.

Become the Next Success Story

One of my favorite parts about this job is hearing people’s travel stories. They inspire me, but more importantly, they also inspire you. I travel a certain way, but there are many ways to fund your trips and travel the world, and I hope these stories show you that there is more than one way to travel and that is within your grasp to reach your travel goals. Here are more examples of people who found work overseas to fund their trips:

We all come from different places, but we all have one thing in common:

We all want to travel more.

Make today the day you take one step closer to traveling — whether it is buying a guidebook, booking a hostel, creating an itinerary, or going all the way and buying a plane ticket.

Remember, tomorrow may never come so don’t wait!

Want More Information on Teaching?

I wrote an in-depth, 186-page guide to teaching overseas. This book will help show you those tricks and eliminate your stress, fear, and anxiety about finding a job. It will save you weeks of online research and give you the most accurate and updated information you need. It is written by teachers for teachers, featuring dozens of interviews with teachers from around the world sharing their experiences, as well as job recruiters to help you cinch your interview and get hired.

Why this Family Took Their Teens on an Epic RTW Adventure

Yesterday in Buenos Aires, I had lunch with a family of digital nomads. They’ve been on the road since 2008 working on software and app development all over the world (their son was born in Mexico). The wife, Kelli, asked if I met a lot of families traveling on the road. “Of course! These days, there are a lot,” I said.

When I started traveling the world, taking your kids out of school for a year away was weird and social suicide. Now, I think there is a big support community online and hundreds of blogs to provide encouragement and help families make the leap.

It was funny she asked that because today we are doing a family profile on the blog. I want to share the story of Staci, Mason, and their kids. They’re a middle-class family from Iowa that set out on a round-the-world trip. Today, they tell us how they did it and share their advice for other families out there!

Nomadic Matt: Tell everyone about yourself.
Staci: We are the Schwarz family. My name is Staci, my husband is Mason, and our kids are Ian (19) and Lily (16). We live in Des Moines, Iowa, and are traveling the world together for about 4½ months. (It’s the first time out of the country for my husband and kids!) In our previous lives, I was a pricing analyst and Mason was a printing press operator.

Why did you and your family decide to do this trip?
Four years ago, I read the book One Year Off by David Cohen about how he and his wife sold their home and took their three children on a one-year trip around the world, and I could not get over it. I told my husband I wanted to do something similar, and with NO hesitation, he said yes. His mom died unexpectedly [when she was] not much older than we are now, and that really affects the decisions we make to not put things off, assuming we have plenty of time to get around to doing them.

How are you funding this trip?
We saved for almost four years by doing basic things like cutting back on entertainment and eating out. We went through our house and garage and sold a ridiculous amount of stuff that we didn’t need or use — we had a book sale where we sold 700 books. 700! We also used some of our retirement savings. We have found that this seriously freaks people out, but we look at it this way: we are young and have a lot of time to work. We firmly believe that investing our money in a life-changing experience is a far better use of it.

What did your friends and family think?
There were some mixed responses. Because we talked about it for so long, I think there was a sense of doubt about whether we would really follow through, but once we quit our jobs and booked tickets, all of our friends were incredibly excited and supportive. We couldn’t have asked for a better support system. Our parents were concerned about some of the places on our itinerary (namely Turkey), and we do have a couple of family members who think that it was downright stupid and irresponsible for us to quit our jobs to travel. And that’s OK. Not everyone is going to understand or support every life decision we make.

Did you change anyone’s mind now that they see you’re traveling and just fine?
Well, the couple of people who thought we were stupid when we left still think we are stupid. I think my mom has had the biggest change of heart. She was really worried about the places we were going and just fretted about our safety, but as we’ve been traveling and posting pictures and blogs about our experiences, she has gotten really excited about traveling the world and has started a list of places she wants to see. She was so inspired by our day at the Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai that she wants to go volunteer there for a week. My parents have never left the US, and I love seeing her so inspired and excited about traveling.

What did you do about school? Are you doing classes remotely?
Ian was able to take a training program at a technical school in welding and finished his certificate a few weeks before we left, but Lily’s school offered to let her take her junior year online. We were really relieved about this, since we were all a little concerned about homeschooling on the road. This was a big concern for Lily — probably the one thing that initially kept her from getting really excited about the trip — so once that fell into place, she was able to stop worrying and get excited about the travel. She has been able to work at her own pace through the coursework, which has been great, because we don’t always have good, reliable Internet connection everywhere we have been.

What’s been the hardest part so far?
There have been a few hard parts. Our first few days were really difficult. Just simple things like finding food or figuring out how to get around was a challenge. Lily and I did not adjust well at all, and we both cried a lot. We look back now and it’s amazing how comfortable we have become with moving to new places. I’ve seen so much growth in my kids in their confidence and ability to figure out new environments and situations. It’s really cool to see.

Also India. India was HARD — so many people, so much pollution, so much poverty. Garbage everywhere, people up in your space all the time. We were ill prepared. A friend told me “India isn’t for everyone, but give it a little time.” It was good advice. I’m still not sure India was for us, but we’re glad we went. It was definitely unlike anything we have ever experienced. We were completely overwhelmed the entire time we were there.

What advice do you have for other families doing this?
If you want to do it, you absolutely can make it happen. People make all sorts of excuses about why they can’t travel, but if we could make it happen, then really anyone can. It’s just a matter of deciding how badly you want it and then making it a priority. The time we have spent together on this trip has brought us so close as a family, and watching my kids discover the beauty and magic of travel has deepened my own experience and made it so much richer.

People will say to us, “You are so lucky to be able to take this trip.” I don’t believe this is true. We worked really hard toward this goal. We made it happen. And if we can do it then, seriously, anyone can. That’s not to say it was easy — we aren’t the most disciplined people in the world. It just means if you want it bad enough, you’ll do what it takes to make it happen.

What’s been your favorite moment so far?
This will vary depending on who you ask in our family. Lily says that she really loved the cooking class we took in Chiang Mai. In Varanasi, Mason sat down and talked with a group of kids playing cricket and had a really cool moment just connecting with them. For me, I would say the temples at Angkor have been the most moving, but if I am being honest — and slightly cheesy — my favorite moments are when we are all sitting around talking about what we did that day or where we are going the next day and we are completely undistracted by the overstuffed schedules and obligations we have back home. This time together is precious to me.

Why do you think fewer families do this? Were there any big obstacles that got in your way in the beginning?
I think a lot of families are concerned about the cost and the amount of time spent together. Cost was always an obstacle for us, and we ended up postponing the trip for a year so we could save more and have a better budget to fund our travel. The kids got a lot of astonishment from their friends along the lines of “how will you spend that much time with your family without killing each other?” We haven’t found this to be an issue. Other than some moments where we are a little grouchy with one another — which happens at home too — we have gotten along great.

That being said, if you don’t enjoy each other’s company at home, long-term travel might be difficult. But we’ve had to learn to work together as a team to handle things like travel days. And once we got stuck on a mountain for 12 hours, so we had to take care of one another, and those things have brought us closer as a family. Although admittedly, we were a pretty tight family to begin with.

What do your kids think about this experience?
Well, I asked them right now and this was their reply:

“It’s been eye opening. It’s hard to take it all in while you are doing it, and it just seems like ‘this is my life today.’ We think people expect us to say it is life changing, but we don’t feel that yet. It’s too hard to explain to people at home what it feels like to sit on a temple and listen to Buddhist prayers for an hour and explain that experience in a way that people will understand.”

When you were planning this big trip, what were some of the fears you had?
I am a big fat worrywart. I fret about EVERYTHING, so I would lie in bed at night and think of all of the possible things that could go wrong to the point where I was making myself crazy. Safety was my biggest fear. If you believe the news, the world is a horrible, awful place where everyone is trying to kill you and nowhere is safe. We have found the truth to be so fundamentally different. People are full of kindness and hospitality, and we have been well taken care of in our travels by perfect strangers.

What are two things about travel you’ve learned that have made you go, “Wow, it’s that simple, huh?!”?

1. The vast discrepancy between what we are told on the news and what is actually happening on the ground. Everyone was terrified of us being in Turkey, but Turkey was where we had the most positive experiences with people. People went far out of their way to make us feel welcome, safe, and cared for. They definitely have impacted our hearts and our trip in the most positive way, and we look back on our time there and are so moved by the people we met.

2. How many people speak English and how well. We thought communication would be a huge obstacle for us, but it has literally been a nonissue. Everywhere we have gone, people have spoken great English, and we have never had an issue arise due to miscommunication.

****When I speak at consumer shows and at conferences, the feasibility of a family traveling the world always comes up. Is it safe? Is it affordable? How do you educate your kids? I hope stories like this show that family travel is a feasible and inspire you to

When I speak at consumer shows and at conferences, the feasibility of a family traveling the world always comes up. Is it safe? Is it affordable? How do you educate your kids? I hope stories like this show that family travel is a feasible and inspire you to start planning your own trip