Success Stories: This Couple Quit the Cubicle to Travel

Greetings from somewhere still in Africa! I haven’t been eaten by a lion yet (thankfully). This week I am sharing stories of readers who used my tips and advice to realize their travel dreams. If you’ve been wondering how easy it is to replicate my advice, let these stories inspire and show you that the advice on this site can work for anyone!

Manny and Olivia are two 33-year-olds who lived the corporate lifestyle working as marketing managers for two of the biggest media/telecom conglomerates in Canada. In half a year, they saved $40,000 and quit their cubicle jobs to follow their passion for travel, writing, and photography. I wanted to interview these two because I believe it is important to show that even though I’m American, the money-saving advice I talk about is universal.

Nomadic Matt: Tell everyone about yourselves.
Manny and Olivia: We are both 33 years old and from Toronto, Canada. In half a year, we saved $40,000 and, on July 25, 2012, left Canada to start our trip around the world. We plan to be on the road for 14-18 months.

How did you find this website? I’m always curious.
Olivia: We first considered doing an around-the-world trip in October 2011. I mentioned it to a few close friends, and one of them, a big travel buff, mentioned that Nomadic Matt was a great resource. One look at the site and we understood why. It was really encouraging to see that we weren’t alone facing this choice and that other people out there such as you have successfully followed their passion. It became easier to plan everything and hesitation gave in to excitement.

What kind of trip did you plan?
Manny: We were planning a full around-the-world trip (with the exception of South America). Starting with Europe we would work our way west to east; Great Britain and Iceland to Western Europe, then Eastern Europe, Africa, India, Southeast Asia, Asia then Australia and New Zealand and finally the Trans-Siberian Railway through Russia. Hopefully we will end the tour with a trip to the Scandinavian countries, followed by Denmark and the Netherlands. We weren’t exactly sure how long it would take, but our initial calculations came in at just under two years.

Were you afraid or nervous before you went on your trip? I was terrified.
Olivia: Planning a world trip is very overwhelming, and it’s hard to anticipate issues that you may face and prepare for them in advance. Reading your experiences and “traveling” with you provides a bit of reassurance that things will work out, even if they don’t always work out exactly as you planned.

How did my site help you with your trip?
Olivia: When planning a big trip, especially one for over a year, you really need to budget, see what you can and cannot do. It’s hard to find good resources online that tell you what to expect to pay for simple things like food and local transportation. Your website saved us a lot of time and money, allowing us to budget properly using your Travel Guides and Travel Tips. We have recently become virtually addicted to your newsletter as we move forward in our journey.

Manny: When we decided to do a world trip we weren’t sure what to do with our stuff. Should we keep it? Store it? What about our house? A reality check came when we read your article on “How to Save Money for Your World Trip.” So to save money, not be stressed, and really live out our world experience, we sold our stuff, including our house and car, and took off.

You saved a lot of money for your trip. How did you do it?
Manny: We created a spreadsheet that outlined average daily living expenses for each country and multiplied it by the number of days we would spend in each country. We factored in when we would be staying with family or friends, as well as transportation costs. We then added a 15% buffer, knowing full well that it’s next to impossible to stay right on budget. After averaging out the entire trip, we came to a daily expenditure amount: $100 CDN a day. We made sure to have very realistic expectations, knowing we would blow our budget in Western Europe and make up for it in Asia. While we were working on budgets, we began to tighten up on our spending, especially dinners and nights out. We did try to live off of one salary and bank the other. We put some money away in a high-yielding interest account and are using $40,000 of it for the trip.

Olivia: I also took on a number of different event-planning contracts on the side, working 18 hour days quite often. It wasn’t that easy, but it was manageable because we had a clear goal in mind. We made it a point to not dip into our overall savings or any money we made from the sale of our home or cars. This way we have no hesitation or regrets spending the money on our adventure and can actually enjoy it stress free. Within six months we were able to raise about $40,000. This allows us about 600 days of travel.

That’s a lot of travel! What about life on the road has surprised you the most?
Manny and Olivia: We are really surprised at how comfortable we can get in foreign locations and different beds every night. Another surprise is language barriers. This is often the worry of many travelers, but it becomes nonexistent when you actually start traveling. Sign language and different translator apps are actually more fun and add a new, funny dimension to common interactions.

Staying on budget can be a problem for a lot of people. How do you two stay on budget?
Manny: We have a spreadsheet where we keep track of every single expense. On one page we have categories such as restaurant, grocery, transport, entrance fees, gas, car, etc. One the next sheet we have totals for each category and then we average out the expenditures by days to see where we are at and if we need to start cutting back. We often share meals since general portions are gluttonously large. We gave up our home addictions to sweets and alcohol and thus cut another huge chunk of expenses. We don’t spend frivolously and actually rent fully equipped rooms for a little extra cost and buy groceries, thus saving a lot of money on food. We eat a lot less and healthier, since a lot of the foods we buy are fresh and we cook them ourselves.

What one thing that you thought would be a challenge has turned out not to be?
Olivia: I thought it would be a challenge to survive off such little clothing. It turns out I don’t even need all the things I brought. It’s easier to get by on fewer things so that repacking is fast and the backpack is lighter. I’m actually going to be ditching some clothing soon.

Manny: I thought it would be a struggle not to have a phone that keeps me connected with the outside world at all hours of the day and night the way I got used to in Canada. I’ve realized now, I prefer to be off the grid and connect with my inner self while discovering the beauty of nature on a daily basis instead.

Any parting words of advice to inspire others to follow in your footsteps?
Manny and Olivia: Since we started telling people about our trip we have encountered the exact same reactions — and these reactions have not changed throughout our trip. No matter what stage in life they are at, how rich or poor they may be, they all say “I wish I could do this, but I can’t because…” The “because” is usually followed by “I just bought a condo” or “ we are saving for a new car” or “I’m scared to leave my job.” It’s understandable that we all need money to survive, but there is no point in surviving if you aren’t going to live. Our one piece of advice is that once you are on a real trip, you will realize just how little you need, not just to survive, but to be truly happy. And that all of those possessions you keep amassing are just baggage. Anyone can do what we are doing, you have to just really want it and take a chance.

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 gave up living a typical life to explore the world:

We all come from different places, but we all have one thing in common: we all want to travel more.

How This 70 Year Old Couple Traveled the World

When I saw him in the hostel, I couldn’t help but smile. There he was, a man who could have been my grandfather, hanging out with college-aged backpackers and having the time of his life. The younger travelers were enamored with his stories of past travels and his ability to drink them under the table. No one cared he was in his 70s. Age mattered not one bit.

I believe that most of my advice on this website is universal. Maybe as an older couple or family you’ll skip hostels or avoid Couchsurfing, but when we land in Paris, we all face the same costs and list of potential activities, regardless of age. But I think, especially here in the United States, there is a belief that you just can’t travel when you’re 70 or have medical problems. And while there are a few things to be more mindful of as you get older, I disagree that there is a special category called “senior travel.” The differences between how I travel and how a 70-year-old travels are really minimal.

So when Don and Alison approached me about their story, I had to share it. Because here is a “senior” couple, limited by some medical issues, engaging in adventures I only dream about. I think their story can teach and inspire a lot of us.

Nomadic Matt: Hi guys! Tell everyone about yourselves.
Don: I’m a 70-year-old retired neuropsychologist. Two years ago, I made a decision to retire, because I’d developed a number of medical problems due to stress from work. I was working myself into sickness. Alison (my wife, who is 63) and I didn’t have enough savings to be able to keep our home and do the kind of world travel we wanted to do. We agonized over what to do for a long time until it became clear that it came down to the question of “Do we want to have a home or do we want to have a life?” So we made the decision to sell our home. We’ve now been on the road, with occasional trips back to our hometown to restock our basic supplies and see our friends, for two years, and plan to continue living a nomadic life for the foreseeable future.

What inspired you to become nomadic?
Don: Initially it was the desire to see the places that were at the top of our bucket list, and after that to see as much of the world as we could before we got too old to travel.

Alison: Inspiration came first from Don writing daily “morning pages” (from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way) in search of some answers to the retirement/income dilemma. One day out of the blue, he suggested to me that we could sell the condo and go traveling. I didn’t immediately say yes to this, but it was a seed that grew of its own accord until one day, we realized this is what we’d do. I had a nice life at home, but Don was done with work and struggling to keep going. Something had to give.

Where have your travels taken you so far?
Don: After selling our home, we went to Europe. Following that we went to Tiruvannamalai in Tamil Nadu, India, where we stayed for 10 weeks in order to spend time meditating at the ashram of Ramana Maharshi. From there we went to Bali, then to Australia to spend time with some of Alison’s family and friends. We’ve also been back to India, all over Southeast Asia, and most recently, Mexico.

Did your friends and family think you were crazy for doing this?
Don: Probably, although no one said that to our faces. Everyone was surprised, some of them seemed perhaps a bit shocked, and many of them told us that we had a lot of courage for taking this step and encouraged us to go for it.

Do you feel that your age was in any way a problem or limiting?
Don: When we first began traveling, I was concerned about my health and whether I’d be able to stay healthy, particularly when traveling in Third World countries. However, as we’ve traveled, I realized I can get sick overseas, take appropriate medications, and get well again. It’s not as hard as I thought to get the necessary care when you travel.

Alison: It never occurred to me that age has anything to do with anything. I’m young, fit, and healthy, and mostly do what I need to do to stay that way. At the same time, I’m aware that Don has some manageable health issues that we need to pay attention to, but nothing that really prevents us from doing what we want to do. He’s so much healthier and happier than when he was working.

Having said that, we’re not cavalier about our bodies. We know that things sometimes take longer to heal than when we were younger. For this reason, we draw the line at things like white-water rafting. Apart from the fact that neither of us are experienced at it, we know that one good jolt could result in whiplash that could take weeks to heal. Still, we’ve hiked in fairly difficult terrain, been swimming with elephants, gone kayaking, ridden camels at dawn in the desert, and climbed volcanoes in the dark.

How did you save money for your travels?
Don: I had been putting money into a Canadian Registered Retirement Savings Plan for many years. These savings and any interest earned on them are tax-free until such time as I begin to withdraw them. We sold our home at what appears now to have been the peak of the Vancouver housing market in August 2011 and put the money to work in investments. We also receive a monthly pension from a Canadian federal government plan that I contributed to from the time I was in my early 20s until I retired.

How do you manage your money on the road?
Don: We budget about $50 per day for our accommodation, plus another $50 for meals and entertainment. Recently, we’ve started staying in places for longer periods of time and have begun renting apartments instead of staying in hotels. The price per night is often about the same as a hotel room, but we save money by making our own meals. We regularly splurge on guided tours or treks, or big events like the Guelaguetza Festival in Oaxaca.

A lot of older couples and individuals feel that round-the-world trips are for young people. What would you say to them?
Don: Do it anyway while you still have the health and strength to do it. We’re more flashpackers than backpackers: we usually stay in three-star hotels because we can do that on our budget, and the rooms we rent must have Wi-Fi and an en-suite bathroom. We book hotel rooms or apartments online using Agoda.com, Booking.com, Wimdu.com, or Homeaway.com.

Alison: I think there are a lot of myths about “old age” that people live into. I don’t understand the idea that adventure and a love of life are only for “the young.” We’ve met a full-of-life 92-year-old who learnt to play the fiddle in his seventies and regularly jams with a group of buddies, a 78-year-old woman who says when she’s 80 she’ll be ready to sell her house and go traveling, and an eighty-something woman who was traveling alone in Myanmar. We love role models like this. Life’s what you make it, and you only get one chance to live this life.

Do you stay in hostels? When you meet young backpackers on your trip, how do they react? I usually find that they tend to get excited about senior travelers. It’s a “cool” thing.
Don: We haven’t stayed in hostels for two main reasons: the first being because of my concerns about the security of our belongings, and the second being that we like the luxury of a private bathroom. That being said, the young backpackers we’ve met on the road have been very positive about us doing what we’re doing at our age.

Did you have any fears about traveling before you started?
Don: Alison has always been much more adventurous than me, so when we first began traveling I had a lot of fears about getting sick in Third World countries. Now that we’ve been traveling for almost two years, a lot of those fears are gone because we’ve been sick and recovered without having to be sent back to Canada.

Alison: I don’t like flying. It’s one of my biggest fears. As long as things are going smoothly and I can immerse myself in a movie I’m fine. But any turbulence and I’m a white-knuckle mess. [Matt says: me too!] Apart from that I don’t think I was ever really afraid, because I’d done so much traveling when I was younger.

What was the biggest thing you’ve learned from your travels so far?
Don: That traveling really does broaden the mind. We’ve discovered that people are people wherever we go and that the great majority of them are friendly and helpful. If you approach people in a friendly and open-hearted way, that is what you are most likely to get back. We do our best to come with a sense of respect for the people we meet on our travels, regardless of their circumstances. We’ve also found that making the effort to learn a few basic words and phrases of the local language does wonders for connecting with the people of a country!

I’m much happier and healthier than I was two years ago. I now know from personal experience why people love to travel. The world and its peoples are much more friendly and much less scary than various government websites would have us believe.

Alison: Everything Don said, and always learn how to say “I’m sorry” in the local language. And presence. There’s no past, no future. Only now. The longer we travel the more this truth is actually lived. Whenever I feel vulnerable I return to the present because it is here that life is lived.

What advice would you give to people looking to do something similar?
Alison: Don’t go blind. Do your research. The more information you gather before you go, the better you’ll be prepared, and the less vulnerable you’ll feel. At the same time, don’t organize yourself into a tight schedule. Leave room for spontaneity. Trust yourself, and go for it. Until you do it you cannot even begin to imagine the rewards that come from such a life. The world is an astonishing place, and people are more open-hearted than you’d ever believe from watching the nightly news. Oh, that’s another thing — stop watching the news: it gives you a very negative view of the word!

Don and Alison are a real inspiration. They found a way to make travel work for them, and it even made Don a healthier and happier person! I really do love their story as well as what they had to say about their experience. The couple have set up a blog about their travels that you can read here.

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. I hope these stories show you that there is more than one way to travel, and that it is within your grasp to reach your travel goals. Here’s another example of people who made traveling the world a priority a little later in life:

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.

Travel Advice from Traveling Couples

This is a guest post by Elise, one half of Positive World Travel. It’s a different format than I’ve done in the past, but let’s see how it works.

It’s been almost two years since Anthony and I started traveling together. In that time, I’ve learned more about Anthony and our relationship than I ever could have if we had stayed in Sydney. I certainly believe our travels have only strengthened our relationship. And so I began to wonder what other couples learned from their trips. I was sure they’d have advice to share, so I decided to contact a few couples and hear their thoughts, tips, and perspectives on life as two on the road.

Life After Kids: The Gypsy Nesters
I was interested in talking with a couple that are now traveling after having raised their kids. David and Veronica from Gypsy Nester have been together for 30 years. Since their kids have flown the nest, they’re enjoying life on the road and have been traveling full-time for the last three years.

David says traveling has been the couple’s best way to share experiences together as a newly minted empty-nest couple. “Our plan took on a life of its own — leading us to sell everything, including our house. Now every day is a new experience, and our relationship is stronger than ever.”

Of their travels together, David says, “In some ways this is a bonus time for us, since we spent a huge portion of our first twenty years of marriage separated because of my work…Now, we get to make up for some of that lost time.”

For Veronica, traveling has opened her up again and she feels free. She says, “Sometimes ‘holing up’ in one place can make you fearful of the world. As a mother, I turned into a protector. My main focus was keeping my children from harm. Though that’s a very commendable thing, it made me fearful.”

So, after three years of full-time travel, what advice do they have for couples who want to travel? “Dial back the day-to-day planning, embrace the unexpected, and look for the unknown gems along the way.” They both agree that, initially, they were trying too hard to see everything in a minimum amount of time. “We had been known to vacation like that, but it’s not a vacation [now] — it’s our lives.”

David and Veronica have really got their lifestyle, relationship, and travel style down pat, and when I asked them to sum up their travels in one word they simply answered: “Discovery.”

A Decade of Travel: Wanderlust Fever

Karen and Eric from Trans Americas Journey are no novices when it comes to either long-term travel or couples travel. In total, they’ve been traveling for just under a decade and have been on the road constantly for the last five years.

Traveling together for Eric and Karen is what they describe as a “long-term endeavor — more [of a] lifestyle than anything else.” For them, the one- to two-week vacation just seems “foreign and impossible.”

Eric and Karen say that their biggest challenge on the road is spending all of their time together. (This is also one of the biggest challenges Ant and I face). But they also see this as their biggest gift. Many people say to them, “If you can travel together, you must have a perfect relationship.” No such thing, they say. Being with someone all the time means it’s “important to find a way to give in to your partner’s needs on his or her deal-breaker issues, and vice versa.”

For them, it’s compromise that is their single most important tip for traveling couples and for maintaining a great relationship on the road. They suggest you “compromise when making decisions (where to go next, budgets, this hotel or that hotel, etc.), especially when it comes to the two or three core elements that are most important to your partner.”

On the Flip Side: The Beginning Travelers

With such great advice from two truly inspiring couples, I also wanted to talk to one couple who have only just started out on their travels. Is their perspective any different? What have they learned in their short time on the road?

Skott and Shawna from Get Up And Globe just started traveling together in June of 2010. Their long-term travel started with looking for a honeymoon destination, but the wheels were set in motion when they realized they wanted to spend time in more than just one location.

Although they weren’t really nervous about traveling together for so long, they do think their travels have been a whole lot easier because, prior to this trip, they worked together. “Working together prepared us quite well. We got to know what makes the other person tick in challenging, high-tension situations,” they said. Skott and Shawna suggest that if you’re worried about spending so much time with your partner, all day every day, try “getting yourselves involved in an activity where you are stuck with each other for at least a few days without escape. For example, a week-long canoe trip or camping.”

Whether you’re a couple who’s been traveling for two weeks or two years, there will always be lessons you can learn to strengthen your relationship. Skott and Shawna focus on communication and trust. “Communication is an area where we are absolutely continuing to grow. If one of us is getting annoyed, we are learning that it is better to explain why you are upset instead of keeping it bottled inside…We are learning we need to trust each other more. Whether it is planning a certain element of the trip, finding our way around a city, or even working on our blog, we need to recognize that the other person is just as competent, and that they need to be given a chance to show what they can do!”

While Skott and Shawna said it took them some time to find their “travel legs,” they absolutely love that they “have someone else to share every incredible experience and every challenging moment with. We will share these moments forever.”

While all three couples have such different relationships and travel experiences, none of them sugar-coated the fact that traveling together is hard and takes work. Yes, the times on the road will be tough, but each couple looked at their travels as time to spend with one another, share special moments, and problem-solve as a strengthened unit.

Traveling with your loved one really is a very unique and rewarding experience. I know I wouldn’t trade my travels with Anthony for anything.

Elise is one half of the dynamic duo at Positive World Travel. Both are writing about their experiences and thoughts on what long-term travel is like as a couple. You can also follow them on Facebook for more of their travel updates.

9 Years Later, Couple Finds Engagement Ring They Lost While Vacationing in Italy

Justin Mussel

Originally published on August 22th, 2017.

Justin and Margaret Mussel, a couple from New Jersey, married in 2006 — not long after Justin proposed to Margaret with a lovely 1.1 karat princess-cut diamond crowning a white gold band.

After their wedding, the pair flew to Italy for a romantic vacation. But the trip turned into something of a nightmare when Margaret’s ring slipped off her finger.

“Earlier that day, we had visited Pompeii and it was extremely hot,” Justin told USA Today. “My wife’s ring was loose, but she didn’t realize it was gone until later. She took a nap [after], and woke up and realized she didn’t have it on.”

The couple thoroughly checked their accommodations, but came up empty with their search.

“I felt terrible,” Margaret told ABC. “I knew I should have probably taken it off because I was a little bigger. I just felt really bad that I could have prevented it from falling off, and I kept it on that day."

Related: How to Travel With an Engagement Ring

To make matters worse, the couple explained that they believed the ring was covered under their renter’s insurance — but because the ring was lost on foreign soil they could not file a claim. It took a few years, but eventually Justin bought his bride a new ring and the couple pushed the memory of the lost jewelry out of there minds. 

Until they took another trip to Italy, that is. 

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Nine years after the ring went missing, the couple — who now have two children — traveled back to Italy on a family vacation. They stayed in the exact same home Justin and Margaret stayed at during their previous travels. There, Justin spotted something shimmering in the pavement.

"I kept saying to Margaret, 'Do you see that?' I see this glimmer coming out of the sidewalk," Justin told ABC.

Justin grabbed a screwdriver and began digging into the crack. After several minutes they dug up the ultimate treasure: The lost engagement ring.

“When it fell off it must have bounced into the crack with the stone facing down,” Justin explained to USA Today. “It was covered in dirt, but there was just enough of the stone sticking out of it.”

After finding the ring, Margaret quickly put the ring on and hasn’t taken it off since.

“The band is a little scuffed up, but not too bad,” she told USA Today. “The diamond looks good. If you saw it, you wouldn’t think it [had been] in a crack for nine years.”