Chrissy Teigen and John Legend's Dream RV Trip Turned Into a Hilarious Disaster

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In May, model, mom, and entrepreneur Chrissy Teigen shared her one vacation dream with Travel + Leisure. All she wanted to do was take an RV trip with her husband, John Legend, and her kids. In July, she got that wish, but it looks like that dream trip has turned into a nightmare.

"I am dying to take an RV trip and John knows this too,” Teigen said just a few short months ago. “He says I’ll be over it after like a couple of days, but I think we’ll really have fun with it. I don’t want it to be like glamping. I want an RV, I want food on there we can put together and stop every once in a while at a rest stop. Just to be able to pull up at the Grand Canyon — to see something as miraculous as that."

This week, it appears the family finally did embark on that RV trip she wanted so badly. However, after just a few minutes in the car disaster struck. And Teigen shared it all on Instagram.

“I had this amazing idea to rent an RV so we could sleep in our friend’s driveway with the kids and not go back and forth to a hotel, lugging all our baby crap,” she wrote. “I’ve always wanted to do a cross-country trip but figured just heading upstate would be a good start! These two videos were taken 5 minutes apart.”

In the first video, Teigen shows Legend strapping their daughter Luna into her car seat before setting off on the adventure. Legend laughs and says, “I’m a motor home driver now.”

In the second clip, Teigen shows that the passenger side window has shattered. Though she doesn’t explain how it happened she can be heard hysterically laughing adding, “Good thing no one was sitting there.”

But, don’t feel too bad for Teigen, Legend, and the kids. After all, they’ve already been to Italy and France this summer on vacation too, so at least this little RV mishap didn’t spoil all their fun.

Reflections on Traveling Through Morocco

Have you ever loved a destination but couldn’t figure out why, or a way to express your feelings? That’s my dilemma with Morocco.

In August, I went with Intrepid Travel and crossed off a country that has long been on my bucket list. I rode a camel, drank all the mint tea I could find, got lost in medinas, and ate more couscous than I thought was humanly possible.

I loved the tour. Our guide Rashid was friendly, took us out to smoke shisha, introduced us to the locals, and was generally very helpful. I made friends with my tour mates and got along with my roommate. And Morocco itself – wow! I loved walking down the street and being barraged by the smell of 1000 diffrent spices, getting lost in the maze-like medinas with their endless nooks and crannies, the chaos of millions of people shuffling about with vendors vying for your attention, and the crimson red of the Sahara with its endless rolling dunes — they were all I wanted them to be! Sure, there were many overwhelming moments when I felt like a fish out of water and things didn’t go my way but I relish those moments!

Travel is about feeling uncomfortable. It’s one of the reasons I enjoyed Ukraine so much, where I was completely out of my element. The country challenged me and I loved it. I fawn over it every chance I get!

Morocco was everything I wanted it to be. It lived up to all my expectations, but for some reason, my experience has been hard to verbalize. Why can’t I express how I feel about Morocco? It’s been bothering me for months.

I’ve racked my brain thinking about it, pondered it on trains, and stared at a blinking cursor while trying to write about it.

Then, suddenly a few weeks ago, the reason hit me.

One constant in my travels — and I’m sure many of you might feel the same — is that of a touchstone, one defining point where the trip all comes together and acts as a prism for everything the journey represented. On my trip to Japan, it was befriending a local who wanted to learn English. In Costa Rica, it was getting lost in a jungle. In Ukraine, it was drinking vodka with locals who knew less English than I knew Russian (and I only know “cheers” and “hello”). On my first visit to Thailand, it was meeting those five people who changed my life. In Ios, it was being taken to a local community festival by my hostel owner.

My trips revolve around one memory that crystalizes the trip and puts everything into focus. Each of the moments ties together all my other memories of a place: the food, the smells, the sights, the people. It’s the first thing that comes to mind when I think of the place and acts as the door to all other memories.

Despite the wonderful times I had and the amazing itinerary Intrepid put together, I’ve realized the reason I’m so ambivalent about Morocco is because I lack that touchstone. There’s no “whoa” moment I can point to where I felt ultra-connected to the country, where everything came together.

But writing this article has made me realize that I have thousands of little moments — staring at the a million stars in the backness of the desert, wandering the empty ruins of Volubilis, discovering new foods with some amazing Australians on my tour, befriending the fish sellers and gorging on fresh seafood in Essaouira, getting lost in medinas, haggling over a chess set and laughing with the seller, and drinking about 1,000 pots of mint tea (OK, slight exaggeration, it was more likely 999).

So maybe you don’t need that one special moment. Maybe I’ve relied on that touchstone as a crutch for too long.

Paul Theroux once said travel is only glamorous in retrospect. I’m not sure I agree with that but what I am sure about is that, in retrospect, I’m only now truly appreciating the time I spent in Morocco and how unique it was.

Sometimes your senses get so battered it takes time for the dust to settle, the thoughts to process, and the wonderful moments to shine through.

*****Editor’s Note: I went to Morocco with Intrepid Travel on their Best of Morocco tour. It was part of my ongoing partnership with

: I went to Morocco with Intrepid Travel on their Best of Morocco tour. It was part of my ongoing partnership with Intrepid Travel . They covered the cost of the tour, flight, and meals.

How I Built This (What I Learned Being a Scammy Marketer)

As I approach my ten-year anniversary of blogging, I want to tell a tale. The tale of an accidental travel writer who simply wanted to afford beer, dorm rooms, plane tickets, and backpacker pub crawls.

I shared part of this story before but, today, I want to go into more depth.

Once upon a time, I started this website with a selfish goal: to make money to keep myself traveling. I wanted my website to be an online résumé where editors could see my writing and go, “Yeah, we want to hire that guy!” — and then pay me to go somewhere and write a story about it. I imagined myself a cross between Bill Bryson and Indiana Jones. My dream was to write guidebooks for Lonely Planet. I imagined no cooler job than a guidebook researcher.

Anything was better than working in the cubicle I was sitting in at the time.

These days, it’s not about how I can keep myself traveling. It’s about how I can help others travel. Every day, the team and I constantly ask ourselves: “How do we help and inspire others to travel cheaper, better, and longer?”

Today, it’s all about you.

But, back then, the only thing I ever said was “How do I help myself?”

So how did I get from a “me centric” to a “reader centric” website?

In those early days, I worked as an English teacher in Bangkok and Taiwan. Blogging was never meant to support me full–time — let alone lead to book deals, conferences, speaking events, and so much more.

In fact, I didn’t care much about this website. I mean, sure, worked on it and didn’t want it to fail. I wanted it to become popular.

But building it into something bigger than myself was not the goal.

Instead, I wanted the dream: passive income. I wanted money to be coming in while I slept.

I was 27 with no responsibilities. I wasn’t looking toward the future. I just wanted the good times to never end.

While I earned a little bit of money from affiliates and selling links on this site (back in those days, you could make a lot of money selling text links to companies looking to artificially increase their Google ranking), I spent most of my time creating AdSense websites, designed solely to get people to click on Google ads. Yes, I was a scammy internet marketer!

I put all that money I made back into these websites — getting people to write articles, optimizing the websites for search, and creating more websites — and lived off my teaching income.

I found keywords that paid well and designed very niche and ugly websites around those subjects. I had websites on teaching English, growing corn, taking care of dogs and turtles, and even raising pigs. At one point, if you went searching for advice on how to train your beagle, every website on the first page was mine.

Yes, those were some weird days. All the content was legit (I hired dog trainer friends to write the articles), but the websites lacked soul.

As time went on, between this website, my teaching job, and those AdSense sites, I made more than enough money, earning upwards of $8,000 a month.

Then one day it all changed.

I was part of this group called the Keyword Academy. It was run by two guys from Colorado, Mark and (I think) a guy named Brad. (We’ll call him Brad for this story.) As part of my membership, we had monthly consulting calls. During one, Brad said, “Matt, why are you building this crap? You know travel. You have a website that people read and like. You have a skill set. Focus on that. This shit is stupid. We only do it because it’s quick cash.”

And he was right. That shit was stupid. All I was doing was taking advantage of the fact that Google couldn’t differentiate spam websites from real websites. Travel was really my passion.

So, in late spring 2009, I shifted my focus back to this blog and, over time, let those other websites die or sold them off. (They made money for about a year after I stopped updating them.)

And, when Google finally learned to filter those spammy websites out, all the people I knew from those days were left with nothing. I have no idea what they do now. It’s certainly not running websites as I’ve never come across their names again.

But the experience taught me some important lessons about creating an online business:

First, until your hobby can pay your rent, don’t quit your day job. There are a lot of people telling you to “follow your passion” — but they neglect to tell you that unless your passion can pay your bills, you should keep your “unpassionate” day job. Teaching English and those scammy websites allowed me to have some income while I focused on “Nomadic Matt.” It wasn’t until the end of 2009 / early 2010 that Nomadic Matt earned enough where I needed no other sources of income.

Second, no matter how good or helpful your blog is, marketing is important. If no one knows how to find your website, it’s all for naught. Those crappy, scammy websites taught me how Google and SEO worked as well as the importance of marketing and messaging. I took that experienced to improve this website, optimizing my content for Google, created products, and started networking with bloggers outside travel.

I think this is one of the things that gave me an edge over other bloggers at this time. While they focused solely on writing and social media, I focused on that as well as SEO. This ensured that I ranked high in search engines, got visitors every day, and helped get my “brand” other there (I got interviewed on CNN once because the writer found me on Google).

And, as I built this community and saw my friends’ incomes collapse with the change of an algorithm, I learned the most important lesson of all: when you create a business that helps others, you create something sustainable and gives meaning and joy to your own life. I hated those other websites but I will work 24/7 on this one because I love what I do.

I don’t agree with basically anything I did in those early days. It was a very scammy way to make money. But I don’t regret one moment of it because it showed me a better way and helped get here. I guess the saying is right. When you find a job you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.

P.S. – If you’d like to learn how to start a blog the right way, avoid my early mistakes, and get a peek at all the processes and methods I use to continue to grow this website (without scammy ads), check out my blogging course. It gives you all my secrets as well as direct feedback on your website from me and tech support from my tech team.

How to Travel with a Theme (and Spice Up Your Trip!)

I think I’ve become a “typical tourist.” Ya know, the kind that hits the major tourist sites and a few off-the-path attractions, Yelps a few local restaurants, and moves on. I get my basic overview, learn how to save some money, and continue to the next destination.

And that’s left me feeling that my travels have become too vanilla lately. There’s a spark missing. I mean, I don’t think I go to boring places, but there’s just a part of me that feels there’s been less adventure and pizzazz in my travels, that I haven’t done anything really cool, interesting, or off-beat for a long time.

So, I had an idea:

What if I traveled with a theme?

Instead of just trying to see the usual well-known sites, what if I went with a specific focus in mind?

What if I went to see only the jazz clubs of a city or the modern art museums? Or only hiked trails that begin with the letter M? Or went to learn about a destination’s wine industry? Or decided I’d only eat at Japanese restaurants with a local food expert?

Really, it could be anything, as long as it hyper-focused my travels around one idea that forced me to look at a destination in a different light.

(I’m sure I’m not the first person to think about this, but it’s something I’ve never done before.)

For example, I’ve been to Paris countless times. I’ve hit all the big sites multiple times over. When I returned to Paris recently, I wanted something different and new. I wanted a purpose. So I decided to experience Jazz Age Paris. I wanted my own private Midnight in Paris. I wanted the spirit of the 1920s: jazz, cocktails, and literature.

As a result, I spent time in Montmartre, ate at Les Deux Magots, enjoyed jazz in the Latin Quarter, drank in speakeasies and wine caves, wandered the bookshelves of Shakespeare and Company, and got lost in the streets of the Left Bank. It might not have been the ’20s exactly, but I ate at restaurants I’d never been to, went to music venues I’d never heard of, and saw parts of Paris I didn’t know existed (including a wonderful cobblestone street filled with tiny cafés in a 1900s covered market).

It was the most fun I had had in the City of Lights in a long time…because it was different. Designing my travels around one theme forced me to plan differently.

And it’s something I plan to continue. After being consistently on the road for a decade, I need to spice things up a little bit.

You develop a routine after traveling for a long time. Like everything else, you fall into a certain complacency. Sure, you’re in cool destinations doing cool things — but it’s often the same type of things.

So from now on, instead of just going to places, I’m going with purpose.

(Besides traveling with a theme, I’ve also decided to use only the sharing economy for transportation (when I can), as well as to start looking for more tours on Vayable and meals on EatWith as a way to have more unique and interesting experiences and meet more locals.)

If you’re in a destination for the first time, of course by all means see all the main sites and attractions — but try to add a little theme to your trip that forces you off the beaten path toward some different or unusual attractions, sights, and events.

How to Travel with a Theme (in Five Easy Steps)

So how do you do this? It requires a bit more research than opening up a guidebook! Here’s how I planned my trip: 

Step 1 – Pick a Theme
This is an obvious first step. You can’t do any of the other steps without it. For me, I had 1920s Paris on my mind, so I decided I’d try to relive that era. But it could be anything: learning about cheese or wine production, the vegan food scene, jazz culture, the modern art scene — whatever suits your fancy! And, if you’re note sure what theme to pick, think of things that interest you the most and see that destination has stuff related to it or just Google “What is (x) famous for?” and see what comes out!

Step 2 – Research Online (use multiple keywords)
 After picking your theme, go more in depth on your search. Local blogs, general travel blogs, our forums, Lonely Planet, Time Out, Yelp — these are all websites I use in my research. Then I go to Google and type in a number of keywords to cover all my bases. For my ’20s trip, for example, I typed in “books on 1920s Paris,” “how to see 1920s Paris,” “1920s Paris sights,” “Paris speakeasies,” and “best jazz clubs in Paris” and found a number of references to consult and various places where I could experience that ’20s vibe. This allowed me to compile a list of potential places to visit.

Step 3 – Plan Your Itinerary
While I didn’t want to overplan any trip, I kind of wanted a plan of attack. There was a lot to see in Paris and I didn’t have much time, so I prioritized what appealed the most. First came the food, then the bars, then the sights. This allowed me to come up with a general framework for my trip. Tagging sites on a Google Map can help you see how far apart things are and then plan your optimal route!

Step 4 – Contact Locals and Experts
Couchsurfing groups and Meetup.com are incredible places to find locals who share your interest. They are going to know the ins and outs of the city and probably have lots of suggestions. Additionally, the group meetups are a fun way to meet locals who share a similar passion, making conversation easier and breaking down that awkward language barrier. Lastly, Vayable, a website that lets locals set up their own walking tours, is also a way to find local experts and unique walking tours.

Step 5 – Read a Book (or Three) 
To get context, read a book on the subject. While I already knew a lot about the ’20s Jazz Age, I ended up picking a few more books on the subject:

Books also might clue you in to some other attractions too!

****

When you do something for a long time, it can become sort of stale. It can lose its luster. When it comes to travel, sometimes that just means sitting down, relaxing, and watching Netflix until you gain your mojo back. Other times, it means brining back the spice and excitement of those first moments, trying to get that first high back.

I know travel so well that it’s become too easy. I’ll be traveling with a theme much more often, so more of my upcoming posts will be like this Paris post, trying to hunt down cool and unique things about destinations. I already have two new themes in mind for my return to NYC: the best swing dance clubs and the best Japanese izakaya bars. And, for my return to Portland this summer, I’m thinking food trucks only (there’s even a food truck tour!).

Because, as much as I love the popular things (they are popular for a reason), I want to add something a little different and unique into my trips that spices them up in a way I never would have thought about before.

Photo credit: 1

Malta: The Country of Half-Neglected Buildings

As I sat freezing at a café in Malta, I wondered if I had made the right decision to visit. I had come to Europe for a friend’s wedding and, not wanting to fly back right away, thought I’d make the most of it and travel somewhere new. Why not start off the new year in a new country, right?

But, see, I hate the cold.

If you want to make me sad, send me somewhere cold. I needed somewhere (relatively) warm and—since I only had a week—small. Looking over a map of Europe, Malta seemed like the best choice. It was far south, had easy flight connections to the mainland, seemed tiny, and came highly recommended by friends.

For Europe in January, it seemed liked my best bet.

But as I sat shivering in a sweater, hat, scarf, and winter coat, I realized I should have researched the weather a bit more before I came. Sure, I happened to visit during an unseasonable cold snap (“It’s never like this!” people would say), but that didn’t make me feel any better.

I don’t like exploring places in the cold, which is why you hardly ever see “winter travel” tips on this site. Spring, summer, fall — those are my seasons! I don’t like carrying big bulk clothes, I don’t like sightseeing while freezing.  (Nor did the weather appeal to my friend who had come from Stockholm for warmer weather.)

Yet neither of us had been to Malta before. Both workaholics, we really wanted to put our phones away, turn the computers off, and just enjoy the destination. It had been a long time since either of us had done that.

So we had to make the most of the (terrible) weather. Otherwise, we’d end up inside, back on our computers, and that wasn’t an option!

In the wintertime, you can visit all of Malta in about a week since this place is really a summer beach destinations, and the weather in the winter is definitely not beach weather. (In the summer, you’ll need two weeks to account for beach days.)

My friend and I had grand plans to see everything possible. We’d be up by 7am and out the door by 8 but, after the second day of hitting snooze, we gave up those plans. While I missed a few museums I wanted to see, didn’t wander Gozo’s citadel as much as I wanted (the day we went it was 4°C with piercing wind and rain), and missed the underground ruins at Hal Saflieni Hypogeum, the Tarxien Temples, the underground WWII tunnel tour in Valetta, the Popeye Village, and the famous fish market.

However, while we moved slowly and my to-do list never quite got completed, I regret nothing. Malta cast a spell on me. I found the locals funny, charismatic, and jovial. They always had a good story to share. And the landscape – wow! As you drive out of the towns just that seemed to form one giant megacity, there were vineyards waiting for spring, rocky, rolling hills, ancient villages, sheer cliffs, churches rising high into the sky, and sharp cliffs with sweeping views of the deep blue Mediterranean.

In terms of sightseeing, the catacombs of Mdina were the most interesting, with their maze of hallways and chambers (though not enough skeletons), and the nearby ancient Roman house, with its intact frescos, was a highlight for me. In Valletta, the capital, I sat watching the harbor from the serene Upper Barrak Gardens (where there are fewer people than the lower gardens) and attended mass at the famous St. Stephen’s Church. And I imagined sitting in the main square enjoying the summer sun while having a glass of wine.

However, what I found most striking about the country were the towns that seem to teeter on decay. Throughout the country, they are filled with centuries-old buildings showing a mix of Arabic and Italian influences and picturesque balconies that jutted out so one could spy up and down the street. The cobblestone streets, clearly built before even Europe’s small cars were around, beckon you to explore their turns. In Malta, they name their houses, and I found myself wandering the streets looking at the random collection of names (my Airbnb’s was “The Devon”).

But as I stood wide-eyed, with one ear listening for a car sneaking up behind me, I couldn’t help but notice that it often felt as if Malta was only half-loved. For all the renovated houses and mansions brought back to their historic glory, there were more decrepit and boarded-up ones, sometimes taking up whole blocks. For every beautiful garden and restored square, there seemed to be an equally run-down one. It was as if half the island quickly left and the other half, busy with preservation, was just waiting for them to come back to fix the rest up.

For all that is written about the island’s natural beauty, wonderful beaches, and majestic capital, what I’ll remember most of Malta was this stark contrast. It was like a mystery yearning to be solved. Why don’t people just fix it up? Why does the government let these safety hazards stay up? Who owned these buildings? Some looked like they had been abandoned for decades. Why rebuild a beautiful house only to have the own next door look like it was a crack den? It all seemed so confusing and haphazard. No one could give me a good answer.

My orderly, OCD mind couldn’t wrap its head around it. (I’d be a terrible Southern European!)

My visit to Malta was like watching the preview of a good movie. When it’s over, you can’t wait for the whole movie.

But I don’t know if I’ll ever get back for the feature presentation. There’s so much to see in the world that I have this gut feeling it will be a long time before I get back to Malta. But, even if I never get back, I enjoyed the preview as well as the fact that I finally turned off my computer and just enjoyed where I was without distractions.

It’d been a long time since I last did that.

A Lifetime of Hope and Regret

It’s easy to get lost. To look around and suddenly find yourself wondering how you got here — and why it seems so far from where you thought you’d be. What wrong turn did you take? Is there still time to go back and start again? To be the person you wanted to be? To do the things you want to do?

One day becomes a year, which quickly turns into a decade. Before you know it, you’re miles from the life you imagined.

“Tomorrow,” you say to yourself. “Tomorrow, I’ll fix things.”

But tomorrow comes and goes and you continue down the same path, caught up in the surging river that is life.

Reading entries for my round-the-world trip contest brought regret to the forefront of my mind. I saw so much of it from the strangers who entered; strangers who poured their heart out to me about loss, pain, suffering, snuffed-out dreams, and second chances.

Yet beneath all the worry, regret, and sadness, there was hope.

The desire for a new beginning. A chance to be the person they wanted to be; to find purpose in their life; to escape a future they didn’t want — but one that felt so inevitable.

As writer and blogger Cory Doctorow said, “You live your own blooper reel and experience everyone else’s highlight reel.”

When you ask people why they want to travel the world, and 2,000 people come back with stories that all end with a version of “to start fresh,” it brings this obvious but forgotten realization back into your mind.

My own life is a minefield of regret — both big and small: Regret at not traveling sooner, partying too much, never becoming fluent in a foreign language, never studying abroad, letting a certain relationship slip away, not staying in touch with friends, not saving more, not moving slower, and not following my gut. Then there are the day-to-day regrets — things like not closing my computer 30 minutes earlier or reading more or laying off those french fries more. There are countless regrets.

In thinking about our own issues, we often forget that everyone around us is fighting their own inner battles. That the grass is never truly greener. That when someone is snappy at you in the grocery store, short with you at the office, or sends you a nasty, trolling email, they, like you, are dealing with their own inner demons.

They, like you, think of second chances, missed opportunity, and unfulfilled dreams.

We’re taught by society to avoid “a lifetime of regret.” “Have no regrets!” is our mantra. But I think regret is a powerful motivator. It is a teacher, a manual to a better life.

Regret teaches us where we went wrong and what mistakes to avoid again.

Reading these entries initially weighed me down. I couldn’t help but think, “There’s a lot of unhappy people out there.”

But the more I thought about it the more I realized they weren’t unhappy. Yes, there was regret, pain, and sadness in those contest entries — but there was also a lot of hope, determination, and energy. These entrants were not going to wallow in regret. They were looking for a way to move forward. They felt inspired, motivated. Many promised that no matter the outcome of their entry, they were determined to make a change.

Reading these entries taught me that regret, it turns out, is life’s best motivator. Two thousand people said, “Not again — I won’t do this twice!”

Maybe having a “lifetime of regret” means you actually have lived.

Regret, it turns out, isn’t such a bad thing after all.

Success Stories: Why Trish Sold Everything to Travel

Greetings from Africa! Somewhere right now, I’m trying to snap a photo of a lion without being eaten. In the meantime, this week I want to share stories of readers who used my tips and advice to realize their travel dreams. If you’ve been thinking about traveling for a while, let these reader stories inspire you and show you that the advice here can work for anyone!

Finishing off the week of reader stories, we head across the pond to England and meet Trish, a 35-year-old teacher. Not happy with her life in England, she sold everything she owned, gave herself a budget of 10,000 GBP ($16,000 USD), and set off traveling the world with only her backpack to her name.

Nomadic Matt: Tell me about yourself.
Trish: I originally come from Ipswich, a small town in East Anglia about an hour’s drive from London. I have been traveling now for about five months through Australia and Asia.

I was living a typical London life. I had a lovely job teaching gorgeous five-year-olds in a respected private school in East London. I got paid well and rented a modern two-bed apartment 10 minutes’ walk from work. I tried to settle for five years, but I rarely had money left at the end of the month and so the dream of more traveling became more and more distant. Life was good…just not GREAT. So after much procrastination, I decided to sell my house, give up my job, and sell all my possessions at car boot [trunk] sales. I gave myself a budget of 10,000 pounds. After five months of traveling, I still have nearly a third of my original budget left. I’m now traveling in Thailand, and my backpack is all I have to my name.

Did you plan any specific trip or just wanted to travel?
I just knew I wanted something different from life, but I had no clear idea about the type of trip I was planning. I love learning about different cultures and so I looked into countries I had always dreamed of visiting. I looked into buying a round-the-world ticket, but the cost and the enormity of the research and planning scared me. I got bogged down by the minute details, and then it became too big a task so I decided to start with Australasia. I had been invited to visit an Australian friend and her family in Queensland, so I decided to book a return flight to Brisbane and then stop off on the way back in Singapore and work my way up through Asia. I also knew I wanted to travel differently than the normal backpacker once I got into Asia by doing some couchsurfing, volunteering, and house-sitting so that I could get a feel for the country I was visiting.

How did you research your trip?
First, I wanted to know what you had packed and the sorts of items that would be handy to carry around. Then I became interested in how you budgeted for your trips. My budget didn’t seem that big until I started to look into ways in which you could travel for cheaper. I researched how I could use HelpX to volunteer my labor in return for a bed and food. As a teacher, there are many opportunities across the world for someone like me to teach English, so I thought I could make my money stretch that way. I liked reading your stories about what you’d learnt while traveling. They inspired me to write about my own feelings.

Were you afraid before you went on your trip?
I was afraid and excited at the same time. It took me a long time to actually just book the flight and make it real! Once I did that, life got hectic and I had “to do” lists coming out my ears! I think this is because I decided to go the whole way and detach myself from my old life. It wasn’t just about traveling for a few months or taking a sabbatical and returning to my life — it was about starting over and having a different view about being a permanent traveler. Through your website, I recognized you as someone who had made a success of traveling indefinitely. I wanted to be able to do the same. I have lots of ideas about how to, but I haven’t actually had enough time to put plans into action as I’ve been traveling and doing stuff every day since I started in August!

How did you save for your trip?
I sold my house and belongings so that I was debt free. I’m using that money for traveling. I put a budget aside for my traveling and once it’s gone, it’s gone.

What about life on the road has surprised you the most?
Lots of things! I’ve found you can live with a lot less clothes and things than you thought you could. You always make friends and meet people wherever you are. You rarely, if ever, feel lonely because of all the people around. Lastly, the goodness and kindness of the people in the country in which you’re traveling. Never underestimate the power of a smile and hand gestures! Everyone has been really friendly and helpful.

With such limited funds, how do you stay on budget when you travel?
I always research accommodation and compare prices. I usually use hostel sites as well; I look on Tripadvisor to compare reviews and ratings. I work out how much I’m willing to pay for a room, bed, and comfort. So far, this approach has not let me down, and I’ve stayed in some really lovely and affordable places. I try to choose places with free Wi-Fi, a common area, and good security for my stuff. The same goes for food. I find out where the best street/market food is and watch to see where the locals go. I hardly ever eat in restaurants now as they are three times the amount you pay for freshly cooked local food. I don’t drink very much, but if I do go out for a drink, I usually stick to local beer as it’s the cheapest.

What one thing that you thought would be a challenge has turned out not to be?
I wondered how I would cope if things go wrong while traveling to different destinations and I can’t speak the language, e.g., the bus breaks down or the train doesn’t come. I have learned that I can cope and it’s not the end of the world. Everything turns out all right in the end, and there is always someone who wants to help. I also thought I’d be lonely but I haven’t been at all. There’s always someone going your way.

What advice would you have for people who want to going away but might not think they can?
DO IT! I have had more awe-inspiring moments in the last few months than I have had in my entire life because of the decision I made to travel! Let go of all the excuses: money, time, job, people’s limiting beliefs and narrow-minded views, etc. You get to do what you want, when you want, with no compromises.

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 are more examples of people who found a way to pay for their adventure around the world:

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

Too Many Places: Overcoming the Paradox of Choice

“Where should I go?” is a question I frequently ask myself.

Wanting to escape the oppressive summer heat of Austin in August, I’ve spent the last few months staring at a map, unable answer that very question. I toyed with the idea of heading to Madagascar, Hawaii, Malta, Kenya, the Caribbean, the Maldives, Dubai, or Sri Lanka.

And, because I couldn’t choose and was so afraid to commit, it wasn’t until this week I finally decided — just weeks before I wanted to go. (More on that later.)

Why?

I was suffering from what psychologists call “choice overload.”

Whether we have two weeks, two months, or two years, deciding where to go is the hardest part about travel. Once you have the time, picking the destination becomes a task of whittling down a long list of “must-see” destinations.

When people are faced with too many options, they are sometimes so paralyzed by the fear of making the wrong choice that they don’t make any choice.

Think of standing in the cereal aisle. We have all these options right in front of us, but we keep going back to our old favorite, Fruity Pebbles. (Or, Cinnamon Toast Crunch if we’re feeling crazy!)

We may want to try something new, but we can’t figure out what we want the most — there are just too many options! How do we choose? How do we know we won’t make the wrong choice? So, paralyzed with indecision, we go back to what we know. And, if we don’t have a favorite, often we just choose what is popular and familiar to our mind (Cheerios).

In psychology, this is called “analysis paralysis.” Contemplating our options becomes such a taxing mental burden that we don’t make a decision. Our minds want shortcuts. It’s how we process all the information thrown at us each day. It’s too difficult to think about every simple decision all the time. Going with what you know and is familiar is how we shortcut our analysis paralysis. (This is all explained in the 2004 book The Paradox of Choice, which I highly recommend reading!)

Think of the world as the proverbial cereal aisle. We’re looking forward to picking a cereal (a destination), but suddenly realize we have too many options. Faced with so many choices and without a strong opinion (e.g., I really want to go to Thailand this fall!), we stare blankly, wondering if picking a destination is the right choice, so we end up (a) fretting about it for months like I did, missing flight deals and precious planning time or (b) end up with what is big, popular, and familiar (let’s visit Paris for the tenth time!).

I often get so paralyzed by choice that I don’t book a trip until the last minute, and even then, I often suffer from buyer’s remorse. Did I really want to book that flight to Dubai? Or should I have gone to Madagascar instead? If I do this trip, will I have time to visit Peru later this year, or should I just go to Peru now?

Last week, after months of fretting, I finally bit the bullet and booked tickets to Dubai, the Maldives, and Sri Lanka. I’m beyond thrilled (especially for Sri Lanka) but in the back of my mind I still find myself thinking, “Is 15 days really enough to enjoy Sri Lanka? Maybe I should go somewhere else until I can spend more time there!”

Of course, when I get to the destination — any destination — all of that second-guessing melts away and I have the time of my life.

If you’re a long-term traveler, you can go anywhere for as long as you want. But when you only have a limited amount of time — because you’re like me and slowing down, or because you just have a few weeks off from work and need to make the most of them — you have to be more selective.

So how do you narrow down your destinations, get on with your trip planning, and not suffer the anxiety that comes with choice overload?

This experience has given me a new philosophy on trip planning. I’ve changed how I decide on destinations:

First, embrace the variety. You’re always going to be overwhelmed by choice. There will always be more destinations to visit than you have time to see. The list of places to visit will only get longer the more you travel, not shorter. Don’t fight it. Recognize it, but don’t let it control you.

Second, start with list of ten places you want to go right now. Come up with the destinations that are at the top of your mind. This year, now that I am taking fewer trips, I want my trips to be to places I’ve never been and are as culturally different as possible, so I came up with the list at the top of this blog (yes, I know not all of the places are culturally different from each other!).

Third, figure out when you can go and how long you have. For me, since I was only going in August, I knew I had exactly a month (since I have to be stateside for weddings in September and October).

Fourth, think of the time of year. Which country has the weather you want to enjoy the most? I’m trying to escape the heat of inland Austin, so I wanted beaches. I crossed Hawaii and the Caribbean off the list, but I still wanted something beachy and adventurous. The Maldives and Sri Lanka may be hot, but they have beaches!

Fifth, make the length of your travels proportional to the size of the country. I didn’t want to attempt to visit large countries like India, Brazil, or China when I have just a few weeks. I wanted to see smaller destinations that I could explore more in depth during a shorter period of time. By this point I knew I was down to using Dubai as a hub and finding destinations from there.

Finally, look up flights. From Dubai, it was $1,700 USD to Madagascar but $400 to the Maldives, and $0 to get to and from Sri Lanka, thanks to airline miles. I didn’t have enough points to fly on the African carriers I wanted (I burned 100K United points last month on other flights — whoops!) so Madagascar and Kenya were out of the question. That left the Maldives and Sri Lanka as the best places to visit from Dubai.

And, with that, where I’m going was settled.

Once I stopped letting too much choice keep me from making a decision and after logically going through my checklist, I stopped hemming and hawing about where I wanted to go, found my destinations, booked my trip, and got on with getting excited about visiting new places.

Overcoming choice overload in travel is about first realizing that there will always be more places to visit than you have time, then figuring out what destinations fit what you can do right now. Once you start with your list of destinations, getting down to the perfect one becomes a process of elimination.

I know many of you suffer from the same problem I do (your emails to me are proof), and I hope you use this advice to overcome choice overload.

Because there will always be too many destinations to choose from and too little time to see them in.