Suitcase Stories cofounder Michael Wright in front of the Mayan ruins in Cancun, Mexico. Source: Supplied
ONE Aussie couple has proved it is possible to be on permanent holiday after celebrating more than three years of travel.
Nicole Connolly and Michael Wright decided to leave their Perth home more than 1000 days ago, and have since lived a “freedom lifestyle” with no fixed address.
So how do they do it? They have shared their secrets with news.com.au below:
Nicole Connolly and Michael Wright of Suitcase Stories in the Bahamas. Source: Supplied
“A question we get asked a lot is, “How can you afford to travel permanently?”
We didn’t win the lottery, we didn’t receive a large inheritance from a long-lost uncle, nor did we rob a bank. No, it all came down to hard work and sacrifice.
It’s been almost three years since my husband Michael and I left our home in Australia and we are still travelling the globe. What’s more, we have no intention of giving up this lifestyle any time soon, you could say we’ve become addicted to it.
Why do I love it so much? There are so many reasons, but mostly it’s the freedom that I am addicted to. We never set an alarm, we don’t have deadlines. No stress or anxiety (unless we run out of chocolate), no timetable, and no decision is set in stone. We have the freedom to come and go from any destination as we wish.
My pre-nomadic life wasn’t a bad one. I was content with the path I had taken. I was running a successful business that I enjoyed, had a great relationship with my husband, and we lived in a nice house in a nice neighborhood. Life was ... nice.
Watching the waves
That was before I went through a major tragedy - I lost a parent and the grief crushed me. For anyone who has lost a loved one you know how heartbreaking it is. As cliché as it sounds, I started asking myself questions like “What am I doing with my life?” and “Will I be happy with what I have achieved once I leave this world?”
The answers shocked me. I realised that if I died tomorrow (as morbid as that sounds) I wouldn’t be able to look back and be proud of what I’d accomplished. For someone like me who’s had success in business, won awards for that successful business, and on the outside looked like she had a pretty good life, I know this sounds absurd, but the life I was living wasn’t the one I had always wanted.
So one night over conversation and a bottle of wine, we decided to give everything up for a life of travel – a life of freedom.
Welcome to Hawaii
Of course this was a huge decision and one that required a lot of planning. So we planned, planned, and planned some more! And while we planned we saved, and saved a lot. I won’t lie, it didn’t happen overnight. It took a year of strict money-saving before we had enough in the bank. With our savings plus the money we made from selling everything we owned, we were ready to set off on an adventure of a lifetime.
Fast-forward to three years later, and we’re still having adventures together across the globe, with no end in sight. However, money doesn’t grow on trees and savings accounts don’t stay full forever. In order to continue our travel lifestyle we created an online business which provides us an income to keep our ‘freedom lifestyle’, as we like to call it.
Traffic Jam!
Coastline of Kauai
Our business comprises of several projects. We have a successful travel blog (www.suitcasestories.com), we do social media management, we sell digital products such as ebooks and e-courses, and we dabble in affiliate marketing. This might sound like a lot of work but to be honest an average work week for us is no more than 20 hours – a big difference from the 80-hour weeks back in Australia.
You might think it would be quite expensive to travel the world permanently but there are so many ways to keep costs down. For example, we use housesitting to keep our accommodation costs very low – we’ve stayed in so many beautiful and luxurious homes, all for
free.
Merida, Mexico
Hotel in Hong Kong
You can also keep your travel costs down by searching for the best deals, flying mid-week and eating local street food. You could travel on as little as $20,000 a year if you wanted to. What many people don’t realise is that it costs less to live our lifestyle than it did when we had a mortgage, cars, and a ‘normal’ 9-5 life.
There are some downsides to perpetual travel, of course. For starters, being away from family and friends can be hard, especially during their birthdays or Christmas. We have been fortunate to have most of our family and friends visit us at some point during our travels, they use it as an excuse to travel a little themselves.
Amsterdam
Niagara Falls
If I am completely honest, there isn’t much about our old life that I miss.
We are so busy creating new memories and living an adventurous free lifestyle that we don’t feel we are lacking anything in our new life. I think the key is finding something you love and turning that into your lifestyle - then everything feels perfectly aligned.”
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét