Truth about Traveling Full Time 🙄 Worth it? 14 Pros and Cons of Slow Travel Revealed

in this video we're going to talk about the pros and cons of slow traveling as a couple hi we are Joel and Michelle and we are the wandering hearts and we're helping you live a more Abundant Life through slow travel and traveling abroad now this month is our 4-year anniversary of being digital Nomads and full-time slow Travelers yep so a little background on how we got here the beginning of 2019 I was actually laid off from my full-time job in commercial real estate and and then 3 months later I was actually able to get a remote job so that's when kind of the wheels started turning for us uh at the time Joel was working as a film producer and he was traveling almost every month so we were both getting a little tired of living in Nashville and we talked through like multiple scenarios about selling our house renting out our house keeping our house and using as a whole base um but ultimately we decided to actually sell everything and travel full-time now we ended up doing something pretty drastic and extreme you might say we ended up actually selling about 95% of everything that we owned including our house our one of our cars um in order for us to travel full-time so here we are 4 years later and we're still on the road which is kind of a kind of a shock to me actually but in this video we thought we'd go over the pros and cons of living this slow travel lifestyle uh try to give you an idea of what it is like to travel full-time um especially as a couple and provide a little bit of insights it's all from like our insights and our experiences of these last four years of [Music] traveling all right so let's start with the first pro which is cost so it's actually a lot cheaper than most people think uh to travel full-time especially if you're coming from a city or state in the United States that has a High Cost of Living uh like La New York or Miami um since we slow travel which means we stay in one place for a month usually longer uh usually 3 months we get a price breakdown on accommodations and we also tend to travel in the offseason and so when booking accommodations we usually like to use flat.com in Europe and then also we'd like to book directly with landlords like we did in Albania and Bulgaria which can save you a ton of money so for travel in the United States you can use trusted house sitters and that's where you're taking care of somebody's pet or their home and watching that for them while they're on vacation we like to use furnish finder booking.com vbo we've also found stays at RV parks we also stay with friends and family you can get a monthly discount through Airbnb although we generally try to avoid Airbnb just because of kind of the the high service fees that they have and also the really high cleaning fees which I'm sure a lot of you have noticed lately we also keep a spreadsheet of how much we spend monthly for accommodations dining out groceries and transportation so you can watch a lot of those videos uh on our on this channel and also you can go over to our website wandering hearts.com if you want a really detailed breakdown of our cost of living overseas so the second Pro is actually not having to pay monthly bills now obviously for us since we went pretty extreme we don't have a mortgage we don't have homeowners insurance we don't have property taxes that we have to pay directly either um in fact most of our states we also don't have to pay things for things like water electricity internet or even cable now we do pay for health insurance that we keep back in the United States and when we're traveling we actually use a travel medical insurance we've been using the Nomad insurance through safety wing uh which you can look into if you're interested we've actually got some articles and even a video on the channel that you can watch to get you a little bit more information about what that's like we did decide to keep one of our cars which has been a godsend actually because that means that when we come back to the States we actually have a vehicle to get around which is a lot cheaper than trying to rent one all the time but that does mean that we have insurance that we have to keep on that car while we're away and luckily for us we have friends that were able to leave the car at while we're gone away on trips so ultimately that allows us to have very minimal bills third Pro is you become a minimalist and that is pretty much just out of necessity if you're traveling full-time so when we started traveling we had multiple suitcases and our bags were heavy but when we ended up going overseas we ended up pairing down a lot more and then on this last trip we were gone for almost 9 months in Europe and each of us had a carry-on only suitcase backpack and a small personal item so we have actually two packing videos that each of us have filmed uh you can see what was in our suitcase if you want to want to get more insight into what we packed for a 9mon trip it's also been really freeing not to have a lot of clutter and lots of stuff to keep track of and we've really realized that we don't need a lot of possessions actually to make us happy it's also shown us how little we need to live especially from our last trip when we were living just out of a carryon suitcase for the last N9 months so Pro number four is you actually get to live a lot more like a local does so if you're slow traveling like us then you get to actually really experience a place instead of maybe popping in on vacation where you're seeing a bunch of sites and you're just super busy the whole time and not really getting a chance to fully get a feeling for the city that you're in you can also make friends with locals expats and even other Travelers that you meet along the way which is really great if you stay in a destination for 1 to 3 months like we like to do another thing is you're taking the Local transportation or walking around a lot more often which gives you a chance to go to the same coffee shops and bars things like that where you get to see some of the same people over and over again kind of like at home where you start to build a little bit of a relationship and people get used to seeing you you're also not in vacation mode you're actually like living in that place or like for us you know we're living and working as well so that means you're actually going out and your getting your groceries you're doing your laundry you're going to get your coffee at your favorite coffee shops you're going for walks around the city or even like some parks and things like that uh you just have a lot more time to really spend in the city and in the area to get to know it now you don't have to be YouTubers or travel bloggers or even content creators like we are um to do what we're doing and we realize that most people aren't like that or aren't doing what we're doing but a lot of people that we meet in our travels are actually either their expats they might might be retired early or they might be working a remote job for a company back in the States as well and they're also traveling full-time too the next Pro for us is we get to spend a lot more time with friends and family so as we get older spending time with loved ones becomes a lot more important uh because at the end of the day that's all you have is your experiences and relationships with other people so for example we just got back from a 6- week road trip in the United States where we got to see Joel's parents and spend time with them we also got to see a sister in their new house in Arizona we met up with friends uh that we met in Bulgaria who have a home base in Salt Lake City we stayed with friends in Phoenix and we also got to see my brother in Colorado so it was a really wonderful trip and we feel really lucky that we have the time and uh well extra time you know than most people cuz we're slow traveling that we get to see all of these amazing places we've also met and become friends with a lot of people in other countries and other nationalities who have different outlooks than us different perspectives and then it's also fun too for us to meet up with those friends in other countries which is actually really cool now Pro number six is actually experiencing new cultures and meeting new people it's one of the main reasons that we do travel and we've met so many wonderful people over the last couple of years and have had a lot of really really great experiences traveling also opens you up to different ideas different ways of life and makes you question things as well gives you different perspectives teaches you empathy patience and just how to be more flexible in your everyday life Pro number seven we're actually a lot more active when we're overseas so when we're traveling especially over in Europe we're walking everywhere and we're taking taking public transportation pretty much everywhere we're walking to go get our groceries out to dinner to the gym uh it's just a huge Pro for us and feels like a luxury when we're in a town or a bigger city that's walkable or has easy public transportation and now for the cons the first one being that sometimes full-time travel can be a little bit isolating now you can get lonely even when you're traveling as a couple like we do especially if you're in a new country that haven't been to or if you're traveling in an offseason in a place that might be a little bit slower and there's not as many tourists or even locals around and since Portugal was like that for us we were there in the Algarve and that was in January and February and it was pretty empty there was not a lot of people around now we weren't necessarily lonely but we didn't really meet a whole lot of people we didn't have those options or as many options for those interactions um except for like when one of my YouTube Friends came down from lismond and met us down there where we got to CH hang out with him and his girlfriend all day long which was also really really fun so our second con is the lows and highs of travel so this lifestyle can have really low lows but it can also have really high highs so obviously the pros on this kind of they outweigh uh this as a con for us because I we're we're still traveling full-time but um it is something to think about so last year I had major surgery and we had to come up with a plan about where we were going to be it forced us to stop traveling for about 4 months and so I had to recover from surgery and it just it changed all of our travel plans we also got super sick last year when we were in Prague and we ended up spending 10 days I think in our apartment and we only had about 3 days left over to explore the city and it also um kind of messed up our travel plans so we couldn't fly because we were so sick so that is also something that that you just have to take into account you know when you're traveling things happen you're going to get sick another thing is during our time in Albania the weather wasn't the best so which was actually unusual for that time of the year but Joel deals with major seasonal depression so that was a little bit tricky uh for us to kind of navigate so it's just kind of some things to think about uh when you're traveling full-time now the third con is that actually Soul traveling can be physically and mentally tiring now if you're traveling outside of the United States or your home country uh it can be mentally tiring especially if you don't speak the local language things that we take for granted in our back in our home countries like going to the grocery store can turn into an adventure same as if you're trying to order out at a restaurant or you're trying to just figure out the public transportation now luckily we do have some apps and tools that help us out with that like Google translate you're also just hyper aware of everything because that's different around you because your and that causes your brain to just like get really fatigued because you're always constantly trying to translate and process things or you're just not used to the languages and the sounds and the smells and so that all kind of kind of can add up a bit and traveling can actually be physically exhausting as well whether you're on a long plane ride or a train ride or you're you you're just going to be uncomfortable during those times you're going to have to deal with things like time changes or even just lifting your luggage around like s lifting a suitcase onto a train track or up some stairs you know in a place that doesn't have an elevator or something even things like walking uphill in the cold you know trying to get back to your apartment uh can can kind of get overwhelming at times as well um and or just being extra careful where you're walking too like sometimes the sidewalks aren't always in the best shape or like our time in Lisbon where you find that the beautiful tiled sidewalks are super slippery when it gets wet and so you have to be very cautious and careful about that as well you're just going to have to accept that you're going to be both physically mentally and emotionally tired at times and hopefully it just doesn't last very long and you're able just to kind of push through that con number four fomo is is real so if you're working for yourself like us or or even if you're working remotely and you have kind of different hours from the location that you're in say maybe you're working at night or through the evening and you've got friends that are going out for dinner uh a lot of times you know maybe you won't be able to go or you have to work in you know till midnight or 3:00 in the morning and then there's things that that other people want to do or you want to do in the morning things aren't open so yeah you just have to kind of work around that but uh for us we are working full-time uh while we're in these locations and do we don't get to see as much as we want so that's just something that we've kind of had to accept and deal with but yeah the the fomo is definitely real on that one as a traveling couple we're with each other 24 hours a day 7 days a week and we often are living in pretty small places and that means that we don't have a a way to kind of get away and escape from each other um whether that be just to get some work done or just to have like some alone time for yourself this can be really hard and it can take a toll on your relationship you got to figure out how to give each other the space that they need um whether that is going to a cafe by yourself and to get some work done or if it's going to like a working space as well con number six is maintaining a routine so we found this actually can be pretty hard uh just working for ourselves you know we're not we're not on a 9 to5 type job so we're very reliant on just you know sitting down and setting a routine for ourselves and kind of figuring out like what works for us and what doesn't and depending on what country you're in uh stores restaurants and grocery stores they will all have different hours um and that can kind of throw off your day you know if you go out to the grocery store and you're expecting it to be open it might not be especially if you're coming from the United States like we are uh you're used to stores staying open until 10: or 11: at night or even 24 hours and a lot of times that's not the case when you're traveling overseas so con number seven is staying fit while traveling just it's kind of like we talked about with the maintaining a routine if you have a workout regiment that you're used to sometimes that can be more difficult than you think to in order to maintain and a lot of that has to do with you know if you're in a small apartment it may not have enough room for you to do like workouts or you know your yoga or whatever it is that you're trying to do just trying to find a gym depending on what type of a workout program that you're on you might not be able to find big heavy weights or you might have to find a place that has like certain machines that you're used to or whatever it might be difficult to find that or it might just simply be that it's there but it's maybe clear across town and just makes it that much more inconvenient you can't just hop in a car and go do it so in since you don't have that car you might be either you have to walk or take public transportation or you know where in your vacationing you usually are able to kind of stay on that because you stay in a hotel or something that might have a gym so it's not too hard you don't really miss too much another example is if you have a specific specific kind of dietary restriction that you're on for instance for me I liked Greek yogurt that's something I like to do in the mornings cuz I like the high protein content and for us it's been really hard to find that in some countries I might not even be able to find it at all or I have to find a substitute for it like a sky or something else um in other cases it's really easy like in Portugal it was super easy for me to find that and it was relatively inexpensive as well where in other places like Albania we I was had a really hard time trying to find a Greek yogurt um or a sky that wasn't really really expensive due to like import taxes and things like that we hope this video was helpful we're here trying to show you how you can live a more Abundant Life through slow travel if we missed anything or if we got something wrong or if you've had any questions be sure to let us know in the comments below yep and you can find more information on our website at wandering hearts.com and also on this channel we talk about our cost of living uh we have hotel stays reviews and tips for you guys about living a more Abundant Life through so travel happy wandering happy [Music] wandering

Channel: Wandering Hartz | Abundant Living Full Time Travel

Views: 10,832

Keywords: digital nomad lifestyle, digital nomad, cost of living crisis, frugal living, living abroad, expat, slow travel, remote work, travel couple, full time travel, slow living, slow travel life, pros and cons slow travel, pros and cons full time travel, rv life, travel 2024, travel tips, how to be a digital nomad, travel vlog, full time travelers, early retirement, travel abroad, part time expat, flexpat, retirement planning, frugal living tips, pros and cons digital nomad

Id: sXnUHu7J7wI

Length: 18min 26sec (1106 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 03 2023