How did we travel around the world before the age of 30?

Traveling around the world with the one I love most, I have so far visited 35 countries on six continents. I have seen the indescribable aurora, chased the tall and honest mountain gorillas, and jumped over Asan in India. Train...

We are addicted to all kinds of adventure activities, including skydiving in Namibia, waterfall descent in Ecuador, camping in Ethiopia, mountaineering in Indonesia, skiing and caving via ferrata all over the country...

We have become diving enthusiasts. We hold PADI AOW diving certificates and go to the Philippines to see shipwrecks, Lombok to see reef sharks, and the Galapagos to see hammerhead sharks!

After walking through these paths, I unexpectedly found that I became a high-quality creator on many travel platforms, and made friends with more "like-minded" friends, and then I discovered that this is what travel guides are all about. The part that gave me the most Easter egg: walking with those who are unwilling to be mediocre and love life, to discover the self that dares to think, dare to do, and lives for death.

In March, I did two live broadcasts by chance. The question I was asked the most was: How did you do it to travel around the world at such a young age? I thought about it and realized that this question actually asked: Where does the money come from? What to do about work? But I thought about it again, and it seemed that it was more than just this: those people who have money and leisure, and say they want to travel around the world after retirement, have they really gone?

Everyone’s questions also prompted me to think carefully about the long preparations for traveling around the world, the time spent on the road, and our future lives. So I wrote this article, not only to answer everyone’s questions, but also to record my own thoughts.

Save money and save money.

We had been working for 5 years before traveling around the world. If you have goals and a budget, work hard to make money, and strictly control your expenses, you can save a lot of money in 5 years. But how much money is needed to travel around the world varies greatly from person to person, because there is no upper limit for rich travel, and there is no bottom line for poor travel.

So in pursuit of the goal of saving 250,000 yuan by myself, I have a strict budget for my monthly expenses: when buying things, I only ask if I need them, and I don’t buy anything I don’t need; skin care The products I use are Dabao, and I rarely use cosmetics (but this seems to be a matter of habit. I have been in love with Dabao since I was a child, and it is most comfortable and comfortable to be naked); when the season changes, just take out the clothes you wore in the season of the previous year, even if When it comes to buying clothes and shoes, more than 95% of the prices are in double digits - you can already buy very beautiful clothes at double digit prices at Xinbao!

I have always paid the water, electricity and gas bills at home. I don’t save much on food, but I don’t often go to restaurants where the per capita consumption is more than 150. For self-investment consumption such as buying books and courses, just look at I never hesitated when I was sure, but in order to save money, I gradually replaced paper books with second-hand kindles. Therefore, my monthly expenses will never exceed 3,000 yuan, and sometimes it is less than 2,000 yuan. Assuming you get a monthly salary of 8,000, you can save 5,000, and you can save 250,000 in just over 4 years. Our salary is more than this, but we will not use all our savings for travel, but will set aside part of it for financial management in a planned way - after all, we have to come back to live after the gap.

Someone once asked our elders how much money they sponsored for us to travel around the world. They replied: Not a cent. Although this is true, I don’t think it is true because they sponsored the wedding room, which reduced our financial pressure to a great extent and allowed us to save enough money in a shorter period of time to realize our dreams. But if we don’t have a fully paid-for wedding house, will we give up on this dream? Won't. We may not take out a loan to buy a house, we may suspend renting during a gap year, we may travel for a longer period of time - there is always a way, and there is always a way to achieve the things we really want to do.

Probably many people have fantasized about slapping their resignation report on their boss’s desk and saying coolly: “The world is so big and I want to see it.” I want to tell you if I have seen the world. , the world is indeed very big, and you may not be able to see it all in a lifetime. Have you ever thought about whether you want to walk on the road all your life, or stop at the right time? What do you do when you stop? I once read a sentence: The hardest thing is not starting, but when to stop.

Those who choose to chase dreams and freedom need to work harder than ordinary people. It's important to budget and work hard to make money, but more importantly: maintain the ability to make money. This means that you need to treat your work more carefully and strive to turn every work experience into a shining point on your resume. If a person leaves the platform and finds that he has wasted all his personal abilities in a dull job , then where do you have the courage to chase your dreams?

I remember there was a very popular article a few years ago, which said please do not regard the stability of the platform as your own stability. I also believe that only when you are always strong can you be truly stable.

We work with this mentality and work tirelessly to make our resumes more and more beautiful.

If you want to change careers, it is strongly recommended that you make full use of your spare time to study and explore the industry you want to go to. If you need certificates and qualifications, take the exam, and if you need practical experience, study. Even if you are working as a free labor force, don’t give up every opportunity to accumulate experience—— That's what I used to do.

During my gap year, many friends asked me where I got the courage, and they also confided in me that they really didn’t like their job but didn’t know what to do. In fact, work is not good or bad. I think work is like love: no one is perfect, but if you really like someone, then you can accept all his shortcomings. The same is true for work. If this one doesn't suit you, then work hard to find the right one; if you can't reach the right one, then work hard to become a better version of yourself first.

To be honest, I didn’t feel like I had much courage to make these changes. Everything happened very naturally: when you think clearly about doing something, then move towards that goal step by step. That's it. There is no need to imagine that we will arrogantly film a resignation report, it does not exist. The company can run as usual without everyone, but I just want to follow my own wishes, pursue freedom and distance, take a good look at the world I have been in, do what I like to do, and create a bigger world. value, to make more money.

So what are we doing now? Steven has successfully joined his new job. The project experience in the past few years has given him a lot of work experience. He said that his current job is more challenging and he can better realize his own value. I have been staying at home almost all the time because of the epidemic, but I have been busy from morning to night receiving many live broadcast sharing invitations, and I have received many job opportunities in the children's education industry and the tourism industry that I love. Although I have always had my favorite places to go, when these opportunities came to me, I really felt: A free life is not about traveling anytime and anywhere, not about going to work without being restricted by the boss, but about being able to live and work every day. When I want to change, when I want to try a different life, when I want to take another step forward, I always have the right and ability to choose.

If, like us, you set out to explore the world more deeply, these essential skills will give you more bang for your buck.

1. Language skills.

In the live broadcast of "Seeing the World and Talking about Children's Education" two days ago, I also talked about why I pay so much attention to English enlightenment, and even chose children's English enlightenment as my career. The skill of “knowing foreign languages” has really saved us a lot of money during our travels around the world! We can travel freely in most places, which not only makes us have more fun, but also saves tour fees. For places where the risk factor is higher or where professional outdoor teams are needed, we can also use our language advantage to bypass domestic travel agencies and contact the local area directly. I remember the truck camping group in Namibia. We directly contacted the local group and the per capita tour fee was 10,000 yuan, while the group members booked through a domestic company spent 1.50,000 yuan+.

The greater benefit of "knowing foreign languages" is that you can chat with people from all over the world. This is simply a golden key that opens your horizons! Thinking back to those days when we were counting stars around a campfire together in a camp, or staying at a local’s house, chatting about life, life, and the places where everyone is the same or different, with people from different cultural backgrounds and different ways of thinking, it’s about a journey. The most unforgettable part.

So when I learned that the penetration rate of English in South America was very low and everyone basically only knew Spanish, I started learning Spanish on my own without saying a word. It took about a year and a half. During this period, I encountered a learning bottleneck, so I signed up for an online course, and the effect was very significant. When we really arrived in South America, when I was able to order food in Spanish and ask for directions, when I was able to simply chat with my Brazilian friends in Spanish, I really felt that those countless hours of giving up lunch breaks and sleeping and studying Spanish were wasted. Real value!

In fact, the current translation software is also very easy to use and can basically meet the needs of daily life translation for food, clothing, housing and transportation. However, communication through machines always feels like there is a barrier. Once there is a barrier, the communication cannot be in-depth. Doing our best to communicate in depth with the locals is the most interesting part for us ~

2. Play skills.

I think the world is always fair. If you want to get something, you have to give something. At that time, I wanted to swim freely like fish and see the coral turtles and sharks in the sea, so I took the diving certification test. As a result, the sea gave me back a storm of sunken nudibranchs and fishes.

At that time, I wanted to overcome my fear of free fall. I felt that I couldn’t be afraid of things that I was afraid of forever, so I started to challenge the downhill diving via ferrata. As a result, the challenge gave me back from 3000 meters to 3,000 meters. The madness of jumping from high altitude.

In the future, I want to fly in the wind like a bird, so I plan to learn paragliding, and I am fully looking forward to what it will give me back. Work hard to get closer to the goals you want to achieve, and they will always give you more back.

Indeed, before we officially set off, we clicked on several skill points, so we could dive into the seabed to chase hammerhead sharks in the Galapagos, skydive wildly at the junction of the Namibian desert and the sea, and The world's best Moreno Glacier hike in Argentina. The meaning of travel is not to take a look around. For us, it is not in vain to plunge into the arms of this world.

3. Physical training.

Many people will say that you are traveling around the world at such a young age. On the contrary, I feel that only when you are young can you have more possibilities. Take advantage of your young skin and abundant physical strength, take advantage of your young mind to be full of curiosity about the world, walk many, many roads, meet many, many people, explore many, many different things, and let your soul be enlightened. , letting the years leave behind stories worth remembering for a lifetime is the life I want.

When I really walked on the road, I discovered too many hiking routes that can only be taken while young, peaks that can only be climbed while young, and mountain gorillas that can only be chased by young people. In order to keep our youthful skin longer, we started physical training very early and insisted on high-intensity exercise at least three times a week. I went to the gym to practice equipment, practiced keep at home, also learned dance, and kept practicing swimming. By the way, in the summer of 2018, I crossed the Qiantang River. It was not only a small goal before I turned 30, but also part of my physical training.

Perhaps many people will say, I can’t do it, I’m already old. The person who said this may be a hundred years old or in his early 20s. And the fact that you feel young is more important than the fact that you are young.

Finally, I want to go back to the question: How do we travel around the world before the age of 30?

I asked myself: Have we really traveled all over the world? The world is so big, can we really finish it in this life? Since we can’t travel the entire world, why did we set out in the first place?

I remember when we stayed in Argentina, many friends and family members said to us: Go to Antarctica! You are all there. Indeed, at the southernmost tip of South America, we were only one ticket away from Antarctica, but we did not go. Because we feel that we have seen almost all the scenery similar to Antarctica in Argentina, and after weighing the cost-effectiveness, we think it is not necessary to spend 100,00 for an "Antarctic check-in photo" to show off that we have reached the pole of the earth.

Maybe life is the same. Only if you understand what you really want in your heart, dare to face it, and dare to ignore the eyes of people around you, will you not follow the crowd and keep running in your love. So you know, I have always felt that traveling around the world should not be everyone’s dream, because everyone should have their own dream, and the key is that you have to know what it is.

Finally, I want to say, never regard 30 as a hurdle. I once thought that life would become the same, but later I discovered that the person who remained the same was myself. When your heart becomes colorful, the people around you will also become exciting and interesting, and your life will be fresh every day. That is to say, starting from 2017, I have to challenge at least 10 firsts in my life every year. Later, more and more friends joined this challenge. Every year on my birthday, I gave myself a summary, and it turned out that I find that as time goes by, we become younger and younger.

Today, I continue to walk on the road with the vision and mind that traveling around the world has given me. I hope that after a few years, when someone still thinks of us and asks, "How is that girl who gave up her stable job to travel around the world doing now?" I will still be filled with enthusiasm and light in my eyes.

This article was first published on the public account "Water Bear Baby"

If you are lucky enough to read this article, please don't be stingy with your criticisms and suggestions, so that I can grow faster