How I Afford Travel

Here's a quick Saturday post from Porto Cristo, Spain.

Few days ago I received an email from GoNomad editor. You know 60 % of new emails  in my mailbox usually just bad news like my articles weren’t good enough or other rejections – which is I’m totally used to it. But after few times trying and to be honest I almost gave up, this time he would  publish my article soon. Now that’s a good news, it’s not bad to have 2 articles published on travel websites for the past 2 weeks, at least I can use the money to purchase flight tickets to Barcelona and Paris, maybe a cup of coffee too . This reminds me of the same question people always asked me, after 3 months traveling from West Coast USA to a small town in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, they all wondered how could I afford traveling for so long ? Even the bank officer that helped me to open a new bank account in Orlando said he’s been working for so many years and yet didn’t have enough money for traveling.  Well, my parents didn’t support my travel funds at all, just like everyone else out there we all work hard, we save up. Some people chose to spend their money on expensive stuff, paying debt or student loan, while I prefer to invest on flight tickets.  That’s true traveling is bloody expensive but I believe you can always find ways to make it cheaper, such as join Couchsurfing, stay with Air BnB or hostels, book rooms and flight tickets in advance, eat at the local restaurants, take over- night buses, even I happened to sleep at the train station or airport to save my money.  When I'm on the road, I love taking pictures and writing. I'm not the best travel writer - but I try to write better, come up with good ideas about places I have visited and finally send tons of articles to travel magazines or companies, like GoNomad, Wanderlust, Transitions Abroad, etc. Here I'm telling you again I got rejected a lot, but some paid me too. My mission wasn't the money. Being 25, I feel like I've been fortunate to visit different places for the past 4 years. 17 countries and still counting, it's definitely priceless to experience live and work with people from all around the world, meanwhile I know some people out there have the same dreams, for some reasons they just can't travel as much as I do maybe because job, family, financial, etc, and my dream is as simple as I just want to inspire people. Of course it's nice when travel companies sponsor you, and I've been working hard to build good relationship or network with editors, travel websites, hoping that we would help each other and in the end this website will run until I turn 50 something, full of places, experience and stories. So for anyone of you out there reading this, or dreaming about traveling but still not sure how to start it, the only thing I can say dream big, believe and achieve. 10 years ago I could only dreaming about New York through a summer school brochure, and here I am in Spain after a year working with Disney World, Florida - still believe that I can go even further than yesterdays.