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Published: January 10th 2013
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I've been asked more than once in the past year how we manage to travel with kids, jobs, and a real life. My quick answer is usually something about how we have decided to prioritize traveling as our "hobby", and therefore we make sacrifices elsewhere in our lives.
The truth is that I can attribute about 70%!o(MISSING)f our current lifestyle, plans, and experiences to a fundamental shift in my mind that occurred at about the time that I finished a particular book, almost exactly 2 years ago. The book is
The Art of Non-Conformity by Chris Guillebeau. The funny thing about this book is that I started it as a very light-hearted read in order to pass the time that winter. The book really grabbed me and I began to think about my own life, what I
really wanted, and what wasn't as important. Now, I didn't exactly follow the guidelines of this book exactly (I still work for 'the man', for example), but there were enough interesting thoughts, strategies, and suggestions to get me moving in a different direction. Two of the key points that spurred our traveling included our bucket list, and how to travel cheaply.
Step 1:
The Bucket List
We actually did have a bucket list, (Chris calls it a 'life list'😉, but it was really more of a list of suggestions instead of a real, actionable list of goals. After reading the chapter on developing a life list, we turned this list into what is now our list of goals for the next year, 5 years, and...whenever it makes sense. The funny thing about this strategy is that I have seen similar teachings in productivity and career training at work, and that makes sense. To get things done, you must make well defined goals, and to make sure those goals happen, you must make plans that have clear actions.
To keep this short, I highly recommend at least reading
Chris's blog post on writing a life list as well as the associated '
Annual Review' post. However, even reading these now, I don't think there is near enough information or preface in these short quips to really motivate many people to take this seriously. If you have some more time to spare, I suggest reading the book if you are interested.
Step 2: Traveling for Free
Step two also included Mr. Guillebeau, at least in the beginning. After following his blog for a little while, I learned of a technique that he had dubbed 'Travel Hacking', which he claims allows anyone to travel for free or very cheap. Now, one may argue about the semantics of this claim, but this spurred my mind just enough to get me involved in a few travel blogs and discussion boards which also cover traveling on the cheap. I set a goal to earn enough miles to send our family internationally within 5 years. Well, 1.5 years later, I was sitting on a stash of about 350,000 miles that I had accumulated using everything from
U.S. Mint Presidential coins to actual *gasp* 'butt-in-seat' miles from our trip to Italy. And, using knowledge from these discussion boards, I learned that this was enough not only to get us to Asia, but also to
stop in Europe on the way!
Now, I did say that this change in mindset only accounted for about 70%!o(MISSING)f our plans. The remaining 30%!i(MISSING)s more of a fudge factor, but a lot of it was being frugal (cutting the cable, setting a good budget, selling my car), which allowed us to accelerate the time it took to get us where we are. Most of these changes were either in place for a few years or were in progress at the time, and The Art of Non-Confirmity sort of put guidance and direction to those changes. The book also helped to reinforce the fact that
things were not a priority for us, and that we enjoyed
experiences much more! Just a few short months later, we took our first mega-trip
to the Northeast, and it feels like we have never slowed down.
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