For today’s Long Term Travel Q&A with Swim & Staci, we’re going to tackle one of the most basic questions people ask us when we talk about our travel lifestyle, “So, what is long term travel anyway?” Great question! We called this a basic question, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to answer. In fact, defining long term travel is incredibly difficult because each person’s definition is as unique as their long term travel experience. To make it a little easier on us, we’re going to break it down into two categories…that’s doable, right?
Long Term Nomadic Travel
One way to define long term travel is traveling the world for long periods of time without stopping, moving place to place like a nomad. One example of this is blogger Nomadic Matt who uses his blog to fund his non-stop travels around the world. Another example, Chris Guillebeau who originally started an eBay business to fund his long term travels. Chris is known for visiting every country in the world…you can’t get more nomadic than that, can you?
When you travel long term as a nomad, you could buy an around the world plane ticket and bounce from country to country seeing as much as you can during your journey. This type of long term travel can have a definitive end of several months or even years later or it can be an open-ended trip that ends when you’ve run out of money or are just done traveling.
We got a small taste of this type of travel as we traveled between Spain and Paris, and it was not our cup of tea. We didn’t like all the traveling between place to place and not getting to spend quality time in each place. We spent a lot of time on trains and waiting around for our next mode of transportation to arrive…not our idea of fun. But the upside of this type of long term travel is that you get to see many different parts of the world, so you get to get a taste of many different cultures around the world. There are many people who enjoy being travel nomads, so it might be your travel style.
If you’re like us and being a travel nomad sounds less than stellar, maybe this type of long term travel will float your boat:
Long Stay Travel
Is sightseeing not enough, would you like to fully immerse yourself into the culture of your dream destination(s)? Then long stay travel might be your ideal definition of long term travel.
Why? Because during long stay travel you stay in the same destination for 1 month or longer, living like a local, so you get to have a true cultural experience. Plus, you save thousands of dollars because you aren’t traveling from place to place and you can cash in on the savings of longer-term accommodations. (Click HERE f you want to learn our secrets for how to travel the world for under $1500 per month.)
Long stay travel is more our style and is usually how we define long term travel. We love this type of travel because we get to truly experience the culture of an area and we don’t feel rushed when traveling. But it does have its downsides too. If you’re not in an area that has lots to do, you might get bored after you’ve explored all there is to discover. But the upside is that you start to figure out what the locals do for fun and you get to meet even MORE locals when you start having fun like a local.
These are just two of the dozens of definitions of what long term travel is, and you are free to define long term travel anyway that best suits your unique lifestyle. Even though this isn’t an exhaustive list, hopefully these two definitions will help you get a better understanding of what long term travel is and whether or not it is something you would love to do.
What about you. How would YOU define long term travel?
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