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Year 2 Nomad Travel Spend Report – Still half the cost plus unexpected pandemic change of plans

It’s been 2 years since we got married, got rid of all of our stuff and left San Francisco to become nomads and slow travel the world! Year 1 was amazing, we were living out our dream lifestyle to see the world and staying in some really cool cities. Plus, we were able to do all of that for half the cost of living at home in San Francisco. Coming into year 2, we were becoming seasoned nomads and getting into a rhythm of enjoying new places, eating delicious meals, exploring nature, settling into monthly apartments and even making new nomad friends. We learned a lot from year 1 and applied similar money saving techniques such as booking long-term Airbnbs and using airline reward points. We had exciting plans for 2020 but like the rest of the world, we had to quickly adjust when the pandemic hit in March. As a result, we became grounded nomads and had to decide where we wanted to wait things out for the last 4 months of year 2. This also involved canceling a lot of flights and Airbnb bookings.

By Mr. Nomad Numbers, ago

Women’s carry on packing list for long-term travel – Mrs. NN Edition

We mentioned this already for Mr. NN’s Men’s packing list but it’s worth reiterating. As aspiring minimalists, we made the conscientious decision to live with less as it turns out that less is more. So when it came to packing our stuff, we decided that we would travel the world with carry-on only.

Lets face it, women have different and more challenges packing than men do. We have more toiletries, makeup, products, bags and outfits than men do. And where are we supposed to put all of our shoes?

By Mrs. Nomad Numbers, ago

Traveling with Purpose

Whether it is for a short 2 weeks vacation, a 3-6 months sabbatical from the office or even if travel has become your lifestyle, there is no shortage of beautiful places in the world to visit. Most of the time people will pick a destination because it is “trendy” or because one of their friends recommended it to them. Very few people will actually ask themselves what they want out of a travel experience before picking the destination after some introspection.

In other words, we rarely start with “our why” we want to travel but rather focus merely on the “what” or the “how” expecting the magic to happen once on site (check out this great book from Simon Sinek to get more insights on this topic).

This lack of self examination can lead to dissatisfaction in many areas of life. Like going to college, getting married, buying a house or even having kids without asking ourselves first and foremost if these are things we really need to live a truly fulfilled life. 

In this article, we will explore why it is important to travel with purpose and provide some ideas to get you started. If you’re seeking some inspiration and want to go beyond checking off a travel itinerary, this post is for you!

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By Mr. Nomad Numbers, ago

Year 1 Nomad Travel Spend Report – Traveling the world for half of the cost of staying home

When we decided to get married and sell everything to travel the world, we knew that this new lifestyle was going to be fun, exciting but also cheaper than staying at home. What we did not know was how much cheaper it was going to be to live a very high quality of life where we would enjoy the local food scene, cook amazing meals, take regular getaway trips, spend time in nature, attend local shows/festivals and everything else you get the freedom to do when you decide to travel the world slowly.

As we are closing our first year of nomadic travel, I am digging into our finances to answer this question and the results are pretty exciting. In a nutshell in the last 12 months, we slow traveled to 10 locations in 5 countries for about half the cost of living in San Francisco. But more than reducing our spending, geo-arbitrage let us rebalance our expenses towards activities that we enjoy the most, spending more time with our respective families, living a less stressful life and exploring new places in the world.

So let’s dig into our spending report for our first year of nomadic living!

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By Mr. Nomad Numbers, ago

International phone plan options for travel – Google FI Review

As we embarked on long-term nomadic travel and thought about giving notice to our apartment in San Francisco, we had to figure out a few things. One was what to do with the stuff we’ve accumulated over the years (Our answer: to embrace minimalism. Another was what to pack to sustain long term travel (Our answer: to travel carry-on only). Another was how to handle all the physical mail we used to received while being overseas (Our answer: to subscribe for an online snail mail service).

Today we keep going down our list and will be talking about wireless services as it become quite hard to imagine how someone could navigate the world without having a functioning mobile device in his/her pocket. In this post, we will be going over the reason why we believe it is critical to have connectivity while traveling long term, which services we’ve been using since we started our journey, what are the alternatives and which option we recommend whether you want to travel the world long term or simply stay in the US.

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By Mr. Nomad Numbers, ago

Cost of our nomad living in Aruba: Staying in paradise for 4 weeks can be cheaper than staying at home

Staying for a month in paradise on a Caribbean island costs tens of thousands of dollars right? We assumed it can only be affordable for 5 days or 10 days max unless you are a gazillionaire and it’s probably only worth it for a special occasion like a honeymoon. We never heard of any digital nomads or slow travelers going there, so it must not be practical. Well we have some good news for you, it is very doable and can be cheaper than staying at home! Are you ready to go explore Aruba?

By Mr. Nomad Numbers, ago

Top tips to save money & score great deals on Airbnb – Our Ultimate Guide

Accommodation usually represents the largest expense while traveling for extended period of time. Did you know you can reduce significantly this expense by using Airbnb? In this post we explain how we use Airbnb to find amazing rentals, why and how we introduce ourselves to the host, our best tips to get us the best stays at the best price through the Airbnb platform and more…

By Mr. Nomad Numbers, ago

Minimalism (or how to live a more fulfilled life with less)

Mrs Nomad Numbers and I are both avid explorers who decided to embrace our passion for travel by making the world our home. By deciding to become nomads, we had to figure out what to do with our apartment in San Francisco and all the “stuff” we had accumulated over the years that were slowly (but surely) cluttering our place! This articles discusses the options we considered, the one we picked. We also discuss what was the transition like and how this lifestyle change affected our lives. So let’s dig into the art of decluttering and how becoming aspiring minimalists changed us for the better!

By Mr. Nomad Numbers, ago
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