How to Travel on $75 Per Day, with Nomadic Matt Kepnes

27:51Speaking of dynamic pricing, that throws a wrench into some of the old cliches about travel. There's that cliche that travel is flights are always cheaper on a Tuesday. Where did that come from? It's a myth now, but it actually comes from a true thing. So before computers were widespread and we had algorithms who can just do pricing 24-7, we would be in the boardroom being like, everything out of LA, 25 % off next month. And so me, the airline employee, would then walk to the computer and manually change the prices. That usually happened on a Tuesday. And then every other airline would see, oh, Paula Air is now 25 % off out of LA.

28:37Let's match that. Or she's doing 25%. We'll do 30%. And so we'd all change the prices. And that typically happened on a Tuesday. And so that's why it was like, book on a Tuesday. Because that's when deals would happen. But now that you can just have the computer constantly change prices, we still might say, We're going to run this 25 % off, but we don't have to do it on a Tuesday. We can just press a button whenever we want. Right. And then we can code in parameters. Hey, if competitors do X, we will do Y. And the computer just is like, okay. And so that's prices are constantly changing. A plane might have up to 20 different price points.

29:19And so the plane's airfare. So the computer is just like trying to get the highest price point as often as possible. So it's just changing all the time. It does not matter what day you book. Now, obviously, the corollary to that is it does matter when you're going to fly. Because if you fly on a weekend when everyone else is flying, it's going to be more expensive. Very few people like to wake up at 4 a.m. for a 5 a.m. flight or for a 6 a.m. flight. I guess if it's 5 a.m., you're probably waking up at 3. Right. Hence why those flights are cheaper. If you want to go to Disney World over holidays, you and everybody else.

29:59So definitely when you fly matters way more than when you book. So in the era of static and manual pricing, that's where that Tuesday myth came from. But in the era of dynamic algorithmic based pricing, it no longer applies. What's the ideal amount of time in advance to book a ticket? Is it still, you used to hear that's another popular, I don't want to say myth, but a popular saying around travel is you should book at least, what, a month out, but not more than six months. Is there validity to that? Oh, yes, definitely. There is a lot of validity to that. There's only so many seats on the plane.

30:40And so, again, the airline's goal is to tell the computer, get as much money as possible per seat. And so usually around three to six months, the airline has a good idea of how that flight is selling. And then they will either raise prices or lower them based on that. And that's good for most international flights. For domestic, U.S. domestic, two months, three months is usually good. If we want to go, again, to Disney World, we're not going to decide. Most people are not going to decide a year in advance. Because what's life like? Maybe you get sick or little Jimmy takes a baseball and now something's changing.

31:24And so two to three months for U.S. domestic, international, six month-ish, four to six months. There's no hard rule. It's a window. Because that's when people really start booking and airlines can really start to see what is the demand for this. Now, we know everybody goes to Europe in the summer, right? So they know demand is going to be great, especially post-COVID. Those planes are pretty much full. It's why you don't see as many good advanced award redemptions. Nowadays, the best award redemptions are the week before. So you've got to roll the dice. They will come, but the airlines want to, why give away a free seat when you can get someone to pay for it?

32:07So they're going to wait to the very last minute before they release a lot of their, especially premium business class seats. Economy happens more often. So something for like Europe, you might want to think six to nine months because it's going to sell out. So you might not see as many deals. Another thing to think about is that the airlines are still outdated when it comes to travel. Like who is a traveler? In their mind, there's two types of travelers. The consumer traveler and or the leisure traveler and the business traveler. And a business traveler has to go last minute and they book one ways.

32:44Hence why a last minute flight is always expensive. Because I also think if you're booking last minute, you really need it. So you need us more than we need you. So pay up. And a consumer, a leisure traveler, who is planning the trip to Hawaii or the family vacation, is going to book far in advance and they're going to book round trip. That flight will be cheaper because they know they're more price sensitive. So oftentimes, if you are just booking one ways, like I book a lot of one ways, because sometimes I'll use cash and sometimes I'll use points. And you're like, wow, it's so expensive. Make it a round-trip flight.

33:22And you'll probably see the price drop substantially. And even if you don't need the other leg, just don't use it. I did that once on a flight from Sydney, Australia to Atlanta, departing from Sydney. it was cheaper to book round trip than it was to book one way. And so even though I wasn't planning on going back to Sydney, I booked a round trip ticket just to use the one way portion of it. Right. I know so many leisure travelers like you and I, and even families, because now a lot of people use points. So people might well book one ways, or they might have an open end. They're like, oh, we're going to go to Paris, but we don't really know the rest of the trip.

34:07So we We haven't booked our return flight yet. We'll book it when we get there because we're going to be gone for weeks or months, probably weeks for most leisure travelers. But in the airline's mind, leisure travelers don't book one-ways. We book round trips. Who needs a one-way ticket from Sydney to Atlanta? Probably a business traveler because hub to hub, right? It's an old logic that doesn't apply, but like you said, it will save you money. Right. Well, and - If you book round trips. Right. Right. And so to your point, thank goodness I thought to check that. A lot of people don't. Right. Sometimes even I'll forget, but I'll be like, wait, and then I'll remember my own device.

34:51Is there validity to the idea that you will pay more if you use a Mac versus a PC, or that you should use an incognito browser if you've been looking for a flight for a while? There is absolutely positively no basis for this myth. It's one that gets talked about by bad journalists all the time and gets recycled. I see it on every TikTok in real. Do this, clear your cookies. This is not true. Here's why it's not true. First, it does make sense because we know everybody's tracking everything online. So you go to Delta, You don't buy the flight. Suddenly you're getting ads on Instagram. Hey, you left this in your cart.

35:40We're being tracked. So intuitively, it makes sense that they're tracking that. And they're seeing that if we're hesitant, they might raise or lower the price. You know, oh, this guy buys a lot of flights. So we can charge him more or less. And then you look and you see, okay, I'm going to open a new browser. And you go to Expedia or you go even to the website. Oh, price is different. See, they're tracking. Well, going back to what I said earlier about a plane having multiple price points, airfare, or only being so many seats on the plane, the computer's job is to maximum revenue. You are not the only one looking at that plane, right?

36:25New York to Paris, maybe there's 400-ish seats on that plane, right? How many people do you think are looking at that route at any given moment, especially if the plane's already mostly sold out. Let's say there's 300 seats left. There's more than 300 seats looking at that, because don't forget that Expedia and all these other booking sites, they're allocated a chunk of the basics. You buy from Expedia, you're buying the most restrictive fare class. Then you're putting it in a cart while you're browsing. And then all this stuff is really happening at once. And so it's just a coincidence, really.

37:03Many, many sites, including Scott Street Flights, which they call Going, and Airfare Watchdog, and they've run Kayak, and even Google Flights have run thousands of simulations trying to prove that this myth is true, and no one can ever do it. Correlation is not causation. Just because you see it once doesn't mean it's true. You just happen to witness in real time other people buying cheaper seats or more expensive seats and the computer changing it. That one, those few hundred seats are being looked at by thousands of people. So essentially, if you were to run this 10 ,000 times, then in aggregate, you would see no correlation.

37:50You would see no correlation. Right. Because people have done this, right? Companies dedicated to finding you the cheapest fare are like, let's try to break it. And they cannot do this. And then they'll do it a year later to see if it's changed. Somebody else will do it. I've never seen an airline reporter worth their salt say this exists. Somebody who's like deep in the trenches. Right. And they sit there and look at airfare all day. It just does not exist. Right. Right. But there might be the one or two errant, if you were to repeat something 10 ,000 times, of course, you're going to get the one or two errant anecdotal case studies.

38:28And that becomes the subject of a viral tick-tock. Yeah. Oh, look, I did this. Here's my, you know, they're like pointing and like, here's my screen share. Okay. Like while you were looking for a flight, somebody else was looking for a flight and maybe they bought up the cheaper fare. Because again, it's all about different price buckets. But another thing is that I'm a solo traveler, right? So there might be one seat left at$300, but you're a family and you need four seats. You don't need one seat, you need four seats. And so the next bucket up is$350. So the computer is going to spit back at you$350 each because there's only one seat at$300, not four seats at$300.

39:10And so I always also tell people, search for one ticket at a time and then go two tickets and then three tickets. And when that price switches, go back to the one before and buy two and two, and then just make sure your seats are together because again, it's different price buckets.

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41:19We've been talking a lot about strategies for booking predominantly flights, a little bit of hotels as well and accommodation. One thing I'm curious about over 19 years of travel in 110 countries, how have you seen the rise of social media influence the world of travel, both for better and for worse? Well, obviously, social media has changed travel in both a good and bad way. The one thing I would say is that when I started traveling and planning my trip, I left in 2006. I got the idea in 2005. There's no blogs. There's no social media. There's forums. There might be a website someone created to be like, I did study abroad.

42:05Here's how much it cost me. But predominantly you're buying guidebooks or you're reading articles in National Geographic. A lonely planet. A lonely planet. And so there wasn't a lot of available information. You learned as you went on the road. I'd see you at a hostel and you'd be like, you got to go to this restaurant. It's inexpensive and great. And I'd mark that down. Or you'd say, if you want to go to this museum, it's free on Tuesdays. Or you learned a lot as you went. But nowadays, especially since blogs have started this trend and then social media picks it up even more with video, there is no place in the world you can't find information about.

42:48Nothing. No place is obscure. You want to go to the jungles of Brazil. A million blog posts have been written about every place there. Different routes, different places to stay. There's people who live there that are making TikToks about it and reels. Everything is out there. And so that, on the one hand, is really good because an informed traveler is just a better traveler. You can make better decisions of where to go and what to see, and you know how much things cost. If there are deals, you can find them. If there's free things to do in the city, there's a million blog posts, free museums, free parks, free events, free tours, whatever you want.

43:32So I think that's been really good because you can find a lot of stuff you probably weren't able to find. And there's the rise of the local blogger. When I started, everybody was writing about their backpack and global trip. Now you have that, but you also have the New York City food influencer or just writer who just has a very niche blog. Back in the day, you talked about everything. And now since the mid 2010s, people have started to focus more. And so I've seen people even focus on niches like traveling with pets or road schooling their kids. Yeah. Because the riches are in the niches was what happened in say maybe 2013, 2015, that kind of area.

44:21Yeah. People were like, oh, if we get more specific, Google will reward us. Right. But one thing that's really good is now you have local food bloggers who can tell you like this restaurant makes the best ravioli in all the city and you can try this stuff. So that's been really good. One might say that means you're not really allowing for serendipity to happen on the road because you've pre-planned everything. And I think that's really more up to the traveler. But the downside, I guess, is that a lot of travelers follow what they read on blogs and a lot of people just go to get that Instagram shot.

44:54So on the one hand, And it has made random holes in the wall really popular, which is good. The economic benefit of travel should be spread out more than it is. But on the other hand, it helped increase the over-tourism because everyone now goes to like that one spot in New Zealand to get that view. I was reading recently about just in Arizona, there is this really ancient, like right inside Sedona, like Native American ruin. And everyone who lived there knew about it, right? But there's no beaten path trail to it. It's not maintained by the park service or anyone. And a bunch of people started making TikToks and reels about it.

45:39And so everybody went. And locals were like, please don't go. Please don't talk about this. Keep it a secret because we don't have the infrastructure to support this or make a trail. So people were trampling through the bush, the site, walls collapsed, graffiti was there, trash was left. And so now locals are trying to petition the Park Service to make it part of the national lands. But even then, you might have two rangers for tens of thousands of acres, right? That's sort of the downside is that, yeah, there's a lot of information there, but a lot of people just go to the hot thing. And so it creates a lot of over-tourism issues.

46:23Yeah. The summit of Mount Everest has that same problem. It's over-tourism. People leave trash all over Mount Everest. A lot of people die on that route because they're not prepared. They're not real mountaineers. I mean, I saw a picture of Mount Everest. I saw a video and it was just basically a queue of people because you have to wait for people to come down to go up and people just standing there. It's just like they're waiting in line to get into the movies or a show. And it's like, you're on the summons on Everest. I am not standing here just hanging out. Yeah. And people die and there's trash and yeah, I should raise the price of it.

47:02Clearly is. I am a proponent of fees. I, the downside that restricts people. But if we're going to save these sites for the future, yeah, if they double the cost of going to Everest, like where can I go? Probably not. It's$60 ,000 to go above Basecamp already. Yeah. Well, maybe they need to make it$120 ,000 to save the site. Restricting visitor numbers. The world was not meant for so many people to be moving around it at one go. And I think one of the downsides to blogs and social media is that on the one side of the coin, it's made people more comfortable going, which is great. I think we should all leave our home and go travel the world and learn about the people that live in it.

47:48It makes us better humans. The other side is that the world doesn't have the infrastructure to have billions of people every year roaming around it. So there needs to be a better balance between people and destinations. Some of that means just not going to places or going off season or finding new places to avoid the crowds. And some of that just means restrictions on how many visitors can go at any given time. I met someone once. This is a guy who's probably late 40s, has never traveled to a non-English speaking country. And he said he didn't want to because he doesn't want to be the person who just expects everybody to speak English or to gesture and point.

48:31I thought that was a bit short-sighted. I have my own reasons for thinking that. But I'm wondering, A, how you would answer that, and then B, how the emergence of new AI-based technology that can assist with translation, you look at Google Translate or any comparable types of apps that can instantly translate, and this is only rapidly improving with AI, how is all of that changing the linguistic component of travel? Well, I would tell this guy to get over himself. Since the dawn of man, cultures have been interacting. And it's not like everybody is like, they don't expect you to speak their native language.

49:10And it's okay to point. It's like if people come to an English-speaking country from a non-English-speaking country, they don't speak English. They're pointing. They're doing Pidge English. They're looking at their apps. They have their phrasebook. I mean, before there were apps, there were phrasebooks. You had a little book being like, how do I say this? When I first went to Thailand, I had a little phrase book, you know, so I can learn the language. He can also learn the language. Learn a couple of basic phrases. Hi, how are you? Where's the bathroom? Check, please. Sign language is great. Once I was in Ukraine, the hostel ordered me a taxi because I had to be at the train station like five in the morning.

49:50And they were like, it's not safe to walk. Just we'll get you a train, taxi. So they called in and I went there and we sat there for a minute. And I was like, oh, I guess the hustle didn't tell him where I was going. So I was like, oh, train station. And he was like, huh? And then I did the whole like annoying train station. And I was just like, yeah, because like that works. It wasn't the words. It was the speed of the words. So I just went choo-choo. And he was like, oh, okay. Yo, da. And I got to the train station. I once had a friend clock chicken for chicken. And it's like charades goes a long way.

50:26It's more fun. People want to help you if you're lost, but you got to give them an opportunity. So this guy, he's missing out on so many things. And it's not like nobody in the world doesn't speak English, right? Right. The second you open your mouth, they're like, all right, we'll just switch to English. Because they understand this is a language of commerce and capitalism. Back in the day, it was French. in like the 1700s, 1800s, French was the global language of communication. Everyone spoke English and French. Heck, the original kings of England didn't even speak English. They spoke French.

51:03That was their language because they came from France. It wasn't until the late 1300s that they started actually using English as the de facto lingua francois. Anyways, history tangent. And so you can skip by. And these apps definitely make it easier. Google Translate. I use Google Translate for signs and menus. And I know a lot of people who, when they meet somebody, they pass phones back and forth. They'll type in. Yeah. I've done that many times. Yeah. And they'll be like, ah, okay. You know, and they'll communicate that way. Yeah. Yeah. So you type for people who are wondering what we're talking about.

51:37You type something on your phone and it automatically gets translated. You type it into a translate app. Yeah. And so then I just hand my phone to, obviously you have to trust that the person's not going to run off with your phone. I just hand my phone to someone and it's whatever I've typed is instantly translated for them. So boom. Yeah. You're just basically having a text-based conversation. Yeah. It's fun because sometimes you don't, they might not know the word in English. Chances are they speak better English than you speak their native language, but they still might miss some words. And also like it creates for like some funny moments, especially if you're at a bar and you're like passing this back and forth while drinking.

52:16And so, again, I'd go back to this guy and just be like, get over yourself. Get on a plane. Go to France. Go to Japan. Like, do you think people in Thailand expecting me to speak Thai? No. I mean, one, I obviously don't look Thai. But the fact that when I even said hello in Thai, they were like, ah, you've made such an effort. There's just like... Saudi-ka. Saudi-ka. They appreciate that. So this guy's missing a lot of really good travel experiences by not attempting to go somewhere. Imagine if no one came to the U.S. because they didn't speak English. How would that be? Right. We live in New York where we get visitors from all over the world.

52:55It's wonderful. I mean, I hear every language. I was at the gym and I was hearing Swedish and I was like, ah. Yeah. I was walking down the street the other day and I randomly just passed by someone who was speaking Nepali. We didn't even interact. We were walking past each other, like ships passing in the night. But I was like, whoa, I've never, other than Kathmandu, never lived in a city where you can just be walking around and randomly hear that. Yeah. I meet visitors from all parts of the world. You see the lost tourists and they're like, need any help? And you can tell like they're from somewhere else.

53:33Yeah. Go that way. I'm like, thank you. Yeah, exactly. And so I guess what we're sharing is both of us being New Yorkers, one of the things that we find special about New York is that this is a place where people are from around the world come here. So as Americans, when we go to other parts of the world, that's what we're also doing. Yeah. And people, as I said, will like to help you. I have been lost in many parts of the world. And somebody will scratch their head and they'll pull out their phone and they'll point at something and I'll take a photo because it might be like Google Maps or something.

54:11And I'll be like, okay, I know where it is in the city. Or I might have, back in the day, I had my guidebook with the physical map and they would circle and then I could plot my way. So it creates a lot of micro moments with people, and it makes you realize people are just generally helpful. By him taking the easy way, he's missing out on learning that it doesn't matter what language you speak. People are good people everywhere. Right. Yeah, back in the day, I remember ripping pages out of guidebooks to make them lighter weight. So they would occupy less weight in my backpack as I was traveling.

54:48So things have gotten a lot easier now, now that everything's digitized. So in the 110 countries, roughly 110 countries that you've been to, are there any that have surprised you? So many. I love Cambodia. I went there with no expectations. There's a lot of great historical sites there. Obviously, Angkor Wat is one of them. But the people were just really nice, really upbeat for people that have such a tragic history, recent tragic history. Taiwan, incredible place. Great food. Very inexpensive. of tropical beaches, great hiking, lots of tea, really blew my mind. I recently was in Peru and that blew my mind, but everyone told me it would be great.

55:33So I don't know if it was a surprise that it was great because I expected it to be great. I really loved Ukraine, which a lot of people can't really go to right now. Romania, Bulgaria, all of those countries really were just a lot cooler and nicer than I had expected. Food was great. Sri Lanka, incredible place. Yeah. I really didn't know what to expect. Right. The trains there, amazing. Yeah. And just coming from the West, I'm a white guy. When I go to a lot of, for lack of a better term, developing countries, you get a dollar sign. And especially like in Asia where like, they're like, oh, come here.

56:18Here's a tuk-tuk ride or come to my suit shop. My defenses are really up for like people just trying to like scam me. In Sri Lanka, like people would come up to me. I'm like, I don't want that. And it occurred to me after like first few times, no, they actually just want to chat. What I loved about Sri Lanka was they accepted no as an answer. And I ended up having these beautiful conversations with people. And that was a good teaching moment too. It was like, oh, well, sometimes people are just being friendly. Because I think as a traveler, especially as a Western traveler, you're often viewed as a pocketbook.

56:53So you develop this really thick skin and this jaded perception that the only reason people are approaching you might be because they're trying to either scam you or get money from you or they won't take no for an answer. So it was a good way to like step back and be like, okay, I'm actually become slightly too jaded. Let's reset and not assume the worst. Yeah. Myanmar was very much like that as well. Myanmar, I found to be a place where people just wanted to know me. Locals wanted to know me for me. Yeah. You know, and I could develop very authentic relationships. I think that's why I like Cambodia.

57:30And this was the first time I went to Cambodia. So that was like 2007. And in Cambodia, people were just like, hey, what's up, buddy? But I've been back to Cambodia multiple times. is still a pretty great place. Yeah. Yeah, I loved Cambodia as well. Angkor Wat and then back to Myanmar and the temples of Pagan and then kind of Yogyakarta. I'd say those three areas all remind me of each other. Yeah. Similar architecture. Yeah. But yeah, incredible sites. Yeah, exactly. I want to wrap by coming back to our original theme, which was traveling on$75 a day, about$27 ,000 a year. And that means that if you let the lease on your apartment run out, you put all your stuff in storage, your actual cost of living could be$27 ,000 a year if you're traveling on 75 bucks a day and you no longer have the expense of rent or mortgage back in the United States.

58:29To that end, is global travel a kind of a good way to save up some money, like to cash up? Yeah, I always tell people, traveling isn't as expensive as you think, especially if you're doing it long term, because you don't really have as much overhead. Travel insurance is cheaper than health insurance. You don't have car payments or gas or home insurance or utility bills. All that goes out the window. You get a local SIM card wherever you go. So that's like 20 bucks for whatever amount you're paying here in the States. I mean, I pay like 100 bucks a month, I feel like. for cellular and internet.

59:07Yeah. Oh, and then, you know, home internet. Right. That's gone too. So traveling around the world, whether you're doing it on$75 a day or$55 a day or$100 a day is on average cheaper. I wrote this book, How to Travel the World on$75 a day. So, you know, talks about a lot of what we've talked about today. One of the things I tell people is that a lot of people always say to me, Matt, that's so much money. They either say it's Actually, too cheap because they're like, I don't want to like rough it in these bed bug ridding hostels or like the hardcore travelers are like, I can do it cheaper. Yeah.

59:43There's always someone like that. But what I say in this book is that you might not think you're spending$75 a day. I don't spend that much money, but you are. Because when we often think about how much money we spend on a daily basis, we think about how often we put the credit card down or went to the ATM, which is something people really do nowadays because we all put it on plastic. But your rent has a daily fee. If you break that down, that's a cost per day. Your internet is a cost per day. Your food is a cost per day. Your heating is a cost per day. So your life, your car payment is a cost per day.

1:00:21Your clothing is a cost per day. Yeah. All that adds up to probably a lot more than$75 a day. And so when you think about your cost of living, even if you don't live in expensive New York, you can live in rural Tennessee. You're probably spending more than$30 ,000 a year when you add it all up. Right. So long-term travel is a good way to save money and do a lot of cool stuff at the same time. And I think that regardless of your income level, you can afford anything. Yeah, exactly. Because it might take you, using the methods I talk about in the book to save money, six months to save money or six years.

1:01:04But as long as you sort of have your eyes on the prize, you can do it. It took me a year and a half to save for my trip. And that is after working for three years and having a savings. So I took my savings and then I got an hourly job where I could work overtime. and to get to the number I needed to get to, which at the time was$50 a day and inflation. Now we're at 75. That's another way how I got to this was like I had saved up and then that's how I got to that number. It took me another year and a half of working overtime to top it up. If I didn't work so much overtime, maybe take me two years.

1:01:40The point is I knew this is what I wanted to do and I was just going to work to get to that goal. And so when you have your eyes on the prize, I tell people travel is so much about mindset than it is about money. Because one, you can always work overseas. And if you can't save a lot, well, just don't go for a long time or go to a more inexpensive, affordable place. I have interviewed travelers who worked at McDonald's, who saved enough money to just get that initial flight to anywhere. And then they found like a a job overseas or something. It's just like, what can you do today that gets you to the next step?

1:02:22Wake up today and be like, yes, I'm going on this trip. How can I save$1? And you make it a game. And then you're like, oh, this week I saved$1 a day. Next week, can I save$1.50? What can I cut out of my budget? What is really a needed expense? One thing I do like about my crazy T-Mobile bill is that it comes with free Netflix and Apple TV. So like that's 30 bucks a month saved just from that. I'm going to pay for my phone anyway, right? And so another thing I love doing is I don't pay for all the streaming services at once. I pay, I binge, I cancel. I pay, I binge, I cancel. Yep, I do the same.

1:03:03Yeah, because oftentimes I'll be like clicking through them all. I'm like, nothing's on. I've seen it all. Yeah, exactly. I subscribe to exactly one at a time. Yeah. And often zero at a time. Yeah. The YouTube premium is the one that I will never give up. If I'm going to add any additional thing to that, it'll be one at a time. It's got to be like, you have to watch this show. I was thinking about recently canceling my Amazon Prime because I'm like, I don't really like a lot of their shows and I have issues with Amazon. But now I realize because I was a Prime member, they own Whole Foods and I get discounts off my food, it's actually saving me a ton of money per year.

1:03:44It's like$150, but those added dollar off every avocado I get, I eat a lot of avocados. It's like half my membership right there in a year. So yes, long-term travel is actually, contrary to being expensive, it's actually cheaper to go live like a local in a lot of other places around the world than it is to live your life in the United States. So particularly if you're a remote worker and you want to accelerate your savings rate, going and living abroad or just traveling full time while being a remote worker for a U.S. company could be a great way to keep your cost of living to$30 ,000 a year and then just shovel the rest into savings.

1:04:32There's always a joke is that I would love to live Europe on a U.S. salary because we make more than they do, but their cost of living is cheaper. So like you get all the perks of Europe with a U.S. salary. Well, and then accelerate that to Southeast Asia. Oh, yeah. Or South America or Mexico or Sri Lanka or Taiwan. I mean, there's so many places. If you're going to backpack or long-term travel only in Western Europe, you're going to spend a lot more than$75 a day. But this is how to travel the world. You go to Europe for a bit, you remote work in Southeast Asia, you remote work somewhere else.

1:05:09It all kind of balances out. And one thing I really want to emphasize, especially because it's easy to get stuck on the number, or talking about long-term travel, is that stuff I talk about in the book and we've talked about here about how to find a cheap flight. If you're going around the world, you're going away for two months, you're going away for two weeks, we're all getting on the same plane. So the strategies and tactics for finding a cheap flight, finding free tours, finding inexpensive accommodations is the same for any traveler. So if you're listening to this, you can travel cheap, even if you're going to Europe for two weeks.

1:05:46It's just that the longer you go away, the more you can amortize the cost of travel. That's where the real perk of going away is. And I think that was crazy thought for people pre-COVID. It's like, well, I just can't take four months off work. But now that so much of life is remote and you have all these digital nomads and remote work visas, that's a lot more people. And this goes to one of your questions about how has travel changed post-COVID. A lot more people are traveling because they're not chained to an office desk anymore. So they can get that new remote work visa that Japan's offering and live three months in Tokyo.

1:06:28They can get that one for Greece and spend six months living in Athens while still maintaining an income. So it's a lot easier to travel longer term now, post-COVID, thanks to that shift in work. Right. Back in, what, 2012, 2013, the phrase for it used to be location independent, right? And people don't even say that anymore because now it's just so common. Yeah. I mean, when I was starting my blog in 2008, Tim Ferriss and the four-hour work week was huge. His whole, like, you got to be location independent. I mean, he started the whole phenomenon in so many ways. 2010, everyone was like a weirdo who did it.

1:07:09And all these location independent people and bloggers, and we were crazy, like starting our online business. It's like, get a job. Yeah. You mean you don't work anywhere? You work from a coffee shop? How do you get anything done? And now everyone's like, yeah, screw the office. Oh, you work remote. Everybody knows what that means. No one's weird for doing it. Right. It's like. It's so different. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Whereas in 2010, everyone thought that it was a euphemism for unemployment. Yeah. Oh, no, I work from my computer. Oh, so you're a coder? No, no. I run an online business with, you know, it was like so many question marks because computer work meant tech, coding.

1:07:54No, no, I have a blog. People thought I was just unemployed, deadbeat. Now it's like, oh, I want to be an influencer. You know, that's like Vita is a real career. We were just ahead of our time. We were. Yeah. It was different back in 2006. We were trendsetters. Matt, thank you for coming on the show. Where can people find you if they'd like to hear more of Well, thank you for having me. I always love talking money and travel, two of my favorite things. You can find me online at nomadicmat.com, N-O-M-A-D-I-C-M-A-T-T. Nomadic Matt on any social channel, type in Instagram.com backslash nomadic matt, there I will be.

1:08:34And then the book, How to Travel the World on$75 a Day, wherever books are sold. It's available in the US, Canada, and if you wanna pay the Amazon fees, anywhere you want to ship it to.

1:08:49Thank you, Nomadic Matt. What are three key takeaways that we got from this conversation? Key takeaway number one, long-term travel can be cheaper than your current lifestyle. Most people don't realize that traveling the world can actually cost less than your normal daily expenses in the U.S. And that happens when you factor in all of your current costs, like rent, utilities, car payments, all the expenses that you have right now. If you were to travel long-term, as both Matt and I have done, if you were to do that, then you would wait until the end of your lease. Or if you own a home, you would rent out your current home or sell it.

1:09:31You'd put all your stuff in storage. And so when people hear about long-term travel and they're like, how can you afford that? My question back to them is, how can you afford to live in the United States? Matt suggests that you can comfortably travel the world on an average of about$75 per day, which is around$27 ,000 per year. And that is a lot less than many people's current cost of living. When we often think about how much money we spend on a daily basis, we think about how often we put the credit card down or went to the ATM, which is something people really do nowadays because we all put it on plastic.

1:10:09But your rent has a daily fee. If you break that down, that's a cost per day. Your internet is a cost per day. Your food is a cost per day. Your heating is a cost per day. So your life, your car payment is a cost per day. All that adds up to probably a lot more than 75 bucks a day. Long-term travel is a good way to save money and do a lot of cool stuff at the same time. And so that is the first key takeaway. Key takeaway number two. The points game, so to speak, requires a strategic approach that is tailored to the way that you spend and to the way that you want to travel. Don't say what's the quote unquote best credit card.

1:10:53There is no universal best. Rather than chasing the most popular credit cards, Matt suggests focusing on cards that align with your specific travel goals and your specific patterns. So what airlines do you frequently use? Is there a particular route that you fly a lot? Where do you tend to stay? What types of perks will you actually take advantage of? And what are your spending patterns? Because different cards reward spending in different types of categories. Everyone talks about certain credit cards. The Chase Sapphire, the Amex Platinum, the Capital One Venture. Oh, those are the best ones.

1:11:29There's no best card. There is only the best card for your travel goals. Think about the card you're getting and the perks you're going to use, because they're all going to come with fees. Are you going to use the perks more than the fee? So make sure you're going to use every perk to justify the fee. Also, get the cards that help where you're going and who you fly or stay with. Finally, key takeaway number three, post-pandemic travel has fundamentally changed because remote remote work, which was relatively rare among knowledge workers pre-pandemic, is now relatively common. And remote workers used to be called, quote unquote, location independent back in the day.

1:12:12Remote workers can travel longer term. So the pandemic really transformed how we approach travel and who can travel, you know, with more people now able to work remotely while living abroad. And that gives you the opportunity to geo-arbitrage. So if you really want to cash up, make a U.S. salary while living in a place where the dollar goes a lot further, and then boom, you can accelerate your savings. This type of shift has made long-term travel and living in different countries much, much more accessible. This goes to one of your questions about how has travel changed post-COVID. A lot more people are traveling because they're not chained to an office desk anymore.

1:12:51So they can get that new remote work visa that Japan's offering and live three months in Tokyo. They can get that one for Greece and spend six months living in Athens while still maintaining an income. It's a lot easier to travel longer term now post-COVID thanks to that shift in work. Those are three key takeaways from this conversation with Nomadic Matt. Thank you so much for tuning in. This is the Afford Anything Podcast. I'm Paula Pam and I'll meet you in the next episode.