Been Traveling for a Year Now. AMA



From what I've read, $1200 in India would not be peasant level. This source says per capita in India in 2011 was about $1500.

India 4th largest economy but has low per capita income: Survey - The Hindu

Curious to know how they estimate the per capita income. Do they make the estimates from tax stats?

It is a known fact that millions of super rich Indians pay just a tiny fraction of income and service tax they are supposed to pay.

Note that I'm not doing a +1 to taxation. Just saying..
 
Hope to do something like this one day myself =]

Sorry if I missed it but how did you maintain internet access and work while traveling through so many different countries that have different internet speeds and access levels?

Thanks!
 
Did you carry a notebook with you? If so, was it safe in hostels? I travel a lot (currently in Warsaw), but I always go the expensive route of hotels and apartments. But I was thinking of hostels for socializing reasons.
In my limited experience, I've never had any problems with hostels, stayed in a 4 bed mixed dormitory for 10 nights in Amsterdam, regularly left a laptop out (occasionally locked it up, but I discovered that my key worked for all 4 lockers) - it was about £15 a night and the cheapest in town, and was totally fine. Same with another one in Crete, £20 per night for a 4 bedroom place with kitchen shared with 3 friends, no problems at all. (That one was actually really nice, had a pool, chickens walking around on the grass, and the best omelettes ever for £2)

Both had absolutely terrible reviews on Tripadvisor (Amsterdam one had people claiming the sheets weren't washed, etc - they were for me, and it was fine, other than a grumpy owner, which seems to be a common factor) - as long as you don't go expecting a 5 star experience, it should be fine.


OP: Is there anything you'd have done differently? More VAs so that you could work less while getting the same results as before you left?
 
Hope to do something like this one day myself =]

Sorry if I missed it but how did you maintain internet access and work while traveling through so many different countries that have different internet speeds and access levels?

Thanks!

When internet is slow and ping is high, time is not wasted and work is efficient.
 
Curious to know how they estimate the per capita income. Do they make the estimates from tax stats?

It is a known fact that millions of super rich Indians pay just a tiny fraction of income and service tax they are supposed to pay.

Note that I'm not doing a +1 to taxation. Just saying..

Kudos to them for paying less than they should.

Whatever the actual per capita income is, I think the lack of toilets is probably more important:

India: 638 million The world's second-most populous nation after China, India has the world's largest number of people going outdoors. Nearly 640 million Indians, or 54 percent of the 1.1 billion population lack access to toilets or other sanitation facilities. In some states, the problem was so bad that village women started a slogan: "No toilet, no bride."

India tops list of nations lacking toilets - Economic Times
 
What place did you feel the most productive in? (as far as work goes)

My answer is without a doubt Chiang Mai Thailand (hi Matt) and Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam (my now favorite by a large margin).

For me Europe is best for living, {Central America|South America|Islands everywhere} for backpacking/chillin, and South East Asia big cities for getting shit done.

I think the SEA cities are best for me being productive because I can be waited on hand and foot, I never have to think of the price of anything (if it is efficient I will buy it), great coffee shop culture, lots of other "digital nomads", dating life is simple and easy, and the energy of a culture that is growing rapidly mixed with the expats already there.
 
fucking awesome man.

what u *should* have done is started a blog in the beginning of the trip and had a company sponsor it all the while finding backlinks along the way from foreign web devels you meet and getting people to share it :-)
 
From what I've read, $1200 in India would not be peasant level. This source says per capita in India in 2011 was about $1500.

India 4th largest economy but has low per capita income: Survey - The Hindu

Not really. There is this enormous economic disparity and you'd need atleast $2k/month to live a decent life in any major Indian metro. A half decent house would cost you $1k/month in rentals itself. What really takes most First world visitors by storm is the enormous disparity between the poor and the rich. India is not a country where you want to be poor. Absolutely not..Standards are incredibly low
 
Not really. There is this enormous economic disparity and you'd need atleast $2k/month to live a decent life in any major Indian metro. A half decent house would cost you $1k/month in rentals itself. What really takes most First world visitors by storm is the enormous disparity between the poor and the rich. India is not a country where you want to be poor. Absolutely not..Standards are incredibly low

Why go to india when you can have 10 wives in dubai
 
sharia_dummies.jpg
 
If you had a friend with the same money / time available - would you recommend to do exactly the same as you? More places, less places.. essential things you've learnt?

Great thread, cheers!

I would for sure recommend the same route. With the timing I had it was off season everywhere I went. As soon as it started to snow in January I was already on my way to Morocco. So I skipped the horrible parts of winter. I have no regrets over the route or times I went.

Hope to do something like this one day myself =]

Sorry if I missed it but how did you maintain internet access and work while traveling through so many different countries that have different internet speeds and access levels?

Thanks!

High speed internet can be found everywhere in the world. The only problem I has was in India. There I had to buy a 3G plan for my phone and tether for stable internet.

OP: Is there anything you'd have done differently? More VAs so that you could work less while getting the same results as before you left?

What place did you feel the most productive in? (as far as work goes)

Sure I would have loved to have been making stable income before I left but we can't always wait until the time is perfect sometimes we need to go when the time is right. Before I left I was getting really depressed and doing nothing. I had to leave for my own health. Money wasn't an issue at the start and I have tried to make a few sites and stuff over the trip but traveling took priority.

I was most productive in Udipur, India. It was the first time in a month I had stable wifi. Also the town was VERY clean and somewhat westernized because of the high amount of tourists. It was the first time I was able to just sit at a cafe and have a coke and read on my kindle in a long time. I ended up staying there for two weeks and completed version 2.0 of LocalScraper one of my few remaining projects.

fucking awesome man.

what u *should* have done is started a blog in the beginning of the trip and had a company sponsor it all the while finding backlinks along the way from foreign web devels you meet and getting people to share it :-)

I am starting the blog now. I bought the domain months ago. This will give me a project for my spare time in Japan. I would have never been able to get a sponsor at the start of my trip. You can't get a sponsor that easy or everyone will do it. Perhaps if the blog works out in the future I could get travel work. I am still fucking around with content and the themes but the very beginnings of my blog are at Traveling Onwards |
 
Beernuts,

Wish you would have posted this before you went on your epic journey. You should go on another one, and have a go pro filming the entire thing. Because you're on a budget, you can make it something like "10 countries in 2 Months" or something like that.

Go on kickstarter and pitch it as a cool vlog or something and say you need money for the travel. You might be surprised.

Then, when your trip is over, mail a watermelon to the people at go pro with a note on it saying "Thanks to go pro I filmed this insanely awesome trip" and include the URL.

Hopefully go pro will be impressed and feature it. Then from there you should leverage all of your momentum and contact travel channel and send them a watermelon as well with the same thing. I would also send a watermelon to to all of the travel channel hosts.

Everyone loves a good story.

Cheers bro.
 
I've been dreaming about taking off to south-east Asia for a long time. I wish I would have done what you did a few years ago... instead I had some medical problems and never got to go anywhere cool or have fun, just wasted all my money away and let my business go down the shitter.

I ended up flat broke and pretty much started over from scratch a few months ago. I still kept some domains and whatnot and I still had a few small sites bringing in a pittance here or there, but my savings had gone to zero and I took a day job for the first time in well over half a decade. That was a hard pill to swallow at first. Although, just this last week I asked the day job to cut me back to part-time hours so I have more time to focus on my business.

Some of my old tricks don't work anymore, but I'm adapting and learning new tricks, trying new stuff. I'm a big fan of the throwing shit at a wall method. Just have to keep throwing shit until something sticks.

Z9IuwDn.jpg


Only advice I have is that if you have a few thousand left, don't wait until you hit zero like I did. If you can, either come back home or hunker down somewhere cheap and use your remaining cash to start some new projects. That might save you the drudgery of a temporary 9-5 grind.
 
Shamless bump.

I just posted my first written blog post London on $50 a Day to my travel blog. I will be working on posting more written content soon. I am trying to do posts in chronological order so the UK will be first.

Ive also added some albums for you guys who didn't see the photos on Facebook. More albums will be added...

If anyone has specific topics or posts they want to see tell me and ill try to write it out for you.

Theme etc are still in flux.
 
Shamless bump.

I just posted my first written blog post London on $50 a Day to my travel blog. I will be working on posting more written content soon. I am trying to do posts in chronological order so the UK will be first.

Ive also added some albums for you guys who didn't see the photos on Facebook. More albums will be added...

If anyone has specific topics or posts they want to see tell me and ill try to write it out for you.

Theme etc are still in flux.

I love that you talk about white bread sandwiches as if they're something weird and exotic, when I've eaten them probably more or less every day of my life since I was a lil kid. The british pubs comment is a bit off the mark btw -- a traditional pub is pretty much the only place you'll get "good" English food. You just have to do a bit of digging and researching to find the good ones. As you say, many are owned by Wetherspoons & similar big chains which are entirely characterless more or less, completely cost focussed and serve mostly microwaved food.

http://www.secret-london.co.uk/Welcome.html is well worth a look too, in terms of seeing cool stuff that's cheaper & a bit less touristy.