Travel the World Without Worries: An Inspirational Guide to Budget and Adventure Travel (4th Edition)

By Marek Bron

*EXPANDED AND UPDATED 2024 EDITION!* New topics include: changes in post-pandemic travel, the pitfalls of using AI, the latest travel apps & advanced digital nomading.

 

Planning a big adventure can be an overwhelming task, but Travel the World Without Worries makes it easy with in-depth advice that helps you properly plan, pack and prepare—so that you can travel anywhere with confidence.

 

Whether you wish to go backpacking, go round-the-world, become a digital nomad, or simply go on an adventurous trip to parts unknown, this book will act as your trusted guide and friend through the entire process.

 

Based on the author's life of travel, including 12 years as a full-time travel blogger, the book is sprinkled with entertaining, funny, and relatable anecdotes from around the globe — inspiring you to hit the road and make your dream trip a reality today.

 

Topics covered include:

• How to find the time and money to travel more
• How to choose the perfect routes, destinations, and best time to travel
• Where to get your travel inspiration (and which sources to actually trust)
• Maximizing your adventure by balancing pre-planning with improvisation
• Packing smart so you will feel free like a bird, not packed like a mule
• Resourceful budget-saving tips that let you travel further for less
• Dealing with cultural or language barriers with ease
• Conquering your fears while avoiding potential dangers on the road
• How to travel effectively as a couple — or go solo and love it
• Working remotely while travelling without killing your productivity… or wanderlust
• Addressing all your pre-trip worries so you can focus on having fun!

With in-depth advice for trips lasting anywhere from several weeks to open-ended nomading, the book covers adventure travel in all shapes and sizes.

 

Going far beyond what you can find online, this in-depth resource offers 326 pages of travel wisdom compiled and edited over 10 years. By the final page, you'll have learned all of the independent traveller's ways — and you'll be ready to jump into the deep end of travel.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Marek Bron
• Release date: Jun 26, 2024
• ISBN: 9798227205254

Book preview

Travel the World

Without Worries

An Inspirational Guide

to Budget And Adventure Travel

Marek Bron

IndieTraveller.co

Travel the World Without Worries / Marek Bron. — 4th ed.

Copyright © 2012—2024 by Marek Bron. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the author except for the quotation of brief passages in reviews. The author and publisher do not assume any liability for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by any errors or omissions in this book.

Cover design by Rocío Martín Osuna. Cover has been designed using resources from Freepik.com.

A publication of Indie Traveller (www.indietraveller.co)

Contents

Travel myth versus reality

Getting over the hump

How I got hooked on travelling

What’s new in this edition

Getting inspired and challenging yourself

What do you want from your trip?

Finding your travel inspiration

Overcoming your fears

Why it’s worth travelling independently

Some of the world’s most epic trips

Round-the-world versus overland

Public transport versus road trips

Making your travels more adventurous

Key points from this chapter

Time and money: conquering the obstacles

Expensive versus cheap countries

Rough costs of travelling the world

Determining a budget

Saving up money

Working while travelling

Reducing your travel costs

Finding time off work to travel

Other life commitments

Key points from this chapter

Planning to improvise:  how to create your route

Planning an adventure vs. a holiday

How to wing it (more or less)

Why your plans will totally change

Avoiding annoying immovable dates

Choosing the best time to travel

How to use travel guides

How to find the best info online

Using AI for trip planning

The must-have apps and tools

Using word-of-mouth tips

Finding places to stay

Getting from point A to B

Travelling more sustainably

Dealing with travel visas

Making your day-to-day decisions

Dealing with travel fatigue

Key points from this chapter

How to pack like a pro and travel light

The art of packing less

Why smaller packs are usually better

Travelling with two bags

Finding the right backpack for you

The 100% essential items to bring

The pitfalls of packing lists

Packing your clothes

Do I really need...?

Packing and organisation tips

Packing and unpacking: how not to lose stuff

Loading up your digital devices

Key points from this chapter

How to save money and  travel cheaply

The money-saving mindset

Finding cheap accommodation

Staying in hostels

Using sharing platforms

Finding cheap flights

Travelling at night

Paying a fair price for taxis

Saving money through haggling

Advanced lowballing

Booking online versus offline

Reducing banking fees

Dealing with fussy ATMs

A few more money-saving tips

Thinking in averages

Tracking your expenses

The Angel’s Share

Key points from this chapter

Squeezing the most out of one month of travel

Creating a rough travel route

Streamlining your route

Putting things into sequence

Activities to put near the beginning

Going deep or wide (or both?)

The meal-plus-snack itinerary

Snack idea: layovers

Snack idea: neighbouring countries

Key points from this chapter

Surviving abroad:  travel health & safety

The basic truths about travel safety

Finding your comfort level

How to read safety information

Essential ways to stay safe

Travelling as a woman

Dealing with worried family

Precautions against theft

Bank card emergencies

Staying safe during activities

Avoiding scams

Digital security and backups

Staying healthy on the road

Getting your vaccinations

Minor health issues or annoyances

Getting medical assistance

Travel insurance: do you really need it?

What are you covered for?

Unlikely events

Key points from this chapter

Meeting people & diving into the local culture

Who should you travel with?

Embracing the backpacker culture

The Universal Conversation Starter™

Getting along with other travellers

Hostel dorm etiquette

Too old for the hostel scene?

Respecting local cultures

Dealing with culture shock

Spending time with locals

Dealing with language barriers

Reserving judgement

Key points from this chapter

The great juggling act of travelling & working remotely

The travel scene vs. nomad scene

Digital nomading basics

Organised vs. independent nomading

How to find nomad accommodation

Ultimate forms of nomading

Final thoughts

Key point from this chapter

Party of one: how to travel solo and love it

Why solo travel is awesome

Solo doesn’t have to be alone

How to enjoy being by yourself

How to make friends quickly

The downsides of solo travel

Getting through the first few days

What if you are very shy?

Choosing solo-friendly destinations

Solo travel when older

Final thoughts

Key points from this chapter

Coming back home

Reverse culture shock

Keeping memories alive

What’s next?

A small favor

Online resources

Surely, of all the wonders of the world,

the horizon is the greatest."

― Freya Stark

Don’t worry chicken curry

― Sign above a reception desk in Labuan Bajo, Indonesia

Chapter one

Travel myth versus reality

Travelling often seems so easy, doesn’t it? 

When you look at travel content online or in magazines, you might think travelling is always a piece of cake. 

Bloggers seem to dart effortlessly from one continent to the next, here today and in Borneo tomorrow. Women on Instagram with flouncy hats—always touching the brim, facing away from the camera—have spontaneous champagne picnics in magical locations. On YouTube, 15-hour flights become 15-second sizzle reels, followed by epic drone shots of famous locations and inspirational taglines like #MakeItCount or #LifeIsShort. 

That’s all great and wonderful. But there’s just one thing: real travel isn’t always as painless or effortless as all the glossy images might make you believe.

If you’ve decided you want to travel, then you’ll surely quickly realize this. Once you get into the nitty-gritty details of the logistics and trip planning, chances are you’ll soon scratch your head and think, ‘Wait... how am I actually going to do all this?’ It’s a side of travel that people don’t usually tell you about.

Take it from me: I’ve travelled far and wide, and while I’ve gained so many incredible, unbelievable, I’ll-be-telling-my-grandchildren-one-day experiences, it’s not all just a walk in the park. 

Sometimes I’ve sat there at 3 a.m. with all my travel guides out and 20 browser tabs open, pulling my hair out because I just couldn’t figure out where to go next or how to get there. (Those inspirational travel videos? Yeah, they never show you this part.)

Once on the road, I’ve had to learn some of the lessons the hard way. Sure, there were plenty of mountaintop sunrises, stunning landscapes, and wonderful people met, but there were also plenty of unpleasantries along the way.

I once got stranded with a broken car on a mountain pass in Guatemala at night. I got robbed in broad daylight in Rio de Janeiro. My debit card got swiped and cloned in Honduras and nearly $4,000 disappeared from my account. At an airport in Australia, my taxi drove off with my luggage still in the trunk and when I ran after it with my arms flailing it triggered the airport’s terror alert. (The police said I might have caused a few heart attacks in the control room, but they were very nice and helped me reunite with my luggage later.)

In Indonesia, I once spent the night in a pay-by-the-hour ‘love hotel’ thinking it was just a regular hotel. That was just a little awkward, as I was probably the only guest actually trying to get some sleep that night. I lost my smartphone in the jungles of Laos, got scammed a dozen times in Vietnam, and developed a nasty ear infection in Thailand for which a village doctor inexplicably gave me a jab in my butt (why didn’t he notice me frantically pointing at my ears?!).

But you know what? That’s what I love so much about travel. It’s the little doubts, challenges, and stresses along the way that also lead to incredible feelings of anticipation, joy, and accomplishment. Like yin and yang, one cannot exist without the other.

Real travel is about so much more than collecting selfies at the usual tourist locations. It’s about having the guts to go on an adventure. It’s about putting in the effort to get the eventual reward. 

But at the same time, I also want to tell you that things are not as scary or complicated as they may seem. A little preparation goes a long way. And with the right knowledge and mindset, you’ll be so much less fazed when something does go wrong (as it inevitably always does). 

I wrote this book precisely to help you with this. I’ll be your friendly guide through the whole process of preparing for your trip — and I’ll give you a wealth of tips and tricks you can use when you’re finally on the road. 

You’ll definitely get the most out of this book if you’re dreaming of doing something big – say, taking a gap year or career sabbatical to travel, going on a backpacking or round-the-world trip, becoming a digital nomad, or just taking an adventure trip of at least a few weeks. If you’re planning a shorter trip then some parts of this book may be less applicable to you (e.g., I doubt you’ll be quitting your job or moving all your stuff into storage), though you can still benefit from all the general travel tips throughout. Whatever trip length you have in mind, welcome aboard!

In any case, we’ll be focusing here mostly on backpacker-style travel. To me this means travelling light (often with a single backpack and not with five suitcases), travelling independently (not taking a tour but following your own route), and often travelling on a budget as well. 

Not everyone who travels in this way might call themselves a backpacker. Plenty of round-the-world travellers or digital nomads would not use this label, for instance. Some might relate more to the term independent traveller. In any case, it’s hopefully clear what sort of travelling I mean: DIY-style and experience-seeking, not going on a packaged tour or cruise.

If it sounds like this might be your kind of style—and if you have a thirst for adventure—then read on.

Getting over the hump

While this book is titled Travel the World Without Worries, that doesn’t mean you have to be a total nervous wreck with severe hodophobia (fear of travel) to be reading this.

More likely, you just have some minor nerves somewhere at the back of your mind. Maybe you’re thinking, ‘Wait, am I planning this the right way? Do I have enough money for this trip? Did I pack everything I need?’

Or perhaps your mind already wanders to when you’ll get there: What if no one speaks my language? What if I get robbed? And, umm, how bad could dengue fever be really?

I know those little nerves all too well; I had them too before I first set off to strange lands and still had them for many trips after. That’s why my first aim is to put your mind at ease by going through all the practical aspects of travel in a step-by-step way. We’ll look at trip planning, packing, the financial aspects, booking flights and accommodation, and many other practical issues. 

Along the way, you might read a thing or two that is already common sense to you, depending on your travel experience, but you’ll probably also be reminded of a few important things that you haven’t thought of yet. The goal is simply to ensure you’ve thought about everything before you set off so that you can put as many of those little nerves to rest as possible.

Of course, preparing for a trip is not just about ticking boxes on a checklist. Some aspects are quite personal—about how you, as an individual or couple, will do this.

That’s precisely why this is a book and not just a to-do list. I’ll be sharing some personal anecdotes and cautionary tales throughout, telling you how I (or my travel friends) tackled some of the gnarly personal challenges of travelling, such as dealing with language barriers, travelling solo, or all the ups and downs of being on the road.

But whatever the challenges, I always believe that getting the most out of your travels depends on having the right attitude. If you approach things with the right spirit, things will become so much more fun. Almost as if by magic, you’ll find more unique experiences appearing on your path. But just as an open mind will make you a better traveller, I also believe that certain mental blocks can keep you from travelling as far and wide as you might truly want to. 

So before we can talk about anything else, we must talk about... The Hump!!! (Queue ominous music, thunder and lightning, etc.)

Let me explain this through the magic of badly drawn stick figures:

A graph of a trip Description automatically generated

Right, so maybe you find yourself in the same position as our little stickman here: waaaay at the beginning on this silly metaphorical graph. 

Many people never get over this first hump, forever doomed to never travel.

Could there be legitimate reasons for not travelling? Of course. But quite often it’s merely mental blocks that keep people from getting over the hump and following their travel dreams. 

They might wrongly assume that travel must be ridiculously expensive, or that it’s impossible to find the time, or that it’s too late in life to go on an adventure. Or they might just be too scared to get out of their comfort zone. 

If you’re at this stage now then ooh boy, we’ve got some work to do! Just kidding. I think we can loosen up some of those mental blocks in the chapters to come. Much more is often possible than you might initially assume.

But let’s say that you’ve already gotten over that first hump: you’ve become inspired to go on a big adventure or to travel somewhere totally new. You’ve started researching some potential trips, and maybe even find yourself daydreaming about travelling in exotic places every day. 

Well, beware, for there is another terrible hump:

A cartoon of a person standing on a mountain Description automatically generated

You see, once you go from the daydreaming phase to the practical phase, you’ll surely reach what we might call, in technical terms, the ‘oh shit’ moment. 

This is a classic moment. I’m sure every traveller has had it.

Suddenly you realize there’s so much more involved than you at first thought. You might start second-guessing the idealized images from your daydreaming and wonder what awful things could happen instead. And perhaps you begin to feel overwhelmed by this whole endeavour you’ve set yourself up for.

Now, believe me, this is just another hurdle to overcome. If you can get past this second hump, you’ll be in good shape. Rest assured, we’ll discuss a ton of tips in this book that will help you get past this point.

Think you’re done with the humps now? Nope! Not quite yet. 

Just before you’re about to depart, you’ll probably still experience one final moment of doubt. This is, once again, a normal part of setting off to parts unknown. Someone once told me the Swedish language even has a specific word for it: resfeber. It translates roughly as ‘the tangled feelings of fear and excitement before a journey begins’. 

The good news is that you can learn to love the resfeber. It’s simply part of doing something new and exciting. You just need to push through it.

Once you’re on the road, you still might not quite know what you’re doing at first. In unfamiliar places, things might not work exactly the way you’re used to. But you’ll soon get the hang of things, and then you’ll find yourself going down a wonderful rollercoaster ride of fun.

Those pesky humps? It turns out they just had a chain track on them pulling you slowly to the top, only to release you with maximum kinetic energy. Wheeeeee!

A cartoon of a person climbing a hill Description automatically generated

At this point, you can finally stop thinking so much. Before you know it, you’re watching moonrises over Andean deserts, waking up to the whoops of gibbons in mist-shrouded rainforests, taking old sleeper trains that make you feel like you’re on the Orient Express, or singing karaoke with new friends in some odd corner of this beautiful world.

Okay, to tell you the truth, it’s not always just a fun rollercoaster all the way down. Every now and then, there can still be unexpected twists and weird centrifugal forces to deal with—and we’ll talk about these later. 

But these are roughly the key phases of travel: the inspiration phase, the pre-trip planning, then life on the road, and finally coming back home. This book follows these phases in order, though the chapters are also mostly self-contained so that you can jump around to find specific answers if you’d like.

You’ll feel the humps most intensely when you’re planning a long trip, as shit will be significantly more real. But you’ll probably also recognize them before a shorter trip—or when going to some far-flung that you’ve never been before.

How I got hooked on travelling

Since we’ll be spending the rest of this book together, I thought I should tell you a bit about who I am. So, let me introduce myself. 

Hi! My name is Marek, and I’m a huge travel addict. Don’t worry, I won’t dive into my whole life story here — we’ve got much more important things to do — but let me tell you briefly how I got into travelling, just so you know where I’m coming from. I’ll touch on three periods in my life where I learned different lessons about travel, giving you a preview of a few things I’ll be talking about.

Learning how to travel solo

I wouldn’t become an adventure traveller until much later in life, but let me start at the beginning here: I took one of my most significant trips when I was just 17. I travelled from The Netherlands (where I’m from) to California, which was my first trip outside of Europe and my first time travelling all on my own.

Mind you, I wasn’t yet driven by pure wanderlust. My impetus to travel was that I’d created a website about my favourite video games, which led me to be invited to several international video game events. Excited to learn about the latest games at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (and to visit the US for the first time) I got onto a plane to Los Angeles. While my geeky interests were the main motivation for this trip, it taught me some of my first lessons about travel – and especially about doing something that seems a bit scary at first.

Encouraged by online friends who I only knew from the gaming community, I had quite casually said ‘yes’ to going to LA. But as soon as I’d left home, it suddenly felt like a super big deal to be actually doing this. Once I was on board my flight, I was way too excited and nervous to sleep for even a second. My nose stayed stuck to the window for much of the way as I gawked at all the cloud formations and landscapes below. 

I met up with my internet friends for several days, but for much of the trip I was on my own. To be honest... I was a bit in over my head. A mixture of jetlag and sheer anxiety made it near-impossible for me to sleep for several nights. Food didn’t sit well with me at all and I had to throw up several times.

When I finally fell asleep on the first night I was soon woken up again in the middle of the night by the sounds of police sirens and the ‘thugathugathuga’ of a helicopter flying overhead... what I didn’t know is that West Hollywood actually isn’t a very glamorous place to stay. Through the hostel’s window blinds I witnessed a police raid just across the street, something I’d only ever seen in TV shows like Cops. I was very much out of my comfort zone and suddenly felt the US must be a hardcore dangerous place. What was I doing here?!

But as scary and weird as it was just to be somewhere half a globe away, I soon realized things were actually just fine. My nerves settled, I found my bearings and I had a good time. It was amazing to be in an iconic city I knew only from movies. It was incredible meeting so many people who loved the same computer games I did. Most of all, I felt proud to be in a strange place while managing to survive on my own. The anxiety and sleepless nights had been worth it: I’d learned I could go to some faraway place and live to tell the tale.

In the following years, I went on various holidays in Europe, such as an island hopping sailing trip in Croatia and an incredible road trip through several Eastern European countries with some friends. (We’d bought a second-hand car in the Netherlands, drove it to Hungary and back, then sold it again.) However, it would take a few more years until I’d truly discover the wonders of world travel. Mostly I was just keen on pursuing a career in the video game industry, which led me to visit game conferences and meetups in several different places in Europe and the US.

Long story short: I became a game designer and worked for two game developers in the UK, eventually becoming Head of Content at SEGA (the company known for Sonic the Hedgehog). I was 27 at the time and was way in over my head again, not sure I could properly perform the senior role I had put myself out for. My job was to monitor the progress of the games in development and to speak with the teams whenever there were creative or quality issues. Oh, and these teams happened to be located all over the world. In my first week at SEGA’s London office — before I’d even met my boss! — I was told to go pack my bags. 

To my amazement, I was being sent on a 3-week business trip right away. I was going to fly from London via Hong Kong to SEGA’s head office in Tokyo. A week later, I’d pop on over to its game development studio in Australia. In my third week, it was off to their corporate offices in San Francisco. I could hardly believe it, but I was going on my first-ever round-the-world trip – and I didn’t even have to pay for it.

I thought to myself that if I didn’t make it through probation, I’d at least have travelled to four continents on the company’s dime. Apart from my scheduled meetings during the week, I had my evenings and weekends free to explore.

Unlike that first trip at age 17, I was no longer a nervous wreck and didn’t have to throw up at every turn (thank goodness, because it’d have been a waste of some incredible Japanese food). However, it was my biggest jump into travel yet and so I vowed to make the most of it. It was actually when visiting Japan for the first time that everything truly clicked... and I began to see just how wonderful travel can be. 

Tokyo was equal parts delightful and confusing: the bright lights, the tiny ramen shops that seat only a handful of customers, the waves of pedestrians crossing at one of the world’s busiest intersections in Shibuya, the taxis that all somehow still look like they’re from the 1980s, the occasionally bizarre food (at a sushi bar I was served whole sea urchins, spikes and all), and the toilets that have about 20 different buttons on them — everything was just fascinating to me and everything felt like a mini-adventure.

I tried as best as I could to navigate Tokyo’s soup sandwich of a metro system but got delightfully lost. I walked the streets in an almost meditative state, watching the flows of pedestrians criss-crossing in Shibuya and wandering around the temples of Senso-ji. At night, I went to the top floor of a hotel in Shinjuku and sat in the same chair as Bill Murray in Lost in Translation, a film that would later remind me hugely of my own experiences. At the bar I chatted with the sommelier and the jazz band singer who was performing that night, who shared some crazy stories of touring all over the world.

I went on to a bar recommended by a travel guide where I met some awesome local expats. In the elevator on the way out, I somehow got into a conversion with a Japanese DJ who inexplicably invited me to the album launch party of a Japanese reggae band. Having nothing at all in my schedule I went, of course — and then somehow ended up in a karaoke bar crowing my lungs out at 4 AM. 

It was a pretty crazy trip. Being in a strange city on your own with nothing to lose can lead you to some of the most surprising and spontaneous experiences. It was also Japan’s wonderful otherworldliness that awoke something inside me: a burning desire to see much more of the world.

Becoming a backpacker

While I was grateful for some amazing opportunities that had fallen into my lap, the truth is that I was also incredibly unlucky in my career. Four times in a row I worked for companies that suffered financial issues or major corporate reorganizations. I lost my job three times due to no fault of my own – including eventually my job at SEGA. I’d spent years working passionately but had almost nothing tangible to show for it. A friend described my career as repeatedly jumping out of burning buildings. 

I was bitterly disappointed... and I needed a break. Making matters worse was that I’d broken up with my girlfriend around the same time that I was laid off. I didn’t have any sort of plan in mind for what to do next, but knew I desperately needed a reboot of some sort.

Remembering my visits to Japan, I thought now might be a rare opportunity to travel. I booked a flight to Thailand, hoping that a nice trip in Asia might help clear my mind. Maybe I’d travel around for a month or two, then punch up my CV and figure out my next career move.

That didn’t happen.

I quickly got sucked into the wonderful world of fun that is the Southeast Asia backpacker scene. After exploring northern Thailand I met some awesome people who invited me to come along to Laos. I spontaneously crossed the border with them, not having read a single thing about this country. At the time there were no cross-border bridges, so the only way to get into Laos was by small wooden boat. As I reached the other shore, something told me there was no turning back now... and that I probably wouldn’t be going back home soon. 

I loved everything about Laos — and then I just couldn’t stop. I went on to explore Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and a whole list of other countries. What I thought would be at most two months of travel became nearly a year. 

Contrary to my earlier career-focused travel, I was now travelling very much on a budget, trying to make my finite funds last as long as possible. I also became a backpacker, travelling for fun and to expand my horizons, while my day-to-day possessions shrunk down to what could fit in just my 40-liter carry-on backpack.

(In case you’re wondering how I funded all of this travelling, it definitely helped that I had some savings and redundancy money to start with. But there are many creative ways to fund your travels, which will be the main topic of Chapter 3.)

Following this initial Asia sojourn I went home briefly, but it took hardly any time for me to get back in the game. I received a message from a travelling friend asking if I had any interest in joining him to pick up a car he’d bought in Honduras and drive it to northern Mexico, where he and his girlfriend were planning to house-sit for a few months.

Of course I said, ‘Sure!’

I arrived in high spirits in a small town in Honduras where we were to pick up the car from repairs. What my friend hadn’t told me was that he’d bought a 1983 Subaru that was on its very last legs. When we asked the mechanic if the car might make it all the way to northern Mexico, he looked away and replied with an unconvincing "si...?". Somehow, I knew this trip wasn’t going to be easy.

And so we had a hilarious adventure with a shitty old car that broke down about 37 and a half times. We never quite made it to the finish line; when the entire gearbox collapsed through the floor about six hours from our final destination, we took this as our cue to finally give up and we sold the car for scrap to a man in the street. 

But at least we had a great time trying. We visited places many tourists don’t go, met a ton of car mechanics, played pool with a mariachi band, saw ancient Mayan temples, had margaritas on the beach, and even got to sneak into the opulent abandoned palace of a notoriously crooked Mexican police chief. 

Again, I just couldn’t stop. After concluding this road trip, I spent a year backpacking from northern Mexico all the way down to Argentina, in some parts with friends but mostly solo. My original plan of two months in Thailand turned into two years of nearly continuous travel. It was a trip that ended up changing my life permanently.

Travel blogging and travel-life balance

I could honestly have never predicted that I’d ever go on a trip that long. Even more surprising was that I’d keep on travelling regularly not just for fun but as a new way of making a living.

It was during my 2-year trip I had decided to start a travel blog. It was just for friends and family at first, but then I began writing for a general audience, using my past experience from making websites about video games to make a website about travel. One of my posts went viral on Reddit and things quickly snowballed from there. 

I’ve been a full-time travel blogger for 12 years now and have visited over 60 countries on six continents (I’m going through my bucket list very slowly!). During my travel blogging years, I’ve gone back to Southeast