It’s summer break for our kids. They don’t have much to compare this summer to, but life is good. No school. No homework. No job. No workday calendar. No bills to pay. They had Lucky Charms cereal for dinner Saturday night. Parenting fail. This is the best dinner ever. – My 4-year-old daughter The marshmallows are way […]
I’m vacationing on the Jersey Shore this week so I’m taking a short break from writing new content. This classic article is about the budget traveling I did back in 2001-2002. I’ll be joining a panel at FinCon this year in Orlando to speak on the topic. Exploring the unusual has been one theme of […]
Last April on a long solo drive, I listened to the Mad Fientist’s interview with Vicki Robin on the Financial Independence Podcast. Vicki Robin is the co-author of , the book that popularized the term financial independence. The 2018 version includes a foreword by Mr. Money Mustache, who in 2012, wrote about the book causing a […]
After choosing a domain name and starting my blog back in September of 2013, the software behind the scenes called WordPress asked me to declare a tagline. Unprepared, the first three words that came to mind were Invest. Retire. Travel. Those three words accurately presented the message I wanted to convey to my readers so I went […]
Elon Musk and his company SpaceX plan to put a human on Mars by the year 2024. If successful, it will be the most extraordinary accomplishment in the history of the known universe. It will take a team of thousands of scientists tackling complicated engineering tasks that most of us can’t fathom. Each piece of […]
I’m super-excited to bring you a guest post today from my friend Chad Carson of CoachCarson.com. Chad primarily writes about achieving financial independence via real estate investing. But he’s also in the midst of an epic year living abroad with his wife and two daughters in Cuenca, Ecuador. I’m envious of their planning and bravery […]
Adventure is dirt cheap. You don’t need fancy mountaineering gear to explore new parts of your hometown or find an off-the-path beach in Mexico. One-way flights are half price. Adventure can be a fresh side business, a new romance (hopefully not a dirt cheap one), or anything that gets you out of your normal routine. International travel […]
I moved in with my parents when I was 27. The football wallpaper in my bedroom was gone and the bed was bigger. But it was still the room I slept in for the first 18 years of my life. While most of my friends were married and starting high-salary jobs after years of graduate […]
Mrs. RBD’s brother proposed to his long-time girlfriend early last year. Shortly after the jubilant celebration, my one-track mind started thinking How much is this wedding going to cost me? The answer: A lot. However, by taking advantage of travel rewards credit cards to receive sign up bonuses, we acquired enough points to fly cross-country […]
Does it make sense to move somewhere cheap to achieve financial independence sooner? It’s a topic we talk about sometimes in our household. If we could lower our housing costs by moving, we could retire much sooner than our plan. We’re in a middle stage of life with three young kids, a minivan, and a mortgage and in […]
Traveling was a top priority in my 20s. I visited more than 40 countries before turning 30, carrying with me a small and no more than six pairs of underwear at any time. Now that I’m forty, I look back on my days of full-time travel through a different lens. I’ve realized some truths about traveling […]
At age 27, I was broke, unemployed, and living at home with my parents. Not surprisingly, I was single too. Sounds depressing, right? Not so. I had recently returned from an epic 14-month backpacking trip to Asia and Latin America, spending just $10,000 on the entire journey, then completed a three-month, 8,000-mile road trip throughout the U.S and […]
I’m on vacation with my family this week. I’ve put aside electronic devices and social media in favor of fishing rods, sandcastle tools, and amusement park rides with the kids. We’re going to relax, eat a ton of sugar, and create memories watching our kids frolic in the sand, water and sun. Preparing for our […]
Throughout all of my adventures, only three times I’ve been a target for crime because I was a traveler. That’s not bad considering I’ve visited 40+ countries over the past two decades. For the most part, using common sense and traveling with a friend or group is enough to avoid travel scams and danger. But […]
