Being location independent means having a career that is independent of needing to be in any specific location in the world; but it doesn’t preclude having a (part-time or full-time) home. That is a lifestyle choice, and there are many location independent entrepreneurs and employees who don’t travel at all. 

See also: How to Go Location Independent 

Thus, this is not a travel budget – it’s a life budget and full picture of my lifestyle, including all my expenses: business, personal, travel, and otherwise. 

Since 2010, I’ve published my full-time travel expenses annually; an uncensored breakdown of all my expenses for the year, demonstrating that the travel lifestyle is much more achievable than most people think. (At the end of this article you’ll find links to full-time travel expense reports from previous years).

2019 Overview

2019 was a change of pace after 12 years of full-time travel. For the entire year, I had (and was financially bound to maintain) an apartment in Toronto, along with the accoutrements of “home life” like utilities and internet and home insurance. 

Still, on the whole I was happy to learn that all those years on the road helped me to approach my new home with minimalism in mind. I don’t have any belongings or services that are superfluous (to me) – like cable tv, a telephone land line, or even a cell phone plan. (Here’s how I pay almost nothing for my cell phone needs around the world). 

Here’s a breakdown of where I went in 2019, which includes six countries and whole lotta bouncing around in Canada and the U.S.: 

• January: Florida, Guatemala
• February: Guatemala
• March: Florida
• April/May: Toronto 
• June: Toronto, Boston
• July/August: Toronto 
• September: Toronto, Montana
• October: Toronto, Newfoundland
• November: Toronto, Poland, Latvia, Finland
• December: Florida

For more about my 2019 travels, see Redefining My Travels in 2019: Where I Went

Are you curious to see if my expenses skyrocketed now that I have a home base (in an expensive city in an expensive country) while also traveling half the year? I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure how it would go, and this report was as illuminating for me as I hope it will be for you. 

What I Spent in 2018: $34,881

At the end of this post, I’ll summarize the year in terms of how it went financially as compared to other years. In the meantime, I feel it’s necessary to emphasize (as I do each year) that this is not a competition. I’m not out there to win a prize for spending the least (or most) amount of money on travel. 

I’m not a budget traveler. Nor do I need to be; my 2019 income was considerably higher than it has ever been, which gave me freedom to spend more money. Ironically, frugality runs deep in my veins, so regardless of having a higher overall cost of living given my home base, I still waaaaay underspent in comparison to my income. (I invested the difference in long-term savings; See also: Asset Allocation for Travelers)

If you clicked on this post hoping to learn exactly how much this lifestyle costs so you can create your own travel budget, I suggest you check out this article: How to Create a Long-Term Travel Budget: Financially Sustainable Travel 

Okay. So hopefully I’ve now alleviated the possibility of copping attitude (as I have in previous years) for what I spent or how. I spent what I spent, and it is what it is. Observations are welcome! Judgements are best left unexpressed. 

For other illustrations of location independent finances, check out my Financial Case Study series. There, you’ll discover people earning and living on anything from four to seven figures a year. 

Monthly Breakdown

All amounts have been converted to U.S. Dollars for ease of comparison.

JANUARY (Florida, Guatemala)

$3,473

I rang in the year at my friend’s place in Florida; a familiar haunt and also a free place to stay. Shortly thereafter, I went to Guatemala. 

My accommodation expenses for the month were actually super reasonable since they included not only my Toronto rent, but also a hotel in Antigua Guatemala. 

For the first half of 2019 you’ll also notice some pretty hefty business expenses; a chunk of that is trailing payments that I made to my SEO consultant, who I had been working with on a profit-sharing basis (an agreement that included a decreasing share of profits for six months after we stopped working together). I also hired a Pinterest consultant to get my (formerly non-existent) Pinterest account started and going. Follow me on Pinterest here! 

• Accommodation $1,256
• Transportation $179
• Groceries & Restaurants $445
• Phone&Internet $107
• Personal $32
• Tours/Activities $51
• Business $1,275
• Banking $94
• Medical $15
• Gifts&Charity $19

FEBRUARY (Guatemala)

$2,682

Antigua was lovely, but Guatemala on the whole was a bit of a shit show for me, especially on arrival to Panajachel. When boiled down to brass tacks, the harsh reality was that I just wasn’t into travel at the time; I had no energy for navigating foreign environments. This means I didn’t take advantage of staying in Panajachel as a base for exploring the Lake Atitlan area in general, which is a shame. 

See also: 7 Travel Mistakes I Made in Guatemala

On the upside, it also means I spent very little money. My business expenses surpassed all others, again due to the profit-sharing arrangement and Pinterest consultant (as well as my virtual assistant, but she is comparatively inexpensive). 

Note: Accommodation expenses this month don’t reflect the place in Panajachel, which was prepaid in November of 2018. 

• Accommodation $796
• Transportation $5
• Groceries & Restaurants $374
• Phone&Internet $43
• Business $1,164
• Banking $39
• Gifts&Charity $261

MARCH (Florida)

$2,431

Retreating to Florida for March was a good move for me emotionally and physically, and also financially! The transportation expense is my flight back to Toronto at the end of the month. Aside from that, all other expenses were about as low as they can get (even my business expenses were kept under $1,000). 

• Accommodation $794
• Transportation $179
• Groceries & Restaurants $335
• Phone&Internet $42
• Tours/Activities $43
• Business $977
• Banking $50
• Gifts&Charity $11

APRIL (Toronto)

$3,203

There’s not much to remark upon from an cost perspective in April. I spared little expense in restocking my apartment with groceries and also going out for coffees and meals with friends and family, hence the uptick in food-releated expenses as well as tours/activities (which included going to a couple of shows and events with friends). 

If you subtract the $1,300 I had in business expenses, I actually didn’t spend that much…

• Accommodation $788
• Transportation $45
• Groceries & Restaurants $506
• Phone&Internet $42
• Personal $39
• Tours/Activities $175
• Business $1,283
• Banking $29
• Medical $119
• Gifts&Charity $177

MAY (Toronto)

$2,470

Business expenses aside, what you see here is basically the cost of a comfortable life (for me) in Toronto. The banking expenses are a bit high for the month; it’s made up of a credit card annual fee plus some PayPal charges for a substantial affiliate payment that I received. 

See also: Overhead Costs for Location Independent Businesses

• Accommodation $795
• Transportation $45
• Groceries & Restaurants $403
• Phone&Internet $42
• Personal $101
• Tours/Activities $83
• Business $640
• Banking $205
• Medical $75
• Gifts&Charity $81

JUNE (Toronto, Boston)

$4,355

Given that I attended TravelCon in Boston (a travel media conference at which I’m speaking this year in New Orleans – use discount code SPEAKER50 for a discount), I kept my food and activities expenses reasonable. The most uncharacteristic of expenses this month came in the Gifts & Charity category, which includes a special father’s day meal as well as my annual dues for Rotary (I am a long-standing Rotarian, pre-dating my travel career, and I’ve enjoyed reconnecting with my club in Toronto after a 12-year absence). The biggest expense of the month (by far) was my annual website managed hosting package, which costs a pretty penny but includes a whole set of services that help me focus my time somewhere other than the technical back end functions of my website.

• Accommodation $781
• Transportation $104
• Groceries & Restaurants $495
• Phone&Internet $153
• Personal $81
• Tours/Activities $287
• Business $1,778
• Banking $117
• Medical $118
• Gifts&Charity $441

JULY (Toronto)

$2,306

By July I was finally free of the trailing profit-sharing payment scheme I’d worked out with my SEO consultant, though I did hire out a couple of freelance projects, in addition to the work my virtual assistant does for me. For the most part, the breakdown below is the cost of enjoying summer in the city of Toronto. 

• Accommodation $814
• Transportation $50
• Groceries & Restaurants $489
• Phone&Internet $43
• Personal $185
• Tours/Activities $244
• Business $348
• Banking $65
• Medical $61
• Gifts&Charity $7

AUGUST (Toronto)

$2,724

August, also a relatively sedentary month in Toronto, was a bit more expensive than July mostly due to my annual home insurance premiums being payable (which I lumped into the Accommodation category). Personal expenses are also a bit higher than usual because there was a frequent flyer mile bonus deal at one of my preferred carriers’ online shopping portals, and I’d been awaiting such a promo with a list of stuff I needed to order, and I earned a whole whack of points for my patience. 

See also: My Guide to Frequent Flyer Miles and How to Travel Hack like a Pro 

• Accommodation $1061
• Transportation $124
• Groceries & Restaurants $556
• Phone&Internet $51
• Personal $328
• Tours/Activities $112
• Business $256
• Banking $66
• Medical $155
• Gifts&Charity $15

SEPTEMBER (Toronto, Montana)

$1,805

September was my cheapest month of the year, due in large part to my being in Montana for almost two weeks, most of which was paid for. I was there to speak at the Travel Blog Exchange conference, which was followed by a press trip around southern Montana. Montana was great! But wow – there were a lotta checkered flannel shirts in some places. Just saying. 

See also: My Adventures in Montana and Yellowstone 

• Accommodation $857
• Transportation $86
• Groceries & Restaurants $429
• Phone&Internet $56
• Personal $43
• Tours/Activities $17
• Business $259
• Banking $38
• Gifts&Charity $30

OCTOBER (Toronto, Newfoundland)

$2,745

My best trip of the year was an expedition cruise around Newfoundland Canada, which was utterly epic. Lucky for me, I was invited on the cruise as a journalist, so it was also paid for (I love my job). Life (and life expenses) continued unabated however, including some hefty business spending in the form of a new phone and the annual renewal of my social media scheduling software. Banking includes a credit card renewal fee, and tours/activities expenses were tips and extras on the cruise. 

• Accommodation $804
• Transportation $45
• Groceries & Restaurants $236
• Phone&Internet $78
• Tours/Activities $163
• Business $1,116
• Banking $164
• Medical $99
• Gifts&Charity $40

NOVEMBER (Poland, Latvia, Finland)

$4,555

November was my most expensive month of the year, but only partly because of my travels – the main attraction of which was to speak at the Women in Travel Summit in Latvia. I paid for most of my hotels with points, but I still had to shell out a few shekels. The same goes for transportation expenses; my flights in and out of Europe were largely covered by points, but I had to pay for a few extra flights plus taxes and fees on the points tickets. 

It’s the business category that took the biggest hit, in the form of a new laptop (purchased through a frequent flyer mile promotion which earned me enough points to pay for my flights all over again). 

Lastly, a new category for the year is insurance; throughout 2019 (except for Guatemala, which was insured and pre-paid in 2018), my trips were short enough that I could rely on the travel insurance automatically provided by my credit cards rather than buy insurance outright. The $276 in November was my travel insurance with World Nomads, to cover my planned four months away starting in December. 

See also: Everything You Need to Know About Travel Insurance, Including What’s Covered on Your Credit Card

• Accommodation $956
• Transportation $400
• Groceries & Restaurants $360
• Phone&Internet $51
• Personal $229
• Tours/Activities $109
• Business $2,072
• Banking $14
• Medical $61
• Gifts&Charity $27
• Insurance $276
  
  

DECEMBER (Florida)

$2,132

Much as I hadn’t planned on returning to Florida this winter, I did so after a planned trip to Morocco fell apart, and thus I poetically completed the circle of 2019 by finishing the year where I started it. With a free place to stay, my December expenses were far from outrageous. Of note would be my flight from Toronto to Florida in the transportation category, my assistant’s holiday bonus in the business category, and a circuit training gym membership in the activities category.  

• Accommodation $798
• Transportation $173
• Groceries & Restaurants $396
• Phone&Internet $46
• Tours/Activities $198
• Business $308
• Banking $77
• Medical $66
• Gifts&Charity $70

2019 Summary Notes (The Location Independent Life)

If you look at my previous expense reports (linked to below), you’ll immediately notice that 2019 was my 2^nd most expensive year since I started tracking and reporting my expenses in 2010. (My most expensive year in 2013 was a generally horrific year where I was slapped with a near-fatal accident, passport & cash theft, and other incidents that caused me to hemorrhage money. Luckily, my income that year was commensurate with a large payout from an editor that I hadn’t predicted but was incredibly grateful for). 

But I remember the days. I remember the days when I could get away with spending $1,000 or less in a month. The thing is, a great many things have changed since then.

First of all, after quite some effort I don’t just have a blog anymore; I have an online business, with a team of employees and lots of overhead expenses. My business expenses alone were over $11,000; that’s about 10 times more than I used to spend, but it paid off with a considerably better income. 

Secondly, I maintain an apartment year-round in Toronto (an expensive city). Between rent and utilities, I pay about $10,000/year for the privilege of having a little patch of the world that I can escape to at any time (or all of the time). I love it, and I have no problem paying for it. 

Lastly, when I travel, I tend to pay for accommodation now. Much as I adore the experiences I’ve had getting free accommodation around the world (hey – I saved over $100,000 in my years on the road with free digs), the trade-off with getting free accommodation is that you generally have to work for it in one way or another. Work-exchange gigs are pretty clear about work being involved (eg: volunteer for 20-30 hours a week, get a free place to stay, perhaps with meals as well). But even house-sitting can be onerous; one couple reached out to me recently offering me their home to house-sit, before detailing the twice-daily one-hour walks their little dog required (at very specific and unholy times of day I might add), as well as a regime of medication that sounded dreadful to administer. Shortly thereafter I turned down another house-sitting offer that involved being on-site every single night after 5pm for security reasons, as well as managing five animals, two of which are accomplished escape artists. 

While these have been acceptable trade-offs in the past, in 2019, I frankly didn’t have the energy for it. I didn’t want to stunt my travel freedom with requirements like remaining locked inside every night, or to having to get up at 6am for an hour-long walk regardless of my desire to sleep in. I have an online business, and that’s enough of a commitment for now; so “free” accommodation requiring hours of daily labour wasn’t in the cards. 

I suspect this negative slant is also the residual effects of burnout talking, since I’ve had my share of awesome free accommodation gigs that involved very little commitment. It’s important to pick and choose gigs very carefully; something I outline in my article The Creative Guide to Free or Cheap Accommodation. 

So at the moment, when I travel, I find creative ways to get cheap-but-not-usually-free accommodation, using techniques like this one to get apartments for a fraction of what you’d see them listed at on sites like AirBnB. But it still means shelling out more money than I’ve spent in other years. 

All that said, I did a few things right in terms of saving money on expenses, the most significant of which was starting to get really serious about frequent flyer miles. I’ve fairly consistently flown long-haul in business class for less than economy prices, but it wasn’t until I delivered a joint presentation about travel hacking with a couple of other experts, that I realized I was still operating at the most basic of levels in comparison to my colleagues. 

So, I’m levelling up. Frequent flyer miles can be accumulated and redeemed for both flights and accommodation. In 2019 I started applying for more/different credit cards to help me achieve my travel hacking goals, save me money on travel expenses, and also to help me travel in style. I’ll be continuing to increase my savvy in 2020, with the help of the tools I list in the post below! 

See also: The Beginner’s Guide to Frequent Flyer Miles and How to Travel Hack Like a Pro 

As a final note, I think this may be my last expense report. I’ve tracked and published an entire decade of travel and location independent lifestyle expenses that have covered dozens of countries, modes of travel, and states of being. I’ve well and truly demonstrated that travel and lifestyle expenses vary by circumstance as well as individual preference; and also, that full-time travel can be more affordable than you might suspect……and if you balance your expenses with your income, full-time travel and location independent life can also be 100% financially sustainable for as long as you wish. 

Previous Full-Time Travel Expense Reports: 

This post My Location Independent Life: 2019 Expense Report appeared first on The Professional Hobo. Please click through to read it in full!

This post was originally published in 2020. It has since been updated for accuracy of links and content. 

Click here to see all of my Annual Income and Expense Summaries!

2019 was a different year for me. The biggest change was that I had a home base in Toronto; something I was financially obligated to maintain despite traveling for half the year (cumulatively). While I initially worried that I’d have trouble making ends meet with a whole slew of additional bills, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that having a home base and traveling a bit less led to increased productivity, which in turn led to increased income. 

2019 was also when I started really seeing the benefits of the work I did with an SEO consultant throughout 2018, which led to dramatically increased traffic, and in turn, advertising and affiliate revenue. 

All in all, 2019 was a good year for my location independent business. 

Here is where I went in 2019.

2019 Income Sources for The Professional Hobo

NOTE: My income was earned in a few currencies, including US, Canadian, Australian, British Pounds, Euros, and more – all of which I’ve converted to US dollars for the purposes of this report. Unfortunately, with currency fluctuations throughout the year, these numbers are approximate at best. 

Freelance Writing: $7,253

This is half of what I earned for freelance writing in 2018, and about the same as what I earned in 2017. (Like many aspects of my online business, freelance writing income can be highly variable). 

Normally, monthly columns comprise the majority of my freelance writing income, but 2019 changed everything. After almost five years of monthly “Dear Nora” instalments at CreditWalk, I stopped doing it in March, and my monthly gig with GoBankingRates (which lasted about a year) stopped around the same time. 

I didn’t even have time to worry about the loss of income though; serendipitously, I was contacted by an old editor who had moved to a new company, and they contracted me for six months to write about travel security matters for a B2B health insurance company. 

The remainder of the year was topped up by some articles I wrote for Lonely Planet, Budget Travel, and Transitions Abroad. 

In previous years, freelance writing has comprised approximately 50% of my total revenue. These percentages have changed dramatically in 2019, and I expect my other income sources to continue to supersede freelance writing in the future. That said, I believe freelance writing is an integral part of a blogging business, and I intend to continue with it. 

I write extensively about freelance writing as a career here: Ways to Make Money While Traveling. 

Affiliate Sales: $23,337

This is more than double the most money I’ve ever made from affiliate sales, and also the highest percentage of my total income it has ever been (but only by a small margin). 

I attribute my success with 2019 affiliate income to three factors: 

1. The work I did with my SEO consultant in 2018 (plus some good luck) ended up with my most monetized posts consistently being amongst my top 10 articles for traffic.
2. I wrote a few new (monetized) posts in 2018 that started ranking in 2019 and earned me a healthy sum. 
3. I continued increasing the number of affiliate providers I work with. In 2019, I earned affiliate income from over 25 different sources, though the most significant of them were women’s travel clothing, travel insurance, virtual mailing services, and travel luggage. I have multiple articles on most of these topics, and as a result I rank quite well for them all. 

In most previous years, Amazon affiliate income represented the highest percentage of my total affiliate income, until 2019. Now, it’s about 20% of my total affiliate sales, which doesn’t bother me one bit; rather than remaining beholden to their ever-dwindling payment schemes, I’ve found other ways to earn affiliate income while remaining true to my brand and using/endorsing products that will help people travel better. 

Advertising & Sponsored Posts: $17,543

This number is triple what I earned in 2018, and it beats every previous year, by far; the most I ever earned in this category was $7,700 in 2012, back when it was cool to sell text links. 

The reason for this is a big uptick in website traffic (thanks to my SEO consultant), plus continued use of the Mediavine advertising platform. I also made a couple of thousand dollars with sponsorships of my monthly newsletters and some posts. 

Book Sales: $2,209

This is a little higher than my book sales for last few years, though largely on par. While I have three books (of which one was recently discontinued), the most consistent best-selling one is How to Get Free Accommodation Around the World. For less than the cost of a burger, readers can save thousands upon thousands of dollars getting free digs (and a super cool cultural experience) when traveling. I saved over $100,000 getting free accommodation around the world; I walk the talk. 

I attribute my 2019 success with this book to making it available on Amazon in late 2018, right before a feature documentary about me was released on a very popular YouTube channel that drove sales around the world. 

Miscellaneous: $580

As always, this is a catch-all for random work that doesn’t fit into the above categories. However it’s much higher in 2019, due to me doing some travel mentoring and coaching sessions. I enjoy this work, and while I’ve offered it very quietly and informally for a few years now, I’m considering making it a bigger part of my online business. 

TOTAL INCOME: $50,922

Ca-ching! This is a 60%+ increase over what I earned in 2018, and the most money I’ve made with this online business, ever. The only year that came close was 2013, when I got a large payout from a site I’d been writing for for years that bought out my rights. 

I anticipated this growth in last year’s income report, so while I’m pleased, I’m also not surprised. I’m also hoping that this is the start of a continued upward income trend. That said, I’m meeting my expenses comfortably (even with the increased cost of maintaining a home base in Canada), and earning more money for the sheer sake of it is not my jam. I refuse to burn out (again) chasing dollars.

See also: Lifestyle Inflation: How Earning More Money Sucks (the Life Outta You)

What I Did Right in 2019

As much as I initially wrestled with the idea of having a home base in my home town (did I fail as a full-time traveler? Or does full-time travel simply have a shelf life?), it was the best move for me. The familiarity of my home town, plus the proximity of my small but fiercely loyal tribe of family and friends, plus having a place that is truly mine, formed a trifecta of healing that reverberated throughout my life and career. While I got my apartment towards the end of 2018, I only really started enjoying it and reaping the benefits in 2019. 

This home base also indirectly provided me with opportunities. I had the chance to connect in person with many colleagues in the blogging and travel biz who also live in Toronto. One of them pushed me pretty hard to start speaking at travel media conferences. Up to that point I figured I had nothing to offer as a speaker (I’m not exactly a shining example of how to run a website; rather, I was busy traveling and house-sitting and apprenticing with a shaman and ignoring the business side of my blog as best I could), but when one speaking proposal was accepted by three conferences, I realized perhaps I knew a thing or two. 

And somewhere in the mix I did actually stop ignoring the back end of my blog and I started doing (and/or outsourcing) the tasks I avoided for too long. So in 2019, I continued the work of my SEO consultant in updating and optimizing old posts. 

Lastly, after publishing almost 100 Financial Case Studies over the course of five years, I was going to wrap up the series, until some readers told me it’s one of their favourite aspects of my site. So instead, I levelled up. Seeing how my own lifestyle and income had evolved dramatically over the years, I became voyeuristically curious how other location independent folks had changed along the way. So I’m getting people I’ve previously featured to update their Financial Case Studies, providing a comparative look at their lifestyles, careers, and incomes over the years. It’s getting a lot of good feedback. 

If I look at my 2019 business plan (which I published last year), I see that while some of the things I’d forecasted happened like clockwork (such as increasing website traffic, outsourcing, developing a speaking career, and bingeing Netflix), some things also didn’t happen. 

I had trouble finding a publicist, so doing all the large media appearances I’d hoped to do didn’t happen. I also didn’t end up moving on my brilliant tv show idea; I shopped it out to a few people in the biz, all of whom said I was on to a great concept. But the reality of it would have been that I’d need to be very involved in bringing an international tv show to life even with a network and production company to back me, and I realized what I really wanted to do was watch Netflix, not be on it. (Not yet anyway).

But I don’t see these as failures or shortcomings; instead, I realize I overestimated what I had the energy for. All things considered, I’m very happy with how 2019 played out. 

My 2020 Business Plan

I already have three speaking gigs booked for 2020, and I even turned down one as well. I adore public speaking (and would venture to say I’m very good at it), so in order to develop it further, I want to broaden my audiences beyond travel media conferences and Rotary clubs. And to do that, I need to broaden and develop key messages that will resonate for larger and different groups of people while tapping into my fantastical repertoire of experiences. (And then I need to land the gigs). I may start working with a coach to guide me through this process, as I’ve no interest in reinventing the wheel. 

Hand-in-hand with a public speaking career is of course, a book. Oh, that dastardly memoir, that I received a stroke of inspiration to write almost four years ago now, but not enough clarity (or time or energy) to bring into fruition. I think the problem with my initial memoir idea and outline attempts was that I was trying to fit all of my travel experiences into one book, and I couldn’t find the thread to tie it all together to create a cohesive reader experience. After brainstorming with a (best-selling author) friend, I realized perhaps I have more than one book in me. I’m not good with lofty large long-term projects like “write a book” (I’d much prefer to write a 1,000 word article and receive a month’s rent for it right away). But now that my site is making more income and I don’t have any monthly freelance columns to contend with, I can redirect that time and energy into developing my book ideas. 

Travel-wise, I have a number of trips already planned for 2020 (including a month in Florida and two months in Greece over winter, and a few short-term speaking-related trips), and I want to spend a good chunk of the summer in my home base in Toronto. I’m also open to doing more sponsored trips and tackling bucket-list items. The expedition cruise I did around Newfoundland last year was a peak experience for me, and I’m extremely proud of the resulting article. 

Lastly, I will continue working on my blog; the never-ending tasks of updating old content, producing new content, working on back-end infrastructure and systems, answering obscene numbers of daily emails, marketing, and overseeing the tasks I’ve outsourced. This is a full-time job unto itself. 

These are some pretty damn lofty goals. My 2019 business-related word was “SHIFT”, and I think I shifted well from owning a job to owning a business by developing more infrastructure therein. Given my goals above, 2020 is about EXPANSION. 

Blogging is not a business where you can rest on your laurels. I tried that (for three years when I was working with shamans I largely ignored my online business), and three years later, I’m still recovering. Blogging requires adaptability to constantly-changing circumstances that affect the bottom line. Google regularly changes search algorithms in ways that wreak havoc with traffic (and thus, income), and rumour has it that upcoming changes could be seriously detrimental to the travel sector. Some of my colleagues got absolutely battered by this in 2019, losing up to half their traffic. I was lucky to avoid the brunt of it (for inexplicable reasons), but it’s nothing for my traffic to swing 20-30% (usually down) with each update. And that’s just one of many volatile aspects to this business. 

To be honest, it’s difficult to sleep at night with this feeling of precariousness. So while my blog is now at a point where it is making good money, I’m concerned about the majority of my income being tied to this one (volatile) source. 

This is why expansion is my word for 2020. I would like to develop more products and services of my own to diversify my income streams and activities, in addition to freelance writing. 

All the while, life balance, time off, and rest continue to be of paramount importance. Balance is, as always, where true success lies. This, ultimately, is my goal. 

Let’s see what happens. 

Previous Income Reports

2018 ($30,000)

2017 ($22,000)

2016 ($28,000)

2015 ($34,000)

2014 ($31,000)

2013 ($43,000)

2012 ($39,000)

2011 ($22,000)

This post My 2019 Location Independent Income Breakdown appeared first on The Professional Hobo. Please click through to read it in full!

Redefining what home means (and looks like). 

Augmenting my career and related activities. 

Learning how much energy I have and how to manage it (as I continued to recover from a pretty catastrophic episode of burnout that started in late 2017, the effects of which have lasted much longer than I anticipated). 

And redefining how (and where, and why) I travel. 

In previous years, the titles of these annual summary posts have showcased the number of miles I traveled and countries I visited. But things have changed in the last year or so. I no longer consider the number of miles I’ve traveled or planes I’ve taken in a year to be a badge of honour; rather, I’m trying to reduce the number of times I get on planes as a way of being environmentally conscious, and to make the most of whatever flights I do take. 

All told, my country count for 2019 was a relatively unremarkable six; not as high as 13 (like in 2011) nor as low as five (2016). The U.S. and Canada feature prominently in this count, and include both familiar haunts (like Florida and Toronto), and new places (like Montana, Boston, and Newfoundland). 

Lastly, it’s worth noting that after 12 years of full-time travel, in September of 2018 I got an apartment in my hometown of Toronto (a place I never thought I’d live in again – and one that I’ll admit makes me a walking cliche….you know, travel the world to realize how cool “home” is after all…yeah. I did that). With this home base, the scope of my travels evolved in 2019; I no longer consider myself a full-time traveler, but I have the freedom to travel whenever I wish for however long I want. On the whole, my aim is to travel cumulatively for half of each year. 

So now, the scene is set for 2019. Here’s what actually happened. 

This post was originally published in 2020. It has since been updated for accuracy of links and content. 

JANUARY: Florida, Guatemala

I rang in the New Year in a familiar spot: a friend’s home in south Florida. If you’ve followed my travels over the last five or so years, you’ll know this is a place I come and go from often. 

Early into January, I left Florida to spend three months in Guatemala. (At least, that was the plan). 

My first three weeks in Antigua were absolutely delightful, though I kept a wary eye on the neighbouring volcano that kept “tooting” columns of ash into the air. Active volcano aside, Antigua is a remarkably beautiful cobble-stoned town that surprised me with its variance (and quality) of restaurants. 

See also: Where to Eat in Antigua Guatemala, and More

FEBRUARY: Guatemala

From Antigua, I headed to Lake Atitlan, famous for its beauty, colourful indigenous culture, and chill vibes. Unfortunately, the town of Panajachel as a base was a poor choice, and my two-month commitment to an unseen AirBnB in Panajachel was definitely the wrong move. 

A few other things went wrong along the way. But the real problem was that I simply wasn’t up for a travel adventure at the time; this had become apparent in Antigua and was glaringly obvious by the time I reached Panajachel. My heart wasn’t in it, I had no energy, my curiosity was shot, and I was teetering on the edge of burnout; something that had plagued me on and off since late 2017. 

What I really needed was more healing time, and so I cut my trip to Guatemala short and retreated to Florida once again. 

See also: 7 Travel Mistakes I Made in Guatemala

MARCH: Florida

Sushi, Netflix, and comfy furniture. Oh yes, and warm weather. That’s what I needed in March, and that’s what I got. I don’t tend to get out much when I’m in Florida; I’ve been visiting on and off for 15 years and I’ve seen the sights. The main attraction is simply quality time with my friend, and lots of concentrated work time. I got plenty of both. 

APRIL-MAY: Toronto

April is a bit of a swing-month in Toronto weather-wise, but on the whole it’s spring-like, or at least it should be. Unfortunately Toronto had a historically decrepit spring, so I wasn’t spared the next two months of depressingly chilly and rainy weather. 

That said, I enjoyed plenty of time with family and friends, getting work projects done (check out my list of Top Posts of the Year below to get a sense of what kept me busy), and settling into my delightful digs that I’d only acquired the previous September and stayed in for a couple of months before leaving for the winter. 

JUNE: Boston

While I spent most of June in and around Toronto, I did make a trip to Boston, where I attended TravelCon; a travel media creator’s conference that I’m slated to speak at this year. Use the discount code SPEAKER50 for a $50 discount on your 2020 ticket!

It was like a high-school reunion for me; having been in the industry since 2006 (they call me one of the “OG travel bloggers”), I have forged many relationships with colleagues online but I’ve met very few in person. TravelCon was not only an educational and inspirational conference, but it was a way to convert online friendships into in-person ones, and to deepen relationships with friends I’d met once or twice before in various far-flung destinations. 

Boston was also a turning point for me, in realizing that I have something to offer the conference scene, which, in conjunction with my already extensive speaking experience from previous careers, could mean a new step in my travel career/business. 

JULY – AUGUST: Toronto

July and August are the best months of the year to be in Toronto in my opinion, with tons of events on and delightful weather to enjoy. So I took the summer to continue to “settle” back into my hometown and observe how it changed during my 12-year absence. 

SEPTEMBER: Montana

Inspired by TravelCon, I applied (and was accepted) to speak at TBEX (Travel Blog Exchange); the longest-standing travel blogging conference. It went extremely well, and inspired me to further develop my speaking career. 

Some of my friends asked me why on earth a travel conference would be held in Montana, but I was excited to visit a part of the U.S. that was new to my repertoire. And Montana didn’t disappoint; I visited Yellowstone National Park, went fly fishing, climbing, had some close encounters with wildlife, and an amazing road trip overall. 

See also: Best Things to do in Yellowstone Country, Montana

OCTOBER: Newfoundland

Guatemala was good. Boston was fun. Montana was adventurous. But the trip of the year was my expedition cruise around Newfoundland with Adventure Canada. This is bucket list stuff, and the experience far surpassed all my expectations. I hope to do one of their high arctic itineraries in the next year or two. 

In a sense I don’t have words for what happened on the trip, but in fact I have many, which you can read in the article below. I never thought a cruise could be as enlightening as it was on so many levels, and I think the resulting article is some of my best writing. 

See also: This is the Best Way to Visit Newfoundland

NOVEMBER: Poland, Latvia, Finland

Latvia wasn’t on my list of places to visit, which makes me very grateful that it was the site of the Women in Travel Summit (at which I spoke) because Latvia is awesome, and I hope to return and explore the place further. I went bobsledding on an Olympic track, experienced a traditional Latvian sauna, and hiked around in both Latvia’s beautiful wilderness and the scenic urban landscapes of Riga. 

See also: Why I Want to Return to Latvia 

I made the most of my trip to Europe by flying into Poland enroute and spending a few days in Warsaw, and spending a few days in Helsinki on the way back home. Poland, Latvia, and Finland were all new countries for me (as was Guatemala, earlier in the year). 

DECEMBER: Florida

I stayed in Toronto just long enough for a few minor snowfalls, which reminded me why I’ve been avoiding winter for more than a decade. Snow is fabulous – unless you’re in a city and trying to navigate your way through it. And in my opinion, cold weather has few redeeming qualities.

So, I hit the road for the winter. Until just a few days before my departure, Morocco was first on the itinerary, but the trip fell through (for personal reasons) at the last minute, which ironically brought me full-circle back to Florida. 

I already have plenty of travel plans for 2020, which should be a fun year of travel adventures, some cool career moves, and plenty of quality time with awesome people. 

How My Travels Changed in 2019

Beyond the obvious lifestyle change of having a home base and thus doing more “rubber band trips”, my travel style and choices have evolved as well. 

I was able to do trips like the expedition cruise to Newfoundland, which required a specific and somewhat extensive list of gear that would never have fit into my full-time travel packing list. In fact, my full-time travel lifestyle has in some ways prevented me from having certain travel experiences and adventures, for reasons that include not being able to bring my “house” along (even though my house was my luggage), or having nowhere to store my stuff, or not owning appropriate attire for the adventure at hand. 

With the ability to leave my stuff in Toronto and pack in a more targeted way, I was also able to re-embrace the delights of carry-on travel for my shorter trips, and in so doing, I rigorously tested a number of ingeniously-designed carry-on backpacks that allow you to travel with (literally) just one bag. I still take checked luggage for slow travel and/or on trips longer than two months (here’s why). 

I’ve noted before that the logistics of full-time travel require a monumental amount of time and energy. Regularly changing locations requires advance research/booking/travel time, and learning how to survive in each new place eats (significantly) into work time. It’s one of the reasons why my online business was a bit stagnant for so many years; with a travel lifestyle, there simply weren’t enough hours in a day to get the sort of work done that needed to be done. The ultimate cost ended up being my health, when I burned out. 

Not that I’m complaining! I made a successful go of financially sustainable full-time travel for 12 years, and that’s something to celebrate. Travel rocks. 

But as you’ll also read more about in my upcoming 2019 income report, having a home base with an ergonomically friendly workstation, and a few months with no major travel, I was able to tackle a ton of projects that had been on the back burner for too long, and my income almost doubled as a result. I also had the chance to get back into speaking, which is very rewarding for me and usually includes a cool travel experience too.

You can read more about the business end of things in my upcoming income report. In the meantime, here are some in-depth travel resources I kicked out by virtue of having a home base to work from: 

Top Posts of 2019

How to Create a Long-Term Travel Budget

Classic Travel Scams, and How to Avoid Them 

Mystery Shopping for Travel: Get 50% off Airfare and Free Hotels

Cell Phone Travel Basics: International Phone Plans, SIM Cards, and More

A Guide to Clean Drinking Water Around the World

My Zero Waste Kit – for Travel and Home 

The Ultimate Packing List for Long-Term Travel 

The Best Carry-On Backpack for One Bag Travel 

The Ultimate Guide to Frequent Flyer Miles and Travel Hacking

Lastly, 2019 was a year of nurturing. Of resting (really resting) and recuperating from the deep yet subtle corrosive tolls that traveling too fast for too long took on me. 

Even more important than the rest I got, was the reconnection with my small tribe of lifelong friends and family who were always supportive over the years, but because of distance we weren’t truly involved in one another’s lives. 

For many lifestyle travelers, we feel we’ve achieved a travel victory if we are accepted in a foreign land; if we attain a sense of belonging in an otherwise unfamiliar landscape. I traveled the world for many years in search of that feeling of belonging. But 2019 taught me that I always had that belonging in the hearts of my friends and family, and it was a year for nurturing and celebrating it. 

This post Redefining My Travels in 2019 (Where I Went) appeared first on The Professional Hobo. Please click through to read it in full!

This post was originally published in 2019. It has since been updated for accuracy of links and content. 

Click here to see all of my Annual Income and Expense Summaries!

The last few years have been rough for me across the board on a variety of levels, from health to business and beyond. Around mid-2017 I realized I had hit a new low business-wise, rounding out the year with my lowest income since 2011. And towards the end of 2017 my health also came into the fray, making matters very muddled indeed.

So 2018 was a year for picking up the pieces and getting on with it. On all fronts (from self-care to business acumen) I did well with this initiative, and created systems and infrastructure to keep improving the process in 2019 (more on that later).

Here is  where I went and what I did in 2018.

And here is how much I spent in 2018.

2018 Location Independent Income Sources

NOTE: My income was earned in a few currencies, namely US and Canadian dollars – all of which I’ve converted to US dollars for the purposes of this report. Unfortunately, with currency fluctuations throughout the year, these numbers are approximate at best.

Freelance Writing: $13,089

This number is almost double my freelance writing income from 2017, though still not the highest it has ever been (which is close to $30k). It is comprised of three components: approx $2,500 in receivables from a one-off project that I completed the year prior, my ongoing  Dear Nora” column at CreditWalk, and a new gig I took up part way through 2018 with GoBankingRates.

As you can see, freelance writing comprises over 40% of my total income so it is pretty integral to my online living. However I’m very choosy about the gigs I take, and eventually, I’d like for my own website and related sources of income to be substantial enough that I don’t need to write elsewhere in order to pay the bills.

Having said that, freelance writing is an excellent complement to a blogging career. An offsite article is a great way to create backlinks, and a blog is a fabulous way to showcase your freelance portfolio.

I write extensively about freelance writing as a career here: Ways to Make Money While Traveling.

Affiliate Sales: $8,735

This is pretty low. In fact, the only years where my affiliate income was lower were 2011 ($5,500) and 2013 ($8,200). Part of the challenge is that my Amazon affiliate income (which formerly comprised about 60% of all my affiliate income) tanked in 2017 and hasn’t properly recovered since.

But this is the world of earning money online. An algorithm or program structure changes, and income can soar or plummet. So I’ve been busy building alternate sources of affiliate income to make up the difference. It’s slow-going, but effective. In 2018, I earned affiliate income from 17 different sources, the beefiest of which were related to women’s travel clothing, travel insurance, virtual mailbox services, and travel blogging courses.

Advertising & Sponsored Posts: $6,631

This is more than double my advertising income from 2017 (woohoo!), and the highest since 2012 (when I earned $7,700). In 2012 it was high because back then it was cool to sell text links. Since then I stopped selling text links and took very few sponsored posts. And to this day, I do not accept guest posts, despite this being the current strategy for outreach campaigns (I receive multiple emails daily asking to submit guest posts to my site despite stating blatantly on my Contact page that I don’t accept them and automatically delete such requests. Sigh. End rant).

In 2018 I restructured everything. The big boon happened when I changed ad networks to Mediavine and my income from in-content and sidebar ads literally multiplied by 10! These ads accounted for 70% of my total advertising income for the year. For years, I resisted littering my site with ads. And I’m sorry, dear reader, that I’ve been drawn to “the dark side”. But seriously. Ads seem to be a fact of life when it comes to the browsing experience, and my income went from $80/month to $800/month. (!) What would you have done?

The remaining 30% of my income in this category came from a few select sponsored posts, and from some special sponsored features in my monthly newsletter.

Book Sales: $1,831

This is the lowest my income from book sales has been since 2014 (when I was brand new to writing and selling books but made a good show of it with $1,600). But considering the fact that I haven’t kicked out any new books since 2015, I’m still pleased with this passive form of income. A colleague of mine who has a small publishing empire says that any book sales after the first year are to be considered as “gravy” or bonus. I don’t quite agree with his analysis, since the books I’ve written are pretty evergreen, and I even republished one in 2017 with updated formats and links just to ensure it’s incredible value.

Didn’t know that I’m a published author? I am. I wrote How to Get Free Accommodation Around the World (now in its 2nd edition and recently released in Amazon Kindle format), Tales of Trains: Where the Journey is the Destination (available directly through my website as well as in Kindle and paperback formats on Amazon), and  Working on the Road: The Unconventional Guide to Full-Time Freedom (since discontinued).

Miscellaneous: $30

That’s right, folks. I earned a delicious $30 in 2018 as royalties from a Hollywood movie I was in a gazillion years ago.

TOTAL INCOME: $30,316

This is a vast improvement over my 2017 income, which was pretty disappointing. Still, this number is lower than what I earned in 2012-2015 inclusive.

But, things are moving in the right direction, and I have reason to believe I’m on a new track that will prove to be both lucrative and rewarding. (Read on).

And, it’s worth noting, as usual, that if you compare my 2018 income here with my 2018 expenses, you’ll see that I have continued to walk the talk of traveling full-time in a financially sustainable way….which is  what really matters when we’re talking about income and expenses.

What I Did Right in 2018

Somewhere in 2018 I realized something that was key to my turning things around: I owned a job, not a business. I was working full-time just to stay in place and keep up with everything. I was an unwitting hamster in a wheel of my own creation.

Problem is, I knew that in order to turn things around I needed to invest in outsourcing the things I couldn’t/wouldn’t do. But in order to invest, I needed more income. I was trapped in a frustrating vicious circle that I couldn’t navigate my way out of.

Then, in February, a friend and colleague I was hanging out with (the same one who I immortalized in my “All Life is Suffering” essay) suggested I  hire somebody on a profit-sharing basis.

Cue in angel song.

I did exactly that, and between April and December 2018 I worked with an SEO-tastic woman who not only helped me to optimize my content, but she reorganized my entire site by taking dozens upon dozens of small posts that weren’t getting views, and amalgamating them into gigantic useful  Travel Lifestyle Guides that now showcase the wealth of information I have on all the logistics of travel and finance that formerly got lost in the shuffle. To quantify her value, here is an SEO Case Study she wrote about how she increased traffic to just one of my posts by 450% in one day.

I also hired a virtual assistant to take care of the tasks I really didn’t need to be doing, such as uploading posts and newsletters, researching articles, certain social media tasks, and more. I am absolutely horrible at delegating, and it has been an extra investment in time to create the instructional documents for each task, but now that the infrastructure is in place and my assistant is trained up, things are looking much better.

Both of these moves dramatically increased my business expenses (as evidenced in my 2018 Expense report). But, given that I was paying my SEO gal on a profit-sharing basis, I still had my established base income to live on.

My 2019 Business Plan

I will continue to pay my SEO gal a decreasing percentage of profits for the first five months of 2019 (since much of the work she did in 2018 will have delayed results in terms of traffic and income increases).

I also have one last card up my sleeve that I hope will increase my traffic (and income) even further: I have hired somebody to create and manage my Pinterest account. Pinterest is a huge source of traffic for many (if not most) of my colleagues, but since I didn’t have the energy or wherewithal over the years to create and build/manage yet another social account, I let it slide. While Pinterest algorithms have recently changed that have made traffic possibilities more questionable, I am hopeful that this investment (which will probably end up being $1,000-$1,500) will pay off.

But on the whole, the name of the game in 2019 is SHIFT. Having spent the last year setting up infrastructures to increase traffic, automate, and outsource, it’s time to step away from the laptop (at least a bit). I know I wrote something similar in last year’s income report, and only ended up investing more time and energy in the business, but this time I really mean it! I’ve now transformed my “job” into a “business”. I want to reap the rewards by affording myself some time to relax and continue healing from too many years of frenetic activity (travel-wise and business-wise). To read. To binge Netflix. And to spend more face time with people that I care about.

But as much as I fantasize about doing nothing, I also know myself well enough to know that it probably won’t happen (at least, not for long). In fact, here are a just few of the possibilities I’m entertaining:

I’m considering hiring a publicist. Now that I have a base in Toronto, I can “hit the tv circuit”. Years ago when my first book came out (one that I co-authored), I did a live guest appearance on Canada AM. They loved me so much that they asked me to return to do a regular series with them! Problem was, I couldn’t – I was on a plane back to Australia. So I had to let that opportunity slip. Well, folks – I’m back! And I want in. It’s also a great way for me to parlay all these years of travel experience into a different way of communicating about it, and to continue to build an audience (and income) for this website.

Along these lines, I’m going to start doing public speaking engagements. While the idea is generally still in its infancy, I already have a few gigs lined up, including TBEX (Travel Blog Exchange) and Toronto Travel Massive, where I’ll be speaking about how to use freelance writing to put your blog on the map. But my audience will eventually extend beyond travel bloggers, as I craft different messages to both aspiring travelers, armchair travelers, and people who want to make a big change in their lives.

I’ve been saying it for a while now, and I’ll say it again: I’m gunning to host an international network travel tv show. Various opportunities along these lines tend to come (and go); just last month I was asked to submit an application to be featured in a travel documentary. I’m not holding my breath…but it’s nice to be asked. In the meantime, I have a killer idea for a travel tv show; I just need a production company to back it and help me put it all together.

These are opportunities related to my existing business. But I’m also open to other gigs. I was actually offered a very interesting job that would have combined my travel and cultural expertise with my business experience and taken me around the world. Ironically I turned it down. Why? Because the offer wasn’t quite right; among other things, the timing was off, and it would have meant sacrificing my continued recovery from burnout, this website, or (most likely) both.

But again, it’s nice to be asked. The sheer invitation thereof helped me to maintain faith that there are opportunities out there, some of which I couldn’t possibly predict. All that is required is to remain open, and see what happens.

Previous Income Reports

2017 ($22,000)

2016 ($28,000)

2015 ($34,000)

2014 ($31,000)

2013 ($43,000)

2012 ($39,000)

2011 ($22,000)

This post My 2018 Location Independent Income Report appeared first on The Professional Hobo. Please click through to read it in full!

Let’s take a look at everything I spent in 2018 – business, personal, and otherwise – a year that saw me travel over 32,000 miles to six countries (with a whole lotta bouncing around within a few of those countries).

Since 2010, I’ve published my full-time travel expenses annually; an uncensored breakdown of all my expenses for the year, demonstrating that the travel lifestyle is much more achievable than most people think.

This post was originally published in 2019. It has since been updated for accuracy of links and content. 

Click here to see all of my Annual Income and Expense Summaries!

2018 Overview

2018 was an interesting year that involved an inner journey even more so than an outer one. While my location changed a dozen times over the year which saw me visit six countries, the real journey for me in 2018 was a journey of healing; healing from burnout, a variety of physical ailments (likely a result of  bad water), and from traveling a bit too far, for a bit too long. It’s ultimately why I ended up setting up a home base in the latter half of the year.

You’ll see some of these healing and home base endeavours reflected in my travel expenses throughout the year.

For more on the year’s activities: see 2018: 6 Countries, 32k Miles, And Some BIG Changes

Here’s a breakdown of my movements in 2018:

• 1 month in Chiang Mai
• 1 month in Hoi An
• 1 month in Koh Phangan
• 1 month in Melbourne
• 2 weeks in Toronto
• 2 weeks in London
• 2 weeks in Hollywood FL
• 4.5 months in Toronto
• 1.5 weeks in San Diego CA
• 1.5 weeks in Palmdale CA
• 5 weeks in Hollywood FL
  
  

What I Spent in 2018: $27,611

At the end of this post, I’ll share some observations on how 2018 fared in comparison to other years. In the meantime…

I mention this often, but there are two matters that bear repeating, emphatically:

1 – Financially sustainable travel is not synonymous with budget travel.

I’m not trying to travel full-time on a restrictive budget. When a mini-documentary about me went a bit viral, a small army of viewers attacked my annual expenses as being too high.

“Where’s the challenge in that?” they said. A few people suggested I should be riding around the world on a bicycle and sleeping in a tent. (Literally).

Well, I’m not into “should”s. If somebody tells me I should do something, chances are I’ll run as fast as I can in the opposite direction (but that’s another story).

The reality is, travel as a lifestyle is budget-less. There are no rights and wrongs nor shoulds and shouldn’ts. Only what we choose to spend and how we choose to travel.

I’ve traveled the world for anything from $17k/year to $44k/year. I’m not looking to win any prizes; I’m just telling it like it is.

The most important thing to note about my travel expenses every year regardless of the total sum, is that I am comfortable. I live well. I don’t want for much. I make spending choices, and I live well by them. And when I want lobster, I eat lobster.

Here’s more on what Financially Sustainable Travel really means, and how to create your own realistic long-term travel budget. 

2 – The expenses in this report are life expenses more than travel expenses.

This is important, and perhaps I haven’t been clear enough about this in the past.

Many of the expenses in these reports aren’t travel-related at all. While my online business is (obviously) about travel, my business expenses aren’t directly related to travel in any way. Neither are medical nor banking expenses.

In fact, if we subtract those three expenses from my total this year, I spent $19,546. I could argue that a few more expenses yet could be subtracted that aren’t travel-related, but I think you get the point.

When I used to work in the financial planning industry, the insider “joke” was that it’s all smoke and mirrors. You can massage any number to look high or low or good or bad just by putting it in the right context.

Rest assured there’s no smoke clouding the view with my annual reports. I just state the facts, and you can do with them as you please.

So….are we cool? Great. On with the show!

Monthly Breakdown

All amounts have been converted to US Dollars for ease of comparison.

JANUARY (Chiang Mai, Thailand)

$996

To kick off 2018, January was an unremarkable month (financially speaking) with a nice low total. Living in Thailand is cheap!

The groceries expense was so low because I only bought coffee and breakfast foods. There’s almost no point in setting up a kitchen and cooking whilst in Thailand, when you can get a delicious prepared meal for a couple of dollars.

And that’s not a typo for accommodation; my lovely one-bedroom condo with gym and pool was under $250/month. (See also: How to Find an Apartment in Chiang Mai)

• Accommodation $234
• Transportation $177
• Food&Drink $253
• Groceries $31
• Phone&Internet $9
• Business $110
• Tours/Activities $108
• Personal $45
• Gifts $22
• Banking $7
  
  

FEBRUARY (Hoi An, Vietnam)

$1,568

Ringing in the Vietnamese New Year in Hoi An was a pretty amazing experience, especially living in a local rented apartment nestled on a rice paddy, as I was (again, for less than $250).

The transportation expense looks high for a simple flight from Thailand to Vietnam, no? You’re right. In February I spent $700 purchasing a whack of frequent flyer miles at a very special deal. Later in the year it (more than) funded my business class flights from Melbourne to New York.

See also: A Beginner’s Guide to Frequent Flyer Miles & Travel Hacking Like a Pro

• Accommodation $235
• Transportation $886
• Food&Drink $201
• Groceries $20
• Phone&Internet $16
• Business $114
• Tours/Activities $6
• Personal $26
• Gifts $4
• Banking $60
  
  

MARCH (Koh Phangan, Thailand)

$2,360

The rain in Vietnam drove me back to Thailand, where this time I zoned in on the southern island of Koh Phangan. The main attraction (and associated expense in the medical category)? An intensive detox retreat that I hoped would help me with the mounting issues (physical and emotional) that were weighing me down. I literally tried to clear it out of me. Not sure if it worked, but it sure made for a good story.

Again, the transportation expense is coming in pretty high; it includes not only my travel between Vietnam and Thailand, but also a flight to Australia which I hopped on at the very end of March.

• Accommodation $239
• Transportation $671
• Food&Drink $295
• Groceries $69
• Phone&Internet $31
• Business $123
• Personal $15
• Medical $868
• Gifts $49
  
  

APRIL (Melbourne, Australia)

$670

April was definitely my most inexpensive month of the year, as I was in the loving care of some Australian friends who turned their home into a retreat centre for me to really kickstart my healing journey. (I have amazing friends).

My biggest expenses were meals out and groceries, as I was under firm instructions to eat really well (never a hardship for me).

• Accommodation $0!
• Transportation $17
• Food&Drink $217
• Groceries $152
• Phone&Internet $24
• Business $91
• Tours/Activities $137
• Personal $16
• Gifts $16
  
  

MAY (Toronto Canada, London England)

$1,977

After dropping my bags in Toronto in the first half of May, I skipped off to London to visit some friends.

Check out that transportation expense: it includes the taxes for my rewards flight from Australia to New York (in business class), my flight from New York to Toronto, and my flight from Toronto to London. I think that’s pretty good!

The beefy medical expenses were the ridiculous amount of (high-quality) vitamin supplements prescribed to me by my Australian hosts. They’ve sold me on the benefits of vitamins; I’m a regular user now.

The large balance in the Gifts category is because I like to thank hosts for their hospitality with something like a nice dinner or a gift, and I had a few gifts to give since my accommodation in Australia and London was gratis.

Lastly, you’ll see a slightly higher total in the Business category; a trend that only increased as the rest of 2018 progressed. This is because I took on an SEO-riffic employee to help me clean up my website.

• Accommodation $0!
• Transportation $568
• Food&Drink $217
• Groceries $81
• Phone&Internet $15
• Business $276
• Tours/Activities $111
• Personal $172
• Medical $288
• Gifts $250
  
  

JUNE (Hollywood Florida, Toronto Canada)

$3,334

From London, I popped over to a friend’s place in Hollywood Florida (a regular haunt for me) for two weeks, before returning to the comfort of my Mum’s couch in Toronto for the rest of June. While my accommodation for the month was largely free, I did need a hotel on my way out of London, hence the oddball accommodation expense.

By contrast, my transportation expenses were on the higher side, but still reasonable considering it included a flight from London to Florida, then Florida to Toronto, plus a bunch of Uber rides in Florida.

The business category is where I really spent my money in June (without it my travel/living expenses were only $1,529). My annual managed hosting bill came in (always a shocker, but worth every penny), and my new employee gobbled up the rest.

• Accommodation $106
• Transportation $767
• Food&Drink $124
• Groceries $291
• Phone&Internet $30
• Business $1,805
• Tours/Activities $26
• Personal $138
• Medical $42
• Gifts $5

JULY (Toronto, Canada)

$2,281

Knowing that I planned to spend the summer in Toronto, and continuing on my healing journey, I wanted to have my own place, so I sublet an apartment for most of July and part of August. This, in addition to some pretty hefty food bills (both groceries and eating out) as well as continued salary expenses, accounted for most of July’s expenditures.

• Accommodation $723
• Transportation $71
• Food&Drink $317
• Groceries $420
• Phone&Internet $76
• Business $487
• Tours/Activities $34
• Personal $153
  
  

AUGUST (Toronto, Canada)

$1,630

August on the surface was pretty low-key. I continued to hang out in Toronto, and went to a friend’s cottage north of the city for one glorious week.

But behind the scenes, August was a game-changing month; one where I decided I would be setting up my next home base in Toronto. I serendipitously found the perfect apartment for the right price in an ideal location, with a move-in date of September 1^st. It happened incredibly quickly! So, while all other expenses are pretty ordinary, the $200 insurance cost is my annual renter’s insurance premium.

• Accommodation $255
• Transportation $80
• Food&Drink $222
• Groceries $145
• Phone&Internet $108
• Business $509
• Personal $32
• Medical $20
• Gifts $44
• Insurance $214
  
  

SEPTEMBER (Toronto, Canada)

$4,214

September is the bell-ringer for most expensive month of the year! It stands to reason, with accommodation expenses soaring due to setting up and furnishing my new apartment largely from scratch. In fact, all things considered I did quite well! Between friends who were downsizing and sites like Freecycle, I got a lot of great pieces of furniture and housewares for free.

Regardless, setting up a place always costs, which is why in 2006, I set aside and invested the money I made when I originally sold everything I owned to travel, instead of adding it to my travel fund; I knew eventually that money would come in handy, and it did.

See also: How to Manage Your Money: The Ultimate Guide to Financial Planning for Travelers

• Accommodation $2,521
• Transportation $15
• Food&Drink $243
• Groceries $340
• Phone&Internet $43
• Business $634
• Tours/Activities $72
• Personal $70
• Medical $136
• Gifts $142
  
  

OCTOBER (Toronto, Canada)

$3,409

I continued to “nest” in October and to make my delightful Toronto apartment truly mine. Expenses this month were higher in the Personal category due to buying some accoutrements for the new place as well as some gear for upcoming travels.

And in the Business category (in addition to regular business expenses including employee salary), I paid an annual fee for my newsletter service, and I bought a ticket to a conference in June 2019.

• Accommodation $826
• Transportation $43
• Food&Drink $314
• Groceries $235
• Phone&Internet $43
• Business $1,285
• Tours/Activities $30
• Personal $395
• Medical $88
• Gifts $44
• Banking $106
  
  

NOVEMBER (San Diego, Desert Hot Springs, LA, Palmdale – California)

$2,884

Much as I adored my little pad in Toronto, circumstances (including the encroaching winter weather) dictated that it was time for me to hit the road again. In this and future months, you will see that the inherent cost to sustain my apartment (rent, hydro, internet) continues whether or not I am there – which in turn increases my cost of living and traveling. It’s a worthwhile expense however, as the apartment has provided me with a level of grounding and stability that I needed after the last few years of frenetic nomadic travel. And, as you’ll see in my income report, maintaining this home base is 100% financially sustainable; for me, financial sustainability is the real bottom line.

So, for November, the Accommodation category not only includes the rent and hydro for my Toronto apartment, but also a few hotel stays here and there between staying with friends all over California. Transportation includes a flight from Toronto to California and buses around the state.

Because I was in “tourist mode” throughout much of my Californian adventures, my Tours/Activities expenses were also pretty high, including a mini-road trip to Desert Hot Springs and Joshua Tree, and a (delightful, but expensive) day at Universal Studios.

The insurance expense was actually refreshing for me; after years of spending about $1,400/year on expat insurance (international medical insurance), I’m off the hook! My return to Canada and commitment to spend half of every year there (cumulatively) means I am back on the provincial healthcare system! If you’re not Canadian (or are scratching your head), this means I now qualify for regular ol’ travel insurance. So for $315, I got a policy with World Nomads to cover me for the next five months on the road! While 2018 may have seen many increases in expenses (like Business and Accommodation), this was a welcome reduction.

See also: The Complete and Easy Guide to Insurance for Travelers

• Accommodation $959
• Transportation $273
• Food&Drink $312
• Groceries $114
• Phone&Internet $43
• Business $387
• Tours/Activities $341
• Personal $10
• Medical $14
• Gifts $117
• Insurance $315
  
  

DECEMBER (Hollywood FL, USA)

$2,287

December was a pretty sedentary month, spent with an old friend in a familiar setting. I continued to rest, work, and enjoy the warm weather. None of my expenses were particularly remarkable; I picked up some odds and ends in the Personal category, in preparation to spend the first quarter of 2019 in Guatemala.

• Accommodation $767
• Transportation $190
• Food&Drink $167
• Groceries $219
• Phone&Internet $43
• Business $530
• Personal $283
• Medical $43
• Banking $45
  
  

2018 Summary Notes

The reactions I get to these annual cost-of-full-time travel posts are often opposed. One camp will say “OMG $27,611 is so much money! That’s not budget-friendly at all!”, and another camp will wonder how on earth I covered so much territory for so little money. It’s all about frame of reference.

But on the whole, and in comparison to other years, 2018 is neither high or low. Despite setting up a home base in a very expensive city (Toronto), I’ve had more expensive years (2014, 2013, and 2012 which ranged from $28k-$44k). Accommodation itself also hasn’t been the highest it has ever been; I beat it in 2014 with both an active year of travel (and relatively little free accommodation), and setting up a home base in Peru in the last quarter of that year.

Business expenses, however, totalled over $6,300; that’s 50% higher than in 2017 and even more than most other years. I expect in 2019 my business expenses will be even higher yet. This is because I’ve really upped the ante and gotten serious about investing in my online business. You’ll read more about what that means in my annual income report for 2018, coming soon.

In past years, I have observed that there seems to be a “sweet spot” around $24,000, which seems to have been a reasonable amount of money to spend on my full-time travel lifestyle without sacrificing anything, and including all (non-travel) incidentals. So, while 2018’s expenses are certainly higher than that sweet spot, much of the increase came in the form of setting up an apartment and hiring employees for my online business. All in all, I’m pleased with my expenses, which, as you’ll see from my upcoming annual income report, have been financially sustainable – which is the whole point of publishing these reports for you!

Previous Full-Time Travel Expense Reports:

2010: $17,000

2011: $18,000

2012: $28,000

2013: $44,000

2014: $28,000

2015: $25,000

2016: $23,000

2017: $21,000

This post My Full-Time Travel Expenses: 2018 Report appeared first on The Professional Hobo. Please click through to read it in full!

This post was originally published in 2018. It has since been updated for accuracy of links and content. 

Click here to see all of my Annual Income and Expense Summaries!

2017 was a bizarre year for me. Following an upsetting upheaval in 2016, I was still scrambling to find my feet, and spent the first half of the year living and volunteering at a retreat centre in Ecuador, while informally continuing my shamanic studies of plant medicine. But at some point in the year, an expiring Ecuadorian visa accompanied by an inner voice told me it was time for a shift. I spent the rest of the year bouncing around Asia.

This time away from plant medicine commitments allowed/forced me to take a hard look at my online business (which had been largely ignored for a few years), and what I saw wasn’t pretty. So I kicked things back into high gear and put my nose to the grindstone. Problem is, by the end of the year, the only thing I’d managed to do was to burn myself out. This has led to a further business (and life) crisis. But more on that further below; first, I present: my 2017 Income Report…for better or worse.

Click here for more info on where I went and when (and why) in 2017. 

2017 Income Report: Income Sources

NOTE: My income was earned in a few currencies, namely US and Canadian dollars – all of which I’ve converted to US dollars for the purposes of this 2017 Income Report. Unfortunately, with currency fluctuations throughout the year, these numbers are approximate at best.

Freelance Writing: $7,496

My freelance writing income has fluctuated wildly over the years from $6,000 – $30,000. So my 2017 freelance writing income is definitely at the lower end of the spectrum (although that number is actually more like $10,000 if I include an unreceived billable, which I’ll lump into my 2018 income report instead).

It’s not low for lack of available work; rather I’ve kept my freelance writing commitments to a minimum since 2015 when I dropped most of my gigs to pursue my studies of shamanism and plant medicine in South America. Although I took a break from my studies and hit the road in a more concentrated fashion in the last half of 2017, I didn’t actively pursue more freelance writing gigs. Instead, I focused on my website….read on for more on how that went….

Affiliate Sales: $9,899

This within $10 of my affiliate income from 2016, which is not only quite the coincidence, but is also pretty surprising to me given that my Amazon income (which typically makes up 60% of my total affiliate sales income) tanked around September and hasn’t properly recovered. Thankfully, I was able to make up for the difference throughout the year between my 20 other affiliate income sources, most notably my affiliation with Anatomie travel clothing. Other affiliate sources worth mentioning are a blogging course I heartily endorse, insurance recommendations, and even VPNs and virtual mailing services.

Advertising: $2,885

Ironically even though I moved to a more lucrative ad network in 2016, my 2017 advertising income is down almost $1,000 from 2016. This is largely because I have stopped accepting text links and other forms of advertising that the Google-Gods now look down upon. I also don’t accept sponsored guest posts (despite daily requests for such). Thus, the advertising opportunities I can accept – at least the ones that remotely serve my readership – are minimal and sporadic.

Book Sales: $2,193

This is from the sale of my three books: Working on the Road: The Unconventional Guide to Full-Time Freedom (since discontinued), How to Get Free Accommodation Around the World, and Tales of Trains: Where the Journey is the Destination. Although all three remain relevant and up-to-date resources, they are a few years old, and thus, my total book sales are down about $800 from 2016.

TOTAL INCOME: $22,473

…which is almost an all-time low since I started recording and publishing my income in 2011 (when I earned about $800 less). It actually kind of hurts to write this number and to publish it for all to see, given that I’m supposed to be a “big-time successful travel blogger”, with one of the longest-standing travel blogs out there.

But… I must admit I didn’t give my online business the attention it deserved for over three years. And even when I have been giving it attention, it probably wasn’t the sort of attention it needed. There’s a lot to what’s going on here (see below for a teaser), but for the most part I remain grateful that I’ve been able to earn what I have over the last few years given the circumstances.

AND…. in the name of financially sustainable full-time travel, I’m still kicking ass and taking names; my expenses for 2017 (a very active year covering 10 countries) were still less than my income, thus continuing my lifestyle as more than affordable.

2017 Income Report: What Happened?!?!

It all started with my realization mid-year that scaling back my business activities for over three years has cost me dearly (in terms of SEO, visitors, income, and more, given the longevity and stature of my website).

So I scrambled. I changed hosts, redesigned the website, got an SSL certificate, and started optimizing (a bit). I doubled my post regularity, breathed new life into my YouTube channel, and increased my social media marketing efforts.

But every time I felt I was making progress somewhere, I got slapped somewhere else. My Amazon income tanked; so I hired somebody to figure out why. Turns out that (in addition to Amazon changing their payment policy), my organic search traffic was down dramatically – the only reason I didn’t notice was because I had made up for it with increased social media traffic (problem is, that kind of traffic isn’t as likely to buy stuff that earns me affiliate income).

While trouble-shooting that problem, Instagram changed their algorithm to make a fickle platform I already disliked into a fickle platform I despised. Then Facebook changed their algorithm (and did so again just recently in an even more detrimental way).

Overall, it seemed that nothing I could do was actually helping my online business or increasing my income.

It all came to a head for me in India, whilst having butter poured in my eyes and oil squirted up my butt in a desperate attempt to get ahold of my deteriorating physical health. (Yeah, you read correctly; read more here). I realized I was spinning my wheels in too many ways, and it led to a full-on depression accompanied by burnout.

So I decided to kick it up another notch (cuz that’s what you do, right?). In an attempt to plan for a (much-needed) sabbatical, I charged ahead with the designs for an online course that teaches all the logistics of arranging your life and affairs for long-term travel to allow people to go smoothly from idea to reality in six months or less. I was going to design and launch the course, then tie everything up with a neat little bow and walk away for a while.

Instead, I burned out even harder, to the point where daily functionality was affected. It was in this state that I capped off 2017.

2018: What’s the Plan?

Somewhere in the throes of burnout, I realized a few things:

1) I’m tired of living my life from behind a laptop screen. Although it’s a liberating career to have that allows me to live and work from anywhere in the world, it comes with a perpetual work-life balance struggle, and I am craving more in-person interactions with people – which feels more real to me than this invisible umbilical cord connecting me to my laptop.

2) I need to simplify. Although I’ve spent most of my life as an entrepreneur, I’m also tired of the responsibility. My success as a travel blogger has been in large part due to longevity in an industry that built up around me and carried me with it, rather than any particular savvy when it comes to the finer aspects of running an online business. Much of the time, I feel like the industry has become too sophisticated for me, and I feel like I’m in over my head.

3) It’s time for a change. Blogging is the longest standing career I’ve ever had. Through my 20s, I changed careers every few years. To be brutally honest, I was tired of this career back in 2014 when I landed in Peru and found plant medicine as an alternative lifestyle (and income source, when I was assisting my teacher). The disappearance of that outlet/income has brought me back to blogging, and I’ve come full circle to how I was feeling almost four years ago….ready for something different.

4) I’m scared sh*tless. Everything is on the table for a redesign in 2018, including my business, location, lifestyle, health, relationships, and more. As liberating and amazing as this may seem, it’s also terrifying and unsettling. From a career perspective, this website is my baby, and I’m even more scared of letting it go than I was to sell my financial planning practice and everything I owned 12 years ago.

So…where do I even begin?

I’ve scaled back my online activities (again); a necessary measure to save my health – mental and physical. I’m working every other day, to learn what it’s like to have days off and away from the computer – something I’ve rarely allowed myself in the last decade or so. This means I’ve put the online course design on hold, stopped making videos for the most part, reduced my posting regularity back to once a week, and curbed my social media marketing plan. I’m using my days off to sleep, read, relax, spend time with my boyfriend, go for walks, and generally embrace the (long) process of unwinding.

I’m keeping my eyes peeled for opportunities. Opportunities like where to live, how to live, what to do, how to earn money, and more. But I’m not pushing any of it. I’m chilling out (as best I can; it’s not a strong suit for me) in the meantime, and focusing on enjoying the present moment more. The rest will come in time; of this I am sure.

Secretly (or perhaps not so secretly if I’m writing this for all to see), I’d love to host a travel tv show. As a former actor/singer/dancer with television production experience, I’ve been approached over the years by all the big networks (Travel Channel, Discovery, etc) to be the next Samantha Brown or Anthony Bourdain. But tv’s a fickle business and in every case something has fallen through enroute to the finish line of signing a contract.

I’d also be interested in more speaking gigs. At the moment I’m not exactly all jazzed up to speak about the blogging industry; but I see myself more as a story-teller, and let me tell you: I’ve got some great stories to tell. And I think I’ve got a different/wider audience to reach with those stories.

Speaking of story-telling, there is still a bloody memoir in me that needs to be written. I’ve been alluding to it for over two years since receiving the “divine” stroke of inspiration to write it, and yet every attempt to put together an outline has flopped in one way or another. I expect the book will happen yet (perhaps sooner than later); but I need to open up some space and time to create it, and I’m not yet in that place and time.

2018 on the whole is an exercise in faith and self-care. Depression and burnout have proven themselves to be more serious than I ever thought, but now I hear the message loud and clear: slow down (on all levels). And along with slowing down, is the faith that when the time is right, the next “big thing” will come.

In the meantime….patience.

Previous Income Reports

2016 ($28,000)

2015 ($34,000)

2014 ($31,000)

2013 ($43,000)

2012 ($39,000)

2011 ($22,000)

This post The Professional Hobo Reveals All: 2017 Income Report appeared first on The Professional Hobo. Please click through to read it in full!

Since 2010, I’ve published my full-time travel expenses annually; an uncensored breakdown of all my expenses for the year, demonstrating that the travel lifestyle is much more achievable than most people think.

This post was originally published in 2018. It has since been updated for accuracy of links and content. 

Click here to see all of my Annual Income and Expense Summaries!

What I Spent in 2017: Summary

2017 was neither the most expensive, nor the cheapest year of my travel career; rather, it was a good bit below my “sweet spot” which seems to be around $24,000. It was a year that took my breath away (if not my money) on a number of levels, with a few twists and turns I didn’t anticipate. Read on for a summary of what I spent in 2017, and how, and where.

Here’s a basic summary of where I was in 2017: (See Also: 10 Countries and 29,254 miles: This Was 2017)

• 2 weeks in Florida
• 4 months in Ecuador
• 1 week in Florida
• 1 day in Toronto(!)
• 2 months in Japan
• 1 month in Bali
• 2 weeks in Hong Kong and Macau
• 1 month in Indonesia (Bali and Jakarta)
• 1 month in India
• 1.5 months in Thailand
  
  

What I Spent in 2017: $20,668

Monthly Breakdown

All amounts have been converted to US Dollars for ease of comparison.

JANUARY (Florida, Ecuador)

$1,704

The year started off predictably, with a couple of weeks in Florida staying with my friend, before traveling to Ecuador and settling into a plant medicine retreat centre just outside of Cuenca, where I spent the next four months. I volunteered at the retreat centre, but not in full trade for my accommodation and food (as I’ve so often done over the years), since I also needed time to do my online work. Thus, for the next four months, you’ll see accommodation and food&drink expenses that reflect not only my rent and food at the retreat centre, but also my short trips around Cuenca and Ecuador during the breaks between retreats.

• Transportation $771
• Accommodation $310
• Food&Drink $187
• Groceries $138
• Phone&Internet $10
• Personal $67
• Business $95
• Tours/Activities $105
• Gifts $21
  
  

FEBRUARY (Ecuador)

$1,002

Even with rent to pay, life in Ecuador was good, simple, and cheap.

• Transportation $35
• Accommodation $650
• Food&Drink $17
• Groceries $13
• Phone&Internet $5
• Personal $35
• Business $212
• Tours/Activities $35
  
  

MARCH (Ecuador)

$1,462

March was a wee bit higher due to a five-day trip to Baños, but still very reasonable, all things considered.

• Transportation $63
• Accommodation $632
• Food&Drink $164
• Groceries $76
• Personal $145
• Business $252
• Tours/Activities $130
  
  

APRIL (Ecuador)

$949

April was the cheapest month of what I spent in 2017; a testament to the money-saving qualities of slow travel.

• Transportation $30
• Accommodation $590
• Food&Drink $125
• Groceries $49
• Phone&Internet $6
• Personal $5
• Business $94
• Tours/Activities $50
  
  

MAY (Ecuador, Florida)

$1,817

My business expenses shot up a wee bit in May due to an emergency computer repair job that actually inspired my departure from Ecuador at the end of the month (slightly ahead of schedule), since I couldn’t get the part I needed in Cuenca. Transportation expenses are mainly flights from Ecuador to Florida, but also a few panicked taxi rides around Cuenca and Florida to get my computer fixed.

• Transportation $687
• Accommodation $302
• Food&Drink $122
• Groceries $217
• Personal $39
• Business $369
• Tours/Activities $55
• Gifts $26
  
  

JUNE (Florida, Toronto, Japan)

$3,227

Despite having free accommodation all through June, it was my most expensive month of the year (by far), due to my flights from Florida to Japan (via Toronto, which believe it or not was the cheapest option), as well as a major investment in my business by switching to managed hosting and getting an SSL certificate.

• Transportation $1,026
• Food&Drink $259
• Groceries $307
• Personal $10
• Business $1,474
• Tours/Activities $70
• Gifts $81
  
  

JULY (Japan)

$1,213

Japan may be expensive on the whole, but if you have free accommodation (like I did, through house-sitting), it’s not so bad. The most money I spent was on my business, paying for some help in redesigning my website. The rest boiled down to some crazy sightseeing Japanese-style and food (and for what I spent, I ate very, very well….being Japan and all).

• Transportation $53
• Food&Drink $245
• Groceries $252
• Personal $208
• Business $424
• Gifts $31
  
  

AUGUST (Japan, Bali)

$2,881

August was the second most costly of what I spent in 2017; my largest expenditures being my annual expat insurance premium, followed by a month’s rent in a little Balinese villa. And yes, I transported myself from Japan to Bali (flights, taxis, buses, and trains included) for $122. The (business class!) flights were actually the least of my transportation expenses for the month, thanks to a little frequent flyer mile hack I discovered that cost me the same number of miles as for a domestic flight, but earned me a seat up front on a Dreamliner for eight blissful hours. (See also: Frequent Flyer Mile Accumulation, Management, & Redemption).

• Transportation $122
• Accommodation $607
• Food&Drink $307
• Groceries $94
• Phone&Internet $7
• Personal $75
• Business $310
• Tours/Activities $19
• Insurance $1,277
• Medical $51
• Gifts $12
  
  

SEPTEMBER (Hong Kong, Macau, Bali, Jakarta)

$2,452

September wasn’t cheap, but given my movements and activities, it wasn’t over-the-top. I flew from Bali to Hong Kong (where I shelled out an outrageous amount of money to sleep in a windowless shoebox for a week), then took a ferry to Macau (where I spent an equally outrageous amount of money to stay somewhere that made my Hong Kong shoebox look like a palace). Thankfully the rest of my expenses in Macau were covered due to a travel conference I was speaking at.

My return to Bali was bitter-sweet; less than two weeks after I checked into my glorious new place in Ubud, I (voluntarily) evacuated due to the volcano acting up. That meant some (literal) last-minute flights to Jakarta from Bali, to round out my transportation expenses for the month.

• Transportation $498
• Accommodation $906
• Food&Drink $370
• Groceries $42
• Phone&Internet $8
• Personal $139
• Business $289
• Tours/Activities $33
• Medical $49
• Gifts $118
  
  

OCTOBER (Jakarta, Sri Lanka, India)

$1,366

I stayed with friends of friends (of friends) in Jakarta until my mid-month departure for India; a trip that was inspired by a cheap error fare I discovered. Even though my first week or so in India was in the utter lap of luxury staying at the Fairmont in Jaipur and then taking the most luxurious train in the world to Mumbai, you won’t see that reflected here because they were sponsored trips. (Lucky me, huh?)

• Transportation $529
• Accommodation $241
• Food&Drink $107
• Phone&Internet $12
• Personal $39
• Business $357
• Gifts $81
  
  

NOVEMBER (India, Thailand)

$1,639

Lap of luxury or not, things went south for me in India; a place that hosted the year’s pinnacle crisis point for me, somewhere around the time butter was being poured into my eyes. (And in case you’re curious, yes, I paid for that experience, as is reflected in my medical expenses for the month). Three weeks in, I flew the coop to Chiang Mai Thailand, where I reunited with my boyfriend and spent the rest of the year lapping up some much needed creature comforts.

• Transportation $127
• Accommodation $373
• Food&Drink $271
• Groceries $142
• Phone&Internet $26
• Personal $12
• Business $276
• Medical $412
  
  

DECEMBER (Thailand)

$956

It’s no wonder that Thailand (and Chiang Mai in particular) is a hub for digital nomads: December was within $10 of my cheapest month of the year (April). I relaxed, I ate well (really well), socialized, got massages, and generally enjoyed all the accoutrements of this well-appointed Thai city. Although it helps that I split my accommodation expenses with my boyfriend, the savings was still relatively insignificant, given the cheap cost of living to begin with.

• Transportation $34
• Accommodation $262
• Food&Drink $176
• Groceries $58
• Phone&Internet $12
• Personal $60
• Business $194
• Tours/Activities $66
• Medical $94
  
  

Summary Notes

Funny, I visited twice as many countries in 2017 as I did in 2016, including some incredibly expensive places like Japan and Hong Kong, but what I spent in 2017 was over $2,500 less. I shelled out about $2,000 more in accommodation (as compared to 2016), and about $600 more in transportation expenses – again, not bad for visiting twice as many countries. But I spent much less on food and groceries, about $1,000 less on personal expenses, $3,000 less in tours and activities ($3k being the cost of the two plant medicine retreats I did towards the end of 2016), and of course, in 2016, I lost almost $1,000 in a (failed) attempt to get my residence in Peru.

Although my cost of accommodation was pretty low overall ($4,900 for the year), my only months of free accommodation were in June and July (mostly in Japan). I’m focusing a bit less on working in trade for free accommodation these days, and instead, looking for a place that I can call mine – which is something I’ll have to pay for.

Speaking of finding a place that I can call mine, this is my goal in 2018. I’ve had a few home bases along the way in my last dozen years of traveling (such as Australia, Grenada, and Peru), and it’s time for another one. I’m not sure where exactly home will be or what it will look like though, so until that magic moment when I find a new place to set in some roots, I will continue to wander and explore, following my nose.

This post 10 Countries for 20k: What I Spent in 2017 appeared first on The Professional Hobo. Please click through to read it in full!

This post was originally published in 2017. It has since been updated for accuracy of links and content. 

Each year I publish my own full-time travel expenses, as well as my income for the year. I do this not to set the bar for what you should earn or what you should spend in order to travel full-time in a financially sustainable way; rather – as the years go by and my own income and expenses vary – to demonstrate that there is no bar.

Click here to see all of my Annual Income and Expense Summaries!

In fact, it has been pointed out to me a few times over the years that I don’t earn very much money. I know this, and generally speaking, I like it that way.

I don’t work huge hours (in fact, I’ve been tracking my time recently and it turns out I work a lot less than I thought!), and I have the freedom to work where and when (and on what) I want. My expenses are always in line with (and usually less than) my income, and so I’m never left wanting for anything.

But my paltry income is far from the potential that earning a location independent living can yield. My Financial Case Studies series profiles real people earning a location independent living around the world. Can travel bloggers earn six figures? Why yes, yes they can. And some even do it without working much more than I do (once their business foundations have been established).

So, I’m neither a shining example of earning a location independent living, nor am I any kind of failure. What I love about being an entrepreneur, is that it’s up to me to design my career – and lifestyle, and income – however I wish.

Without further ado, here is exactly how I earned my keep in 2016.

2016 Income Sources

NOTE: My income was earned in a few currencies, namely US and Canadian dollars – all of which I’ve converted to US dollars here. Unfortunately, with currency fluctuations throughout the year, these numbers are approximate at best.

Freelance Writing: $10,475

This is much higher than 2015 ($6,000), but also lower than what I’ve earned in other years ($16,000+).

See, in 2015 I dropped most of my freelance gigs (to make time for my shamanic studies in Peru); but in 2016 when my life in Peru came to an end, I picked up another freelance writing gig that lasted through the year. I’m not yet sure what 2017 holds for me in the freelance writing department.

Affiliate Sales: $9,892

This is just a shade lower than 2015, with a steady 60% of my affiliate sales coming from Amazon. Given the vast repertoire of posts on my site (and others) that have affiliate links, this is my most passive form of income.

Advertising: $3,804

This is up about $1,000 over 2015. My advertising income tends to vary with the opportunities that come my way (since I’m choosy). However towards the end of the year I shifted from Adsense (which earned me a pittance) to another network, which looks like it will be considerably more lucrative going forward.

Book Sales: $2,997

This is down almost $10,000 from 2015, which saw an income spike due to the big launch of Working on the Road: The Unconventional Guide to Full-Time Freedom. The book continued to kick out a nice stream of income through 2016 though, along with increased sales of How to Get Free Accommodation Around the World since I updated/redesigned/released the 2^nd edition and reduced the price, and I also had an increase in kindle sales of Tales of Trains: Where the Journey is the Destination.

Other: $448

This number includes a coaching session, royalties from a Hollywood movie I filmed many years ago, and some income earned from assisting my (now former) teacher with some plant medicine ceremonies before I left Peru.

TOTAL INCOME: $27,616

…which is about $6,800 less than what I earned in 2015. In fact, it’s the lowest income I’ve had since 2011 (which was $22,000). Funny thing though….I didn’t feel it. My expenses for 2016 were well below what I earned, so in the name of financially sustainable travel, I still get an A+.

Business Plan for 2017

I anticipated the decrease in 2016 income for two reasons:

1. I had a spike in my 2015 earnings from the launch of Working on the Road.
2. In 2015 I scaled back my business activities to create more space and time for other pursuits (of the shamanic ilk).

The latter affected my 2016 income the most profoundly. And I don’t think it will change much in 2017, since once again I’m wanting to have the extra time to dedicate to working/volunteering at a retreat centre in Ecuador for the first six months of the year (possibly longer if I like it).

I’ve also found a pretty happy place between income and expenses. As I wrote in my 2016 full-time travel expenses post, it seems that my “sweet spot” for yearly expenses seems to be around $24,000. So as long as I’m earning at least that, I’m golden. I can spend the rest of my time doing other things and enjoy the freedom I’ve earned with this lifestyle.

As far as my website goes, I’ll continue to post once per week. What has changed is that once a month I am adding video to the mix with my vlog about all things travel-related. Producing a video takes about a gazillion times longer than writing an article, with potential financial rewards for my efforts being long-term if at all. So this is a labour of love rather than business/financial savvy.

I may even scale back a bit on my freelance writing commitments in 2017, depending on how much time and energy living at the retreat centre requires. My expenses in Ecuador will be low, so I can afford the dip in income if it comes to that. Freelance writing represents an admirable chunk of my income, and it complements my website (and often affiliate income) well. But it’s mostly a matter of trading time for money, and I’d rather develop further passive streams of income.

I’m considering two mammoth projects (that will ultimately increase my passive income), but which also requires a monumental amount of time and money at the outset:

1. It’s time for another redesign of my website. I’m resisting it with everything I have; it’s a lotta work and time and money and quite frankly, I’m just not-web-savvy enough such that changes like this are terrifying for me.
2. I’ve alluded to a book I had a divine stroke of inspiration to write (a memoir of sorts), which is in the proposal stage. Problem is, it has been in the proposal stage for a very long time, as I can’t seem to muster the inspiration to finish the outline. Writing a book (especially one like this) is horrendously time consuming, and lately I’ve been resisting all extra work-related time commitments.

So on the whole, I’m taking 2017 as it comes. I’m spending the first six months in Ecuador at a retreat centre, with no plans or commitments thereafter. I’m open to new opportunities, and I’m in a flexible position to explore many avenues.

As they say in Spanish: vamos a ver – let’s see!

This post Earning a Location Independent Living: My 2016 Income appeared first on The Professional Hobo. Please click through to read it in full!

This post was originally published in 2017. It has since been updated for accuracy of links and content. 

Click here to see all of my Annual Income and Expense Summaries!

2016 was an odd year for me on many levels. Luckily it was more than sustainable financially, due partly to the fact that I didn’t move around too much. The pace of travel that I kept this year (although boring for some) is very comfortable for me, and ultimately sustainable (financially and otherwise).

What I Did in 2016

Here’s a basic summary of where I was in 2016: (See Also: 5 Countries and 30,000 miles: This Was 2016)

• 2 months in Peru
• 1 month in Canada and Ireland
• 2.5 months in Peru
• 1.5 months in Florida
• 1 month in Canada
• 3 months in Ecuador
• 1 month in Florida

Full-Time Travel Expenses for 2016: $23,216

Monthly Breakdown

All amounts have been converted to US Dollars for ease of comparison.

JANUARY (Peru)

$1,068

January was a quiet month in Peru. Thus my expenses were very low and nothing was off the radar.

Transportation $6

Accommodation $514

Food&Drink $111

Groceries $135

Phone&Internet $52

Personal $14

Business $87

Tours/Activities $80

Medical $57

Gifts $12

FEBRUARY (Peru)

$2,126

Although February was also relatively quiet in Peru, I was neck-deep in the process of applying for residency in Peru (with the help of my teacher), which accounted for the “Peru Residence” category expenses along with the transportation expenses involved in making a special trip from Cusco to Lima. Almost half the month’s expenses! Sheesh.

Transportation $193

Accommodation $503

Food&Drink $120

Groceries $165

Phone&Internet $51

Personal $154

Business $159

Tours/Activities $11

Medical $85

Gifts $8

Peru Residence $677

MARCH (Canada, Ireland)

$3,644

March was much more active for me, and also the most expensive month of the year; I traveled to Canada to pick up my mum and take her on a trip to Ireland (I actually won a trip to Ireland!). While in Canada I also bought a new laptop, hence the large business expense. And of course, before I left Peru I managed to spend a couple of hundred more on my residency efforts.

Transportation $264

Accommodation $524

Food&Drink $138

Groceries $143

Phone&Internet $74

Personal $535

Business $1,664

Medical $56

Gifts $84

Peru Residence $162

APRIL (Peru)

$1,774

I’m a wee bit bitter about all the money (and time, and effort) I spent in applying for Peruvian residency, since it was all for naught as soon as I returned to Peru in April. I didn’t do much in April other than feel sorry for myself, with the silver lining that I didn’t spend too much money. The transportation expense was my flight back to Peru from Canada.

Transportation $564

Accommodation $515

Food&Drink $288

Groceries $107

Phone&Internet $63

Personal $60

Business $65

Tours/Activities $77

Gifts $35

MAY (Peru)

$875

May was my cheapest month of the year, as I continued to hole up and feel sorry for myself. My accommodation expense is lower because once I moved out of my place I mostly stayed with friends and house-sat until I left Peru in June.

Transportation $11

Accommodation $200

Food&Drink $108

Groceries $176

Phone&Internet $12

Business $116

Tours/Activities $163

Medical $89

JUNE (Peru, USA)

$1,450

Considering June’s expenses include a $600+ flight from Peru to Florida at the end of the month, I didn’t spend much. My accommodation was a whopping $18 (for laundry and cleaning service) while staying with friends. Everything else was business as usual, with an extra massage or two in the Medical category.

Transportation $645

Accommodation $18

Food&Drink $130

Groceries $271

Business $106

Tours/Activities $166

Medical $104

Gifts $10

JULY (USA)

$1,409

Staying with a generous friend in Florida, I had zero accommodation expenses for July.

The transportation expense is kind of bogus, but was money spent (or lost): early in the year I bought flights to the jungle in Peru (from Cusco), but I never ended up using them, nor could I receive a refund. The flights were supposed to be for July travel, so they went into the budget anyway.

Transportation $223

Food&Drink $112

Groceries $286

Personal $481

Business $234

Medical $43

Gifts $30

AUGUST (USA, Canada)

$1,472

In August I spent almost the same amount as in July, except this time I got on the flight I booked (to Canada)! Again in Canada I was staying with family and friends and didn’t have to worry about accommodation.

Transportation $311

Accommodation $15

Food&Drink $393

Groceries $212

Phone&Internet $22

Personal $139

Business $105

Tours/Activities $195

Gifts $80

SEPTEMBER (Ecuador)

$2,527

Take out my annual expat insurance premiums ($1,130), and September was a pretty low-cost month as well, especially considering the transportation expense from Canada to Ecuador. I also had some inflated business expenses in September since I hired somebody to do some web projects, and also had to pay the annual dues for some web services I use.

Transportation $423

Accommodation $126

Food&Drink $187

Groceries $184

Phone&Internet $15

Business $359

Tours/Activities $103

Insurance $1,130

OCTOBER (Ecuador)

$2,209

I had some extra business expenses this month; mostly in the form of the annual premium for my Aweber account (which I use for newsletters).

And when my house-sitting gig ended in mid-October, I spent the rest of the month (and then some) at a retreat centre, which accounts for the tours/activities expense (which also included accommodation and food).

Transportation $28

Accommodation $151

Food&Drink $191

Groceries $61

Personal $22

Business $284

Tours/Activities $1,472

NOVEMBER (Ecuador, USA)

$3,056

November was the second most expensive month of the year for three key reasons:

• I did another retreat at Gaia Sagrada (tours/activities)
• I flew to Florida towards the end of the month (transportation)
• I bought a new smartphone (business)

I also bought a few extra things for my business including a microphone and some gear for my new vlog, which rounds out my business expenses.

Transportation $419

Accommodation $80

Food&Drink $66

Groceries $150

Phone&Internet $37

Personal $113

Business $910

Tours/Activities $1,275

Gifts $6

DECEMBER (USA)

$1,606

I spent most of December with my friend in Florida, with about a week in California visiting friends in San Diego and Los Angeles. Thanks to these lovely people, accommodation was gratis for the month. This allowed me to spend extra money on a few personal and business items, gifts, and lots of nice food, and still feel like it was a cheap month.

Transportation $244

Food&Drink $203

Groceries $471

Phone&Internet $30

Personal $338

Business $155

Tours/Activities $70

Gifts $95

Summary Notes

I don’t have much to say about 2016 from the perspective of full-time travel expenses. A few thousand dollars were lost in my Peruvian residency efforts and the loss of use of some flight tickets. But it’s way better than the many thousands I lost to life circumstances in 2013!

In looking at my full-time travel expenses from years’ past, it seems I’m finding a sweet spot around $24,000; it’s not anywhere near what I used to spend to live in Canada, but enough to be comfortable and in style (around the world). And you’ll see from my income report (to be published next month) that I could have spent more money had I chosen, but there wasn’t anything I wanted or needed to spend more money on!

I don’t have any idea what 2017 will hold for me monetarily. I don’t think I’ll be moving around too much, but I may have some extra expenses in Ecuador living at a retreat centre and doing plant medicine ceremonies. No matter. By tracking my expenses as I go, I always have a finger on the pulse of my spending and can make adjustments as needed.

For previous annual reviews of my full-time travel expenses, check these posts out:

2015 ($25,000)

2014 ($28,000)

2013 ($44,000)

2012 ($28,000)

2011 ($18,000)

2010 ($17,000)

This post My 2016 Full-Time Travel Expenses appeared first on The Professional Hobo. Please click through to read it in full!

This post was originally published in 2016. It has since been updated for accuracy of links and content. 

In 2015, I launched a popular new series called Financial Case Studies which profiles the incomes and lifestyles of various people to live and work on the road. I am fascinated by the myriad ways people are earning income while traveling, and how they manage to live sustainably – which involves a balance between earning enough money to cover expenses, and using creative techniques (like getting free accommodation) to keep expenses low.

In turn, each year I publish my own cost of full-time travel, as well as my income for the year. I do this not to set the bar for what you should earn or what you should spend in order to live on the road in a financially sustainable way; rather – as the years go by and my own income and expenses vary – to demonstrate that there is no bar.

Click here to see all of my Annual Income and Expense Summaries!

2015 Income Sources

NOTE: My income was earned in US Dollars, GBP, and Canadian Dollars – all of which I’ve converted to US dollars here. Unfortunately, during 2015 the Canadian Dollar took a nose dive, so currency fluctuations throughout the year mean these numbers are approximate at best.

Freelance Writing: $5,989

In order to make space in my life for my shamanic studies, I dropped most of my freelance writing gigs. So this number is considerably less than what I made in 2014 (which was almost $16,000).

Affiliate Sales: $10,631

This is a wee bit higher than my affiliate sales for 2014. About 60% of my affiliate sales consist of income from Amazon, which provides a nice stream of passive income given the vast repertoire of posts on my site (and others) that include Amazon affiliate links.

Advertising: $2,889

This is about $1,000 less than I earned last year. I am very choosy about the advertising I put on my site (vetting opportunities carefully for compatibility with my site and readership). So this category of income can be pretty volatile, since internet advertising policies (and budgets) seem to be a moving target.

Book Sales: $13,046

This is up drastically over 2014’s book sales (which were about $1,600), due to the release of my latest book (in February 2015): Working on the Road: The Unconventional Guide to Full-Time Freedom (since discontinued). The initial months of the launch made up most of this income, although it continues to provide a passive income of a couple of hundred dollars each month.

This is in addition to the income from my other two books: How to Get Free Accommodation Around the World and Tales of Trains: Where the Journey is the Destination.

Other: $1,839

This number includes some coaching sessions, royalties from a Hollywood movie I filmed many years ago, and some income earned from assisting my teacher with plant medicine ceremonies. With the ceremony income, it’s much higher than 2014 (which was about $300).

TOTAL INCOME: $34,394

…which is about $3,300 more than I earned in 2014. Over the years, my income has fluctuated for a variety of reasons, and it comes with the territory when you’re self-employed. So I don’t lose sleep; instead, I ensure that my income and expenses are sustainable – which in 2015 they were (in fact, I spent way less than I earned in 2015, despite having a home base in Peru to maintain in addition to my travels to six countries.

Business Plan for 2016

I did pretty well in 2015, given that I’ve been scaling down my online operations to make way for my new life in Peru. But I’m not so sure this will last through 2016, since a chunk of my 2015 income took the form of reaping the benefits of my book launch in February. My income (from my online activities and writing career) should be steady in 2016, but likely lower overall than 2015.

I expect to make up for some of this online income loss with the work I’m doing with my teacher and plant medicine ceremonies in Peru. I’m still learning, so my wages are pretty low, but given that I am assisting him with many retreats this year, I’ll earn more than I did last year.

However. When it comes to financial sustainability, 2016 is likely to be a wild card for me. In obtaining my Peruvian residency (which should come through shortly), I’ll be on the hook for some hefty expenses for the next two+ years. It’s too complicated to outline for the purposes of this post, but ultimately I’m prepared for the distinct possibility that I’ll have to tuck into my savings to make ends meet.

Luckily, though, I have savings to tuck into. I live very well, and I want for nothing – but I also live fairly frugally (and in a country with a relatively low cost of living). In 2015 alone, I spent almost $9,000 less than I earned. Ca-ching! No need to worry in 2016, even if the books don’t appear to balance out.

As time goes on, I’ll also be earning more money with my plant medicine work, and who knows what income opportunity lays around the next corner.

Such is the life of an entrepreneur, earning income while traveling. If and when I need to, I’ll create the income I need in order to continue to live the life of my dreams.

What does the life of your dreams look like in 2016?

This post Earning Income While Traveling: My 2015 Income appeared first on The Professional Hobo. Please click through to read it in full!