bitofarambler

$2000 USD equivalent is a very good amount in most countries, not enough in some. I travel often and my monthly budget these days has been around $700 a month for rent, groceries, data and fun(mongolia, korea, china, japan, peru, Guatemala). rent is cheaper for travelers, I don’t have a car while traveling and don’t have to pay for utilities, wifi, insurance or maintenance.

the current average US sedentary rental price, on the other hand, is $1500 per month before utilities, insurance and fees, and in the traditional US housing infrastructure, a US renter is often required to prove they have 2x or more of the necessary monthly rental fee for their application to be accepted.

congrats! yes, I recommend against anyone pretending everyone can do everything, vague absolutes are rarely helpful.

AI hasn’t had much of an impact on entry-level remote work, especially esl, it’s always good to check.

indeed is only one of an uncountable number of job sites that illustrate the breadth of attainable remote jobs immediately available. you can filter jobs by “no experience required”. I usually suggest ESL to english speakers first because of the outsized demand(6000 students per teacher), more engaging work relative to other entry-level gigs, travel opportunity, and decent pay regardless of experience or qualifications.

nobody has to live abroad, travel is just a very practical way to access immediate or rapid financial independence that i want people to be aware of.

No trees, plenty of directories.

hello, i’ve been traveling for 15 years and invite anyone interested by the implications of this meme to visit travel for information on how accessible the wider world is.

a gap year, especially common in much of western europe, is a year in between the end of childhood education(say US high school) and the beginning of adult education(say US university) where a young adult is encouraged to find themselves before choosing their exact field of interest or life path.

It is common in many countries.

usually AYCE buffets first, then local supermarkets.

then general wandering around my town or city to see what looks cool, open-air markets, mom and pop restaurants and the like.

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dang that vietnamese chili shrimp i shared in travel from osaka is probably right up there.

i have not had as good pizza in italy as i have had in several countries, but I prefer a strong, thick tomato sauce, which is very light in Italian pizzas that I’ve had, although the Italian fired crust is consistently better.

i prefer indian momos to chinese jianjiao: less oily, more consistently flavorful and healthy.

Where are sandwiches from!?! Because I don’t know if I’ve ever enjoyed a sandwich as much as I enjoyed the Colombian barbecue chicken patacones that use plantains as bread. holy crap that is good and enough food for three days.

The Japanese have perfected the cheese cake, way more decadent without losing any of the flavor.

oh dang though, you know what, a Venezuelan living in Colombia made the best sushi I’ve ever had, and the best salmon belly sashimi I’ve ever had.

Talking to people around the world and people being kind, even after they find out im originally from the US.

despite the terrible things the internet and the news tells us to fear from people, most people in real life are compassionate, understanding, empathetic and like to laugh.

Sure! get any remote job that pays ~$500 USD equivalent per month and live abroad.

You’ll be down to working a couple hours a day maximum and can pursue your interests, hobbies or get to know yourself and figure out what you want to do next.

details over in the travel community. or ask here.

yea, esl teachers often need a work visa depending on the country, but schools generally sponsor your visa if they hire you, so that’s all taken care of by the school staff or they’ll walk you through the process. if a school doesn’t offer to sponsor your visa, they’re not worth the trouble.

it was awwwesome and i got to retire very early, so it’s tough to complain about anything.

Really there were no challenges with the job itself, speaking basic english and playing learning activities with a bunch of respectful, dedicated, cute students for 45 minutes at a time(including a 10-minute break), watching them improve and leaps and bounds evey week, get paid USD $35 per class minimum. Rent/food/everything pennies on the dollar. My most expensive apartment was about three hundred and fifty U.S. dollars right in the middle of Beijing, but the studio I rented the longest was $120 a month. 4 classes and my monthly rent and utilities were paid for.

the only challenges were with other administrators after i ended up co-owning the school that hired me, they were pretty bad at business and it was frustrating to see this extremely successful business that was fun to work at run so poorly.

oh, i was in beijing, so the smog was the other main challenge, but it’s such a comfortable and convenient country to live in, I still ended up staying there very happily almost six years altogether, and have great friends that I still talk to and actually just visited last month.

Wayyy more ups and downs.

there are tons of chinese cities that aren’t smoggy, but Beijing was where I started and that was my journey.

Thailand does have a lot of beet farmers. and beat farmers.

thanks.

1. i was very dissatisfied with the amount of lifetime my job in the US was taking from me with so little in return, so when i came across an ad for English teaching that advertised half my hours double my pay i applied, when i was offered the job right away, i accepted, made a bunch of money for 3 years, had savings and plenty of breathing room, invested most of my savings.

2. with breathing room, i thought about what i wanted next and how much it cost:

i wanted to never work again unless i wanted to, basically retirement. I had traveled a bit and realized that with 200 countries, i could literally choose my cost of living and cost of retirement. i picked Thailand to start my retirement since i had visited before and knew the costs. i needed $250 USD/month to start($100 month for a hostel, $150 for food and beer).

i had nearly that coming in from investments, so i signed up for a conversational English speaking app and doubled my income to about $500 per month by chatting 5 hours a week. i used the extra money for private places, extra food and beer, renting a moped, museums, etc.

i traveled for a year working up to 5 hours a week, received an offer to open my own school in China, went back and saved money for two years until i had plenty of passive income to lived abroad indefinitely(USD 500+/month), and here i sit 8 years later, on the way to jeju south Korea after a month in Mongolia, Japan next week.

advice: make a change sooner rather than later, time is finite.

…sooo basically the FAQ in the travel community, hahaha.