Let’s talk about money! How we finance our full-time traveling
One of the most asked questions is, “How do you finance your full-time travel journey?” And yes, we totally understand why this question pops into everyone's mind when they think about traveling because most people only travel during vacations and therefore live off their savings. When you plan for a full-time travel adventure, you have to think differently about that, and that's what we did for many, many hours. We researched a lot, and one thing that caught our interest was a video course called "Weltreise als Sparmaßnahme" by Svetlana Bogdanova It really showed us that traveling doesn't have to be expensive; in fact, it can be way cheaper than living in a fixed place, like in our case, living in Switzerland.
“Yeah cool, but it's still not for free, right?” Of course, it's not. Therefore, we have different sources of income or strategies to save money. The first one for us and the most important one because it gave us the confidence to start this journey is Santemis monthly income working remotely as an event manager for Konservi Seon. She's been working there since 2017 and handles everything in the online marketing section, keeps the website updated, writes newsletters, and helps in the back office.
Now, what am I doing? The short answer is, I'm not sure yet. The long answer is, I have many ideas, and I want to try everything, and for the moment, I'm happy with getting some money from a bit everywhere. In the last four years, I created my own video
production company and created mostly promotional and ad content for businesses in the sports industry.
Since this company was based in Switzerland, therefore also my clients, I stopped working in that niche. But what I brought with me is the skillset and also some equipment to produce video and photo content. So one thing I wanted to try out, and after one month, I can already say it's a success, is to create photo galleries for our Airbnb rentals, and in return, we get a discount for our stays.
Another thing I'm trying is to build a personal brand. This is definitely a marathon and not a sprint, and I'm learning every day. For those who have no idea what a personal brand means, it's basically a business where you don’t specify a product or a niche, but you specify yourself, your story, and your values. And who pays you for that, you may ask? That's the beauty of it! Let’s say you're reading this blog, which you are doing right now. That means you have some sort of connection to me. And now let's say I have a product or a service, for example, I'm now promoting my new "vegan cookbook." I now don’t have to tell you it’s the best cookbook because of this and that. I just rely on the fact that there are some people in my viewership that are interested in a vegan cookbook, and since they already have a connection to me, they hopefully have built the trust that is needed to buy this product. So the niche is not product or service-based; instead, it's based on my personality.
Does this work? Yes, of course; there are hundreds of examples out there. How does this work? As I said, I'm still in the learning process, and I have no idea how long it will take to make a living out of it. Actually, in some way, it already worked.
Do you remember when I said that I had success in creating photo galleries for Airbnb rentals? I didn't tell anyone that I'm the best photographer; I just shared a little bit about myself and our adventure and referred to our website and our blog. So far, all of our Airbnb hosts booked us because they loved our story and wanted to be a part of it, not because of a fancy marketing campaign. So, yes, I'm really looking forward to this kind of business, and we will keep you updated on how it goes. I believe there are endless ways to make money even when you are full-time traveling, but like everything, you have to put a lot of energy into it, especially at those moments when everything wants you to give up. Keep going. Much love, Noah
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