What it’s like to be settled after 2+ years of travel
It’s easy to read travel blogs and only see the glamorous side of traveling. Blogs will showcase epic adventures through the Amazon jungle and evening strolls through Paris’ cobblestone streets, but tend to leave out the sweaty mosquito bites and overpriced taxis. We’re just as guilty of doing this as the next blog. After all, we want to inspire you to travel and explore the world. But we’re not on some 24/7, 365 day a year vacation, as our blog may imply. We filter our lives, if you will, literally & figuratively.
{ enjoying the last days of Aussie summer }
You won’t find photos of us, for example, staying in bed eating plain pasta on a Friday night just to save money. Nor will you see videos of us holing up in a dirty hostel, in our sweatpants, blogging all day. But we do these things. Often.
Don’t worry, we’ll spare you the photos of us spending all day in our pajamas. But we did want to give an honest, no-filter update of our lives right now. We’re currently based out of Melbourne. We’re putting our nomadic life on hold to stay in one place and save money. Boring, I know, right? But it must be done. Just like you, dear reader, we don’t have a stockpile of savings and we don’t plan on winning the lottery anytime soon (although that would be awesome!). We need to work for our money and that’s exactly what we’re doing. How do we afford to travel? By working, earning money, saving that money and then traveling cheap. It’s kind of just as simple as that.
{ Queen Victoria Gardens in Melbourne’s CBD }
So how is it being back in the real world?
What is the “real world” like after 2 years of traveling? I don’t know if I should admit this on our travel blog, but it’s actually pretty nice. Of course, one could argue that I’m still traveling. I’m not really home home in America; in fact, this is my first time in Australia so everything is still pretty new to me. Although we haven’t done much travel around the country (yet!) I’ve been slowly making my way through the heart of Melbourne. It’s given me a different perspective exploring the sites as a resident/tourist/blogger. Even though we’ve only been here about 4 months, I still fancy myself a bit of a local (I know, I know, such a poser!). Or at least I’ve gotten a hang of the public transport enough so that I don’t look like a total lost puppy.
But it’s still a far cry from our backpacking days. For one thing, we have real life jobs now! For the first time in a long time, there’s money actually coming into our bank accounts and that’s a pretty good feeling. By real life job I mean I work at a local café. Is that a real life job? I guess compared to “professional backpacker” anything is. Jules on the other hand has resumed his pre-traveling career as a high school teacher. He’s currently teaching English and Philosophy. After spending over two years without seeing his family and friends, he’s happy to be back at home for a bit.
{ eating at home never looked so good }
To be clear, just because we’re making an income doesn’t mean we’re hitting the clubs and making it rain. We’re still staying on a very tight budget. It hasn’t been easy as Australia is pretty expensive. We are lucky enough to be living rent free with Jules’ grandma, which is a huge chunk of change to save. Other than that, we stick to our budget travel tips, which can be adapted to life at home. We’re cooking most of our meals, sticking to cheap and free activities and critically evaluating all big purchases. We’re generally laying low and constantly reminding ourselves that a $25 dinner could be an extra day on the road. Jules & I are also both doing Masters programs in International Development, so to say we’re keeping busy is an understatement. We’re slowly planning for the future and excited to see how our love of travel and passion for volunteering could translate into a career.
So what’s next?
We’re not sure yet. Our travel days are definitely not over, but at the moment we’re enjoying living normal lives. We’re not settling forever, but it’s nice to lay some roots and find pleasure in a routine. And until our next trip, we always have our Pinterest boards to drool over.
{ the beach down the street from our house }
{ photo op with a comedian after the Melbourne Comedy Fest }
{the Spirit of Tasmania ship that sails to Tassie }
