There is a Better Way to Travel The World (My Secret)

[Music] I'm calling what I do slow travel I'm not claiming to have come up with this but I think it's worth having a name of its own and distinguishing it from more traditional forms of tourism or backpacking or other forms of travel those methods seem to work really well for a lot of people which is fantastic but I personally prefer doing things this way because I find that my experiences have a lot more depth this is not just about getting the perfect shot for the gram for me this is about cultural immersion and learning from others how to live life in a different way the way I'm going to approach this is in two parts I'm gonna start off by kind of explaining what this is and why I think it's worth serious consideration and then I'm going to explore the different ways that you can potentially make this happen taking into consideration the money side of things and if you want to just skip to that I guess you could just go to this timestamp however I'm gonna first try to answer the main questions I imagine many of you have let's start with the most obvious which is how the hell is this possible a lot of travel influencers share a version of reality that doesn't seem to exist for the rest of us mere mortals and while some people call that kind of content inspiring I often felt very angry and envious because it just seemed impossible to achieve and also it completely omits the stressful frustrating boring exhausting side of things as for me personally I do not hide the fact that I am very privileged I've had a tremendous amount of good fortune on things that are completely out of my control like for example being born in the u.

s.

my parents never gave me money to travel but they did let me stay home instead of go to college which again was a huge stroke of luck and so I spent three years working and trying to save as much as I possibly could I was kind of acting as if I had college debt to pay off but I didn't this essentially allowed me to save some money and give this working abroad working online thing a shot that is not the only way to do this for the record I have done it a few different ways and we're gonna break all of that down with that being said though I want to reiterate that I'm not trying to say that this is the perfect lifestyle as I mentioned before Travel can be very stressful and living like this is not for everybody in all honesty there's still stuff that I'm figuring out about all this including things like love life and romance it's very complicated when you're changing countries it has gotten super trendy to shit all over the nine-to-five or a more conventional lifestyle which is lame because I know people that are totally happy with that structure and stability and I think that's fantastic why are we shaming or putting each other down I don't get it I've selected this lifestyle because I'm obsessed with languages and immersing myself into foreign cultures and I think it just brings out the best in me anyway all I'm saying is that as many of us know at this point social media only shows a slice of the bigger picture so just keep that in mind all right what is this I'm defining slow travel as traveling at a reduced pace that allows for deeper immersion ideally when I go somewhere I like to stay there for at least six months and when I'm there I'm mainly focusing on the city that I'm living in and the nearby region here the reasons why I prefer doing things this way the first being this is much more cost-effective I know that this may seem counterintuitive but when you stay in a place for a longer period of time you're getting more value for what you're paying for for example it doesn't matter if I spend one week in Milan or a whole year the flight from let's say New York City is going to cost the same amount of money here's another example Airbnb offers discounts if you stay in a certain place for a week or for a month okay and even better than that is if you stay put in a certain country in a certain place for a long enough period of time you can find an apartment which is gonna cost a lot less than that and that's exactly what I did when I was living in Mexico City and honestly I was spending maybe a third of what I would be spending for an equivalent apartment in a city like Los Angeles or New York I don't understand how people can afford to be in a different country every week that's crazy and can be very taxing my eyes when I'm slow traveling I'm not eating out all the time like you would when you're doing normal drama if you're staying put somewhere you can buy groceries cook for yourself and save a ton eating out everyday or ordering food with something like uber eats will obliterate your budget in no time it's worth it to get a Metro pass and use public transport instead of more short term solutions like using a taxi or ubering which you would do again if you're only staying in place for a short period of time here's the thing we pay a premium for convenience and that's what everybody is taking advantage of when you visit their country unfortunately all these things add up and I've had entire months doing my slow travel if you will where I spend less than I would in a week or two of more traditional tourism finally when you set up shop somewhere exploring the region is super easy you can take really cheap day trips to local cities or nature or honestly in a place like Europe you could take a super cheap flight to a local country you know for the weekend in Mexico City I would take buses to nearby Puerto makiko's in the region and they are incredible if I were coming from the US a trip to Bologna would cost a lot of money but if I'm based in Milan it's super easy super convenient I can take again a day trip over there and be back in my bed in my apartment that very night piece of cake my next point is that it takes a while to get integrated somewhere I don't know when this happened exactly but I remember coming to terms with the fact that when I visit a certain place a certain country for a very short period of time I always walk away with this feeling of only scratching the surface of not having actually entered into you know that way of life there's an absolute bombardment on the senses when you arrive to a foreign place all the stuff that you take for granted even the very basic stuff is suddenly different in a way you're forced to pay attention I have a funny example I remember being very confused when I first arrived in Italy on how to like flush the toilet or have the water run when you're at the sink and I didn't realize that there's like a pedal sort of system in a lot of places there I mean that's something that I had never seen before and I looked like a complete idiot trying to figure it out for like a solid four or five minutes anyway that kind of a silly example but you know this idea of adopting and immersing yourself is not something that can happen overnight or even in you know a week right it takes a lot longer than that doing this is for me a lot less stressful don't get me wrong it still is definitely very stressful but the pace of everything is brought down and that's wonderful it means I don't have to pack all my stuff up all the time it means that there is more stability and more room to have structure and consistency I'm not stressing about having to visit and see everything before I leave you know there's time to take it all in and so all of this leads me to my last main point which is that when I go somewhere I'm trying to create a life for myself there you know in a way I'm kind of able to start from zero and make friends and make a new community and meet people and get out there I want to learn the language I want to learn about the history I want to try the food all this stuff takes a while and that's why I'm starting to feel like even three months isn't enough time because okay maybe in three months you can start to make friends but then you're leaving you don't have the time to actually enjoy them and spend time with them for the record three months is still way way better than a single week and it's gonna depend also on who you are and what works for you this is kind of what I'm discovering about myself after doing this for several years another important point is that spending a longer period of time in a country allows you to pass the honeymoon phase and you're able to absorb and appreciate the beauty but also be aware of kind of the uglier side of things which is worth not ignoring your time there isn't so superficial you know you're plugged in funny weird unique things start to happen if you spend long enough time in a certain place you just have to be there so we got trapped in a little town in Sicily right now there's no way we can pass through here it's just way too small for our car dude the rental car company is laughing at us now motorcycles keep coming this way but we've been good so far this might be the really hard part right here okay you're doing okay I'm gonna take a look right now so difficult you have to be perfectly straight going in or it's gonna it's not gonna work nice dude or doing it keep going scusi oh my god I cannot believe we just got through here going backwards I was having horrific imagery in my mind about scratching just the whole thing a lot of those walls holy smokes okay now on to how to make this happen I made a video already exploring the different ways that you can make money online if you're interested in becoming a digital nomad that I recommend checking out first that isn't the only way to make this happen but it is my favorite because I find that when you're working and making your own money you have the most freedom to do your own thing putting that to the side for a second here I did spend a lot of time over the last few years reading in forums like on reddit where people talk about how they made this happen and I read stories of people that got established in the companies that they worked at first before negotiating a deal where they could work remotely and this allowed them to move to South America Southeast Asia wherever that's not something I personally did so I can't really comment on it but I will say that my takeaway from that sort of thing is that you have to play an active role in making this happen for yourself because it's not gonna happen by itself let's talk about visas for a second Europeans have it really good okay with the Schengen zone if I understand things correctly makes it very easy to spend time in other countries but that's just one example again as I've spoken about before creativity and persistence will take you very far and I'll try to link two resources down below if you're interested in looking into this for yourself but I find that poking around on the internet will unveil reveal options and opportunities that you didn't even know existed so it's something that you kind of have to dig at I think it's fair to say one of the easiest options is getting a student visa and studying abroad somewhere I did a year of high school in France and that absolutely changed my life absolutely worth it again I'm not an expert on this topic but I have seen foreign exchange programs cost an obscene amount of money through certain universities and if I'm not mistaken there are certain schools that will accept you if you apply directly and just go straight to you know the place that you want to go there options out there and I know I've heard that it's possible to study in places like Germany for free if you're an American again it's something to look into beyond that there are also work holiday visas this is super cool it makes it possible to spend a year as an American in places like Australia New Zealand South Korea the European Union also has a ton of agreements with a bunch of countries as do South American countries again this is something that you have to look into based on your nationality Opare is another hugely popular option although personally my experience was not that positive doing that because it's a total roll of the dice you know you don't know if you're gonna get along with the family that you're living with until you're there so for some people it's an amazing experience like I said for me it wasn't so positive but that is an option to look into beyond that we begin to explore other options that are a little bit outside of the beaten path which isn't necessarily a bad thing at all so for example it's possible to do a kind of work and travel sort of situation there's a whole bunch of websites out there one that comes to mind immediately is wolfing which allows you to work on farms I have friends that have done that and I've had very positive experiences doing that it's a very unique experience especially if you're willing to get a little bit outside of your comfort zone other options allow you to work in hostels for example and avoid having to pay for staying there which is a great way to really stretch the money the budget that you have available again I'll link to some options down below working is a fantastic way to get further immersed in a particular country I taught English while I was living in Argentina and in an institute and that was really cool it was amazing to I don't know be able to offer something to the people there as well an advanced technique let's say that is more accessible than many people I think is actually applying for dual citizenship many countries offer this as an option based on different criteria a very common example would be based on your bloodline or your ancestry where your grandparents or great-grandparents are from countries that definitely make this a possibility that I can think of off the top of my head are Italy Israel Ireland Poland I'm actually completely eligible for Argentinian citizenship thanks to my parents but I'm actually in the process of getting Portuguese citizenship and it's a very long story now I am NOT Portuguese yet and I might do a whole separate video explaining that process if you guys are interested the downside of this option is that it can take a very long time like years to give you an idea I began the whole application process for myself over a year ago and I expect at least another year of waiting and jumping through hoops to try and make it happen assuming everything goes well my advice is to try and get things going right now or as soon as possible so that you have more options down the road and in the meantime one option that I'm exploring right now is applying for a work visa under the self-employment category to go stay in certain places I don't want to mention specific details because I don't know what's gonna happen that's part of the challenge of this whole process is that you can get refused and then it's time to adapt and there are absolutely costs associated with this and I'm not trying to skip over that but I do think that in this very globalized sometimes tense world that we live in right now it's not a bad idea to have multiple passports but going back to what I was saying before I think what works best for me right now is working and making my own income and living with roommates or living on my own and having that freedom and autonomy again I recommend checking out the other video that I created on making an income as a digital nomad it might spark some ideas and there really is an enormous amount of possibilities and are very globalized and connected and digital world I'm now beginning the process of getting assistance from VA czar doing the digital nomad thing so it really goes to show you that there's a lot of ways to approach this I'd also check out shut up and go created by Damon and Jo they've created a really cool community and there's a lot of resources available so if you go check them out tell them Nathaniel says hello so I hope this answers some of the questions that you had on this topic I think living in another country is an experience everybody should have at some point in their lives if only we lived in a world where that was possible it can be very humbling and open your eyes to a whole bunch of stuff that you didn't see before or didn't even consider it can really put into stark contrast things that you take for granted right that's what it's been like for me these anyway thank you for watching and I'll see you soon you.