This is the quintessence of what we don't want on Hacker News. Please don't "wave your finger" here. Yes, it's popular—but for bad reasons.
We can't have both reflexive rage and reflective conversation. On HN we want reflective conversation.
It isn't that we don't all feel these emotions; we do. The people you're waving your finger at do as well, and no doubt feel as justified. But the sine qua non of reflective conversation is to catch those reactions in oneself and then inhibit them before they hijack the cognitive apparatus. That is what allows the slower, subtler processes to engage—and that is what leads to interesting utterances, as opposed to bile.
Everybody (author of the satire included) always jumps to conclusions that people doing such acts always have some massive fortune or cushion in the bank to wait them.
That's far from the truth. Thousands of people do the same thing every year without anything in the bank (and no sure job awaiting them when they get back).
Some have meagre savings (like $5.000 - $10.000) and use all of them to fund the trip (like year-long).
Others just go at it with nothing, and survive on the kindness of strangers and odd gigs here and there.
I know a few personally doing the latter, but many more doing the first.
Heck, if you have $10,000 in the bank, and are a decent programmer that can manage to find work when he gets back from the trip) you can quit your job, spend 3-4 months in Asia and Africa for dirt cheap, and still have like $2-$3.000 spare to get you through a month before finding some new gig.
You really don't understand how bad it is these days. The average family does not have $2,000 in savings, much less 5 to 10. In fact, [the average American household with debt owes an average of $130,922][1]. Over $15,000 of that is in credit card debt alone.
Being broke is actually doing pretty well nowadays. We live in a world built on debt, where the financial sector makes up over 30% of the economy and almost everyone is beholden to large banks. In a few decades, we'll be right back to feudal system, if things don't change.
[1]: http://www.fool.com/retirement/general/2016/05/08/the-averag...
OP wasn't talking about an average family, but a single "decent programmer".
As for the median, I can't seem to find that statistic, but I would argue that it's actually a less accurate picture than the average.
[1]: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/abigail-wilkinson/pew-69... [2]: http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/news/economy/middle-class-we... [3]: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/nov/13/us-wealth-i...
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/02/22/getting-rich-from-...
You really think that's how most Americans live?
I try to work hard these days to pay off my mortgage early and save for retirement. Using my current savings and loosing one of my good years of income seems like something that should at least be mentioned.
Maybe this goes without saying, but the average family in North America lives well above their means. Rent to own furniture, a leased lexus for the wife and ginormous pickup truck for the office job husband, dinner and drinks out multiple times per week etc.
But none of your links actually back that up. If we're trading personal anecdotes, fine, but otherwise you're caricaturing the average family as struggling because of (I would guess based on your implication) stupidity and greed. This doesn't seem to match my experience of the "average" family, but it is common dog whistle language.
I'm not talking about the average family. I'm not about people on HN level jobs.
In fact, I wasn't talking about a family at all -- only singles or at most couples. A family makes it non practical for several reasons (though it still can be done).
I'm one of those "quit the job and traveled the world" types except I didn't travel the world, just did a healthy 6 month dose of travel but my friends and family look up to me like I did something they are completely incapable of and I might be because I had the self control not to have children and buy a home, go to bars regularly, eat out all the time, etc, etc.
I met tons of people who were doing the same with a lot less money then I had and they made the same sacrifices I did. Anyways, end rant. I agree debt is out of control and much of it designed but I also know people made a shitton of bad decisions with money.
For the rest, those making $50.000 a year or more, $5000 to $10000 is very doable to save in 1-4 years -- if you actually want to visit the world that is, and not just want it to fall on you lap while you enjoy everything else at the same time. Rent a smaller house, don't buy a new car, spend less on bars, restaurants and other BS, dont buy that iPhone, etc.
Don't spend my money on anything nice, having fun, or treating myself to something special in the hopes that I can travel the world as a beggar or poor person (5k-10k as is a substantially small travel budget)?
If I were still single (and younger), I would have taken that $10K and lived an awesome 6 months abroad. But 15 years ago my priorities were a fast-ish car, a nice apartment, eating out every night, and trying to impress a girl (now my wife). It's worked out well for me regardless.
[edit]Your attitude comes off as very entitled BTW. You complain about "...don't spend my money on anything nice, having fun, or treating myself to something special". Oh woe is me, I can't travel the world and buy that latest iphone and fancy new clothes...sheesh!
I did say: "if you actually want to visit the world that is, and not just want it to fall on you lap while you enjoy everything else at the same time".
The observation that (advice about travelling) "might not interest those who are not interested in travelling" seems redundant to me.
There's nothing wrong or right with either way of life, it's just different personalities.
Travelers may call your lifestyle fake or meaningless, you may call their lifestyle fake or meaningless, but the lifestyles are as real and valid as the person wants them to be.
It's ok to not want what other people want :)
And no, you don't abstain of having fun or having "nice things" And no, you don't travel the world as a beggar.
Most north american people just expend too much in things they dont need.
It's not like somebody put a gun on your head.
5-10K is by no means a "substantially small travel budget". In fact many middle class families in other parts of the world make it with that or less for the whole year.
Now, if you want to travel the world first class and stay on 5-star hotels, get the budget for it.
Not everybody needs or cares for that -- but we can still travel for months on end on far much less AND have fun.
Adjust the sliding scale of your combined travel budget/ rest-of-your-life budget as you need/want.
He traveled to 50+ countries and slept outside everywhere except poor countries where it was cheap to get a bed.
When he returned to the US, he sold cars and was homeless. Literally he slept outside but still worked out and ate well. When he got a car, he still slept outside.
He recently just made $60,000 driving for Lyft/Uber in 6 months and saved $30,000 (assuming a lot went to taxes).
He then moved and slept in hus car for 1+ month while having 30k and perfect credit, and still driving. Now he's taken a month off to pursue creative and side projects.
If you don't have a family, then anything is possible.
Again, the point was the will to do it not necessarily how he did it.
Can you really earn $120k/yr driving?
nobody would do that for more than a few months but i'm sure it's possible if you're really dedicated to raising some money in an unsustainable way.
Even if you don't have a family, people don't want to sleep outside.
You seem like someone who has little life experience.
My point was running a criminal enterprise isn't really an acceptable option for most people.
More generally, saying (or implying) "your advice is useless because many people couldn't do it" invalidates a sizeable chunk of useful advice.
Yes, many people don't have 5000-10000 and couldn't. But many do or could, and yet they imagine they couldn't possibly travel/leave job, etc.
It's easy, "live beneath your means". Move away from the valley and give up that lifestyle. If you're a decent-ish programmer, you can make a bunch of money in any of the other medium sized cities in the US with a reasonable cost of living.
Its about budgeting. We each keep a budget for our hobbies of about $100 per month. We spend about $200 at restaurants (eating out less than once per week). Most important is keeping a tab on your spending. UsBank has a download spreadsheet function that keeps track of your last export so it is very easy to download one month at a time.
"We would like to keep our team close" -- Management "Half of our team is in India" -- me ":shrug: go back to work" -- Management
It's not a LOT of money, but enough to travel if that is what you want to do.
Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of ... - Amazon.com http://goo.gl/f8Ue7
For the most part the qualifications are (1) a heartbeat and (2) English proficiency, and not even native level necessarily. No college diploma needed, no expert understanding of grammar, no upfront money needed.
Of course various countries and schools differ in the level of qualifications and visa requirements but my experience has been that these are not huge hurdles as long as you don't have some super specific place in mind. If "the world" is your destination, it's wide open.
It seems like if the students have questions, you won't easily be able to answer them.
I have two close friends (husband and wife) who spent the last 6 years teaching English in Thailand and Bali. In Thailand they taught at a private learning school and in Bali they taught at a school where the wealthier families sent their children.
Per the larger discussion: While there, they lived on one of their salaries and saved the other. I think they left with $15k and returned with roughly double that. I know during there time over there, they took off around a year and half total to travel and relax. They didn't live in glamorous places and eat at fancy restaurants. Instead they lived more like the locals to some extent, but this mentality/lifestyle allowed them to stay longer and ultimately come back home in a better place than when they left.
My wife and I visited them in Bali for four months last year (I am a remote software engineer). By association we adopted their lifestyle and had a fantastic/extremely affordable extended traveling experience.
For the most part I was limited to classes intermediate and above when I started out so there's some basis for communication. Of course the best part of travel is learning the native language. After a few months you can probably start teaching beginners, especially once you get a feel for the kinds of questions students ask. People usually have the same confusion points.
Some "immersive" methods such as the Callan method explicitly do not want you to use the native language at all, even if you know it.
Several years ago I spent nine months doing it. I wouldn't try to see the world in a year, unless you just want the highlights. Pick a continent.
I started in Antigua, Guatemala learning Spanish for a couple of months
I ended in Buenos Aires.
You are talking pesos, right? I've been doing this for 2 years now and the most expensive places in South America where French Guyana (about USD 2k/mo), Guyana and Uruguay (USD 1.5k/mo in each place) - both times in rented houses and with all food and transportation included. In all other countries you can stay in regular hotels without any discount for long term stays, eat out every day and still live on less than USD 1k/mo (I did this in Suriname, Colombia, Peru, Paraguay and Brazil).
The trick is simply not to use AirBnB or any other booking site except for the first one or two days in a new location and to buy flight tickets with cash at the airport. Having a clue about local economics also helps to evaluate offers and haggle them down from "clueless gringo" rate to "not so clueless gringo rate" (which is usually less than half of what one is asked for initially).
Just being curious, because the usual advice is to buy a couple of months in advance to find better deals.
But when one wants to fly next day in South America, in my experience the cheapest is to just buy at the airport, followed by online booking at the Spanish airline site, followed by the English site.
https://www.reddit.com/r/EDC/comments/2uhnhd/as_a_hobo_that_...
> Yes yes! This is what I dream of doing. How did you do it? I'll leave tomorrow.
What do you mean, how? Quit your job, pack a small backpack, and buy a ticket. I did it, twice. Was ready to come back after two months.
Anybody who wants to actually do this should read Vagabonding.
He travels the world, but without the trust fund!
Yes yes, this is sounds just like me!
"So I decided to quit and travel the world, bringing only my passport, a small backpack, ..."
Yes yes! This is what I dream of doing. How did you do it? I'll leave tomorrow.
"... and my enormous trust fund."
GO FUCK YOURSELF
Yes, I recognize that this is satire. But there are real people out there for whom this is their real life. That is who I am waving my finger at.