- Hi, I'm Jake.
I'm an Australian currently living in France.
And for the last two years
I've been traveling the world full time.
I'm one of those people who seemingly continues
to upload photos to their Instagram in another country
under another waterfall and eating breakfast
off a floating tray, because travel goals, right?
However, as vapid, wanderlusty or even inspirational
as some of the photos or content,
full-time travel is by no means a vacation,
it's a full-time job.
And with any job, they have their flaws.
In a recent poll on my Instagram, 88% of viewers said
if given the opportunity, they would travel full-time.
So in this video, I wanted to share my honest opinion
about my experience with full-time travel
and answer to some of those many questions
you asked about the gig.
(upbeat music)
Whassup?
So I guess I first wanted to demystify
what full-time travel means to me, I travel for work.
Full-time travel for me comprises of around four
to five international trips per year.
A trip comprises of anywhere between a seven
to 10-day project or anywhere up to two months.
There's an element of pre-production
which goes into my definition of full-time travel.
There is a project at hand
and then it will be producing,
as in filming and taking photos.
Often that's around about a week,
seven days of just shooting, shooting, shooting.
Then we return to a fixed abode.
Sometimes that has been in the same country
that we have traveled.
Booking an Airbnb for an extended period of time,
often that can be like four weeks depending
on the price of the country or the destination,
and post-producing the assets, working.
It is a all sort of linked together.
So my definition of full-time travel is that
of the job description of a content creator.
But I mean, off the top of my head, there are so many jobs
that you can do where you can work for travel.
So you can be a deck hand.
You can work on a ship,
you can work entertainment on a cruise ship.
You can work as a flight attendant.
You can work as an au pair, as an nanny.
You can work as a tour guide for a travel company.
There are so many jobs
on this planet where you can travel for work
if that is what you want to do,
if you want to make full-time travel your job.
So I will also mention that the reality
of the role is that it is work, it is a job.
And with every job,
there are positive things and there are negative things.
Now also don't get me wrong,
I also love to travel for leisure.
However, I think when I travel for leisure,
the distinction between leisure and work is blurred.
Like last year we went on a trip to Greece,
which was for leisure.
However, there were projects that I was also working on,
content projects that I was working on
which were blending into that trip.
So that's, I guess where some people may think
like you're always on vacation.
Let's jump in and have a look at some of these questions.
First question is, "How do you manage
"to have a structured day
"when you're on the go all the time?"
One of the biggest things in terms of this job is mindset
and understanding that structure can come
from you having a simple to-do list,
five to seven things on a note in your phone
that you tick off each day.
Structure just comes down to your own time management.
What I will say is there is very little time
which is just hanging out
because we have a deadline from a client that is asking
for a video to be produced by a certain time.
And if those deadlines aren't driven by clients,
then they're driven by ourselves.
And I think that's super important,
if you're not setting yourself deadlines
with say videos to be produced
and published on your own accounts
and photos to be edited and having a planner
with your content, nothing would get done.
"What, if anything, do you miss most
"about a more structured or traditional lifestyle?"
I think it's,
I miss being able to study.
I miss being able to spend time on evolving my education.
I miss being able to book classes to learn things.
I miss being able to go to like yoga classes.
That's, I miss that.
This lifestyle is super hard to find balance
in routine in those things.
I don't like this consistent on-off, yoyo lifestyle.
It's had a really amazing time and place in my life
and obviously being able to be location independent,
to work from anywhere to do these things as a job,
I'm fortunate for it.
But you're right, there is so much
that I enjoy about structure.
There is so much that I enjoy about,
there's little simple things.
There's so much that I enjoy
about choosing the foods that I want to eat.
Like sometimes when you're on the road
you can't find the right foods.
It super hard also to be vegetarian
like in certain parts of the world.
The other thing I guess I will say in this space is
what I also miss most is community.
Yes, there is online communities
but I miss the physical real world friends.
I miss people that often I don't get time with
because we are on the road.
I miss building those relationships in communities
and having a beer at your local pub.
I miss that for sure.
That's definitely something that you honestly have
to walk away from in doing this role.
"Have you ever felt the need of having your own home,
"like tired of being in hotels?"
Definitely, yes, yes, for sure.
I think with any job there is burnout.
I'd say consistently each year,
the more that we push to develop and create better work
and the more energy that we put into
and pour into evolving our skills
and getting to locations to film things,
to have shots that we're so proud of,
definitely makes you reach a point where you're exhausted.
You're burnt out and you don't want to be on the road.
You don't have creative energy, all of those things.
Yeah, so yes, I dream of structure.
I dream of owning my own home.
I dream of all of those things.
However, at the moment,
they're the things that I've chosen
to sacrifice to do these things.
This is a really good question.
It's, "How did you start out pursuing this dream?"
I'm 33, I am 33, I'm in my almost mid 30s.
I'm not 21, I'm not 22.
I have experience.
I have failed at a lot of things
but I've also spent time studying.
I have an education, that's a huge privilege
and that's something that through YouTube,
I've been able to also find the skills
that I needed to make travel films a job.
But with travel filmmaking, you can't just be talented
and you can't just have the skills
as a director of photography or even a filmmaker.
You also need to have those entrepreneurial skills
where you're pricing.
I guess the skills that an agent would in terms
of saying, how much is this worth for a client?
How much is the client's budget?
You have to have those skills as well.
So that doesn't come immediately.
That comes from small projects.
That comes from the beginning of the journey
where I can tell you a story
where I first did a travel project for a company
that no longer exists called Student Flights.
And in that particular instance,
we were producing four videos,
four 60-second videos across the United States.
And they were offering us a $4,000 budget.
Now that included flights and accommodation.
It did not include activities, transport,
or per diems, and it was a 10-day trip.
So what we didn't factor in was yes, 4,000 AUD covers,
with your flights and accommodation covered,
covers your time to produce those videos.
It doesn't cover all the other parts
of what goes into travel.
Just getting around, getting good content,
which requires you doing activities, paying for your meals.
So I think in that instance,
that very first trip was like a break-even.
I would even say that we spent money
in producing those assets for that client.
That's where you start, you start by doing those jobs
where you really don't make money.
That's how I started, by doing jobs
where I wasn't making money but I was learning
and I was happy to travel and to do the job
to get the experience.
So many questions are around
how do you afford full-time travel?
I wanna be really honest in answering this
in saying you afford it through your skills,
as a professional with skills and knowledge in pricing.
Either you have an agent
or the way that I'm doing it is we price our work
at what it's worth.
We don't just travel for the sake of traveling.
We don't just take any job that comes our way.
We do jobs that we want to do
because we're remunerated for our skillset.
And like any job, it's exhausting.
It is exhausting and you're the only one held accountable.
So you need motivation, you need persistence.
You need to be backing yourself when nobody is.
You need to be creating work
when no one's offering you paid jobs,
knowing that that work will evolve
and eventuate into hopefully a paid job.
If I've been able to answer the question you've had
about full time travel, I'd love
If you could punch that thumbs up button.
If you're new around here, be sure to check out some
of my other videos and yeah, let's keep going.
Let me know what other videos you'd love.
Drop me a comment below.
Have I ever been broke traveling?
Yes, very much so.
I remember in 2018, I was trying to do this.
I still had a lease.
So I was still paying I think $300 a week, living in Sydney,
but also trying to fund and be open to these opportunities.
And it was in a period where my skillset had evolved
and also fortunately like audience did play into this.
Audience had evolved, so I had a few emails
where people would offer me trips.
But I still had a lot of overheads
and when you have a lot of overheads,
you need to be making money frequently.
In this instance, I wasn't able to balance it.
I was constantly living in debt.
I had a four, $5,000 credit card debt.
When I ever had made money.
It was like paying off the credit card
but that's the worst possible situation that you can be in.
And unfortunately in the beginning, a lot of clients
in the social media world will offer you contra-based trips
where they won't remunerate you for the work
but they will offer you the experience.
And it's a catch-22 because you need those experiences
to build your portfolio, to build your brand,
to then be able to put a price tag on your work.
And be sensible about that kind of stuff.
Like, yes, you can go all in and have the mentality
that like, "This is it."
You have some people who are like, "I'm all in."
But like, you don't have to be like that
is what I'm trying to say.
"How much money is needed to fund a full year of travel?"
It's a question I can't answer
'cause I have never been on the road for an entire year.
I would, if you are interested in answering that question,
I would reach out to the guys at Flying The Nest
because when they started their YouTube channel,
they saved up X amount of money and they made vlogs
and traveled for an entire 12-month period.
So that would be my go-to to ask that question.
"How do you see your life changing if you and Hannah
(softly chuckles) "would have kids?"
Well, I don't know who Hannah is.
However, I wouldn't be traveling as much for sure.
Yeah, I've never had any aspiration to be
like a family vlogs traveling channel.
"How do you make enough money to continue traveling?"
Great question.
The simple answer is for us, travel is work
which means travel entails a production budget.
It also entails a publishing fee.
And so every dollar that is spent
on a trip is either remunerated,
covered by a client, or you have factored in the expenses,
the amount of money that is gonna cost you
to produce that thing as well as
what your unique fee is for producing that fee.
I's like any job, it's like if someone was
to buy you flowers, or if you were to buy
or sell a t-shirt, let's say you have a specific cost,
the retail cost of the t-shirt and the wholesale cost,
how much you bought the t-shirt for,
the exact same thing happens with travel.
"What kinds of places do you stay at night?"
We often stay at cheap places.
The cheaper the places, I mean,
depends on your production budget.
If your client is giving you a lot of money
or if it's often, if it's say like
with a tourism board or something
where they've booked all the accommodation,
those places can be super awesome.
And sometimes that's because they have relationships
with certain hotel chains.
Other times, if we're booking it, if we're solely doing it,
we just are looking at the cost of things
and how much we can afford in our production budget.
"How do you balance work and fun in travels?"
Great question.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely 100% love
what I get to do for work.
I love producing travel films.
I love producing content.
So that in itself is a blessing.
All the activities that you see in travel films are fun.
But I think you're right, like, where is the balance?
The balance often comes from travel,
being hyper focused, hyper intense,
lots of activities, full days, exhausting,
then the balance is like having down days
where we're not doing a lot.
We're sitting just filming a YouTube video, hanging out,
spending time with family, cooking, reading.
It's just like anyone that's finding balance in work,
finding balance in their life,
finding balance in routine.
Like having an eight to 10-hour night's sleep.
I adore that, I adore sleeping.
This is a good question.
Like, "What type of income do you have?"
Now, I will answer this by saying full-time travel
first I think begins with mindset.
It doesn't begin with money.
Your mindset has to be of the notion,
of the intention that that's what you would do
on the smallest budget.
But yeah, I think the mindset was in place before the job.
Like I was wanting to be location independent.
I was wanting to have this.
I had sold my car, I was reducing my overheads.
I was living at a friend's parents' place
so I didn't have rent so I could
take those opportunities when they came.
And I think that's the first step,
it's preparing yourself.
You want to travel full time,
if you really want to, you have to be open to it.
And when you're open, opportunities come.
I really think you also need dedication,
persistence, and focus.
Focus more so than ever before.
Focus to understand what is a distraction, what isn't.
Focus to know, "Okay, this is how much energy
"I need to give to this project
"before moving on to the next one."
Focus to be deleting social media apps.
Focus to be understanding the balance of,
"Okay, I've been doing this too much
"that I need to step away and do something else."
To summarize my thoughts on full-time travel,
if it is something that you are working towards,
keep going and keep building those skills.
And it may just be the right team or the right person
or the right content format that allows it to happen,
but keep going at it, and yeah,
if you have other questions, just ask them.
Maybe I might be able to help you in that space.
If you have enjoyed this video, thumbs it up.
Thanks for sharing this
and I'll see you guys in the next upload.
Yeah, peace!
(upbeat music)
♪ Let's go ♪