Long Term Travel: How To Keep Paying The Bills

collaborative post | While most of us travel for a week or two at a time, others travel for months or even years at a time. Giving yourself this time can allow you to explore multiple countries at once and fully explore each country so that you’re not missing out on anything. But, of course, it’s easier to do this when you’re young and you have no commitments.

Image Credit

A big obstacle for many people is household bills. If you’re renting somewhere or paying a mortgage, how do you continue to pay the bills as you travel while also affording to travel?

This is the reason long-term travel is most common among young people who still live with their parents – they don’t have to think about bills! However, just because you’ve got regular bills to pay doesn’t mean you can’t still live out your travel dreams.

Below are just a few ways in which some people take care of their bills while travelling long term.

Move out of your home

This is an extreme but effective solution. If you’re not going to be living in your home for a year or more, you may as well move out. This eliminates most household bills so that you can travel freely.

Many people who rent plan to do this when their tenancy is coming up for renewal. If you own a home, you may be less willing to give it up to travel, however it could be an effective way to fund long-term travel plans during retirement.

Take on a lodger

Many people choose to take on a temporary lodger who can live in their home and pay the bills while they are away. This could be a friend or family member or a complete stranger who you’ve vetted.

When taking on a lodger, make sure to give them a strict time frame so that they know exactly how long they’ll be able to rent out the place. If you’re renting, you’ll want to get permission from your landlord before you sublet (they may even be able to help you find and vet a temporary tenant).

Take advantage of storage

Of course, if you’re selling your home or moving a tenant in, what are you supposed to do with all your possessions? You won’t be able to take furniture and appliances away with you on your travels. At the same time, you can’t keep them at your home if you’re moving out or a tenant is moving in.

One popular option is to put possessions into self storage while travelling. You’ll have to pay fees for this self storage, but it will be a lot less than having to continue to pay bills on a house or apartment.

Take you time to shop around and compare self storage fees. It’s also important to consider the quality of self storage solutions – the best self storage units will be monitored by CCTV and will be well maintained to avoid any damage to the contents. 

Work as you travel

Many people work as they travel. This allows you to earn money as you travel to put towards travel expenses. Earn enough money, and you could also be able to continue to cover household bills back home. Of course, not everyone can find a job that pays enough to cover bills and travel expenses while also being possible to work remotely.

Digital nomad jobs like copywriting, graphic design, web design and virtual assistant work are your best options – but you’ll need to be taking on a lot of work or be lucky enough to take on high paying clients if you want to be able to comfortably fund your travels and cover bills back home.

If you want to spend a long time in a single location, then getting a local full-time job could also potentially be an option (some places like hotels even provide free accommodation). 

Travel on the cheap

The less money you spend on travel, the more money you have to continue putting towards bills, and the less money you’ll need to sustain yourself. There are many ways to save costs while travelling, but if you want to severely cut costs there are two expenses to focus on: accommodation and transport.

It’s possible to save a lot of money by staying in hostels, camping or looking into homestay accommodation. There are also volunteer work vacancies you can take up that come with free accommodation. As for transport, think carefully about when you book flights in order to save as much money as you can.

In many countries, there are cheap bus and train solutions that are longer but cheaper than taking flights. As for short distance travel, it may be possible to hitchhike in some places rather than paying for a taxi.