You Don't Have to Be Wealthy to Travel
Some people think you have to have lots of money to travel. That's just not true!
As far back as I can remember, I’ve always had a sense of adventure. Whether it was exploring the old creek behind our house or gazing out the car window as we drove in the country, my spirit has always longed to explore the unknown.
I immersed myself in travel and adventure publications, envisioning one day becoming a vagabond, making my way around the world, discovering new cultures and experiences that would provide a lifetime of epic stories.
But I never believed it could really happen.
Everything I read about traveling painted an obvious picture. Unless you were on a family road trip or summer vacation, you had to be rich or a hippy to find your adventure. It just wasn’t possible for the middle-class American.
So I could only dream and hope for one day.
A renewed awakening.
Ten years ago, my passion for adventure and seeing the world was reawakened with a fervency I hadn’t felt since childhood. I had a thirst for travel that could not be quenched. I must live a life on the road.
It didn’t matter how it happened; I just knew it had to happen.
Like pouring gasoline on a flame, my dream was ignited, and there was no stopping the raging fire burning inside me.
The only things keeping me from achieving it all were convincing my wife to sell everything we owned to travel, and having the money to actually do it.
Making the dream a reality.
There was no need to hone my sales pitch for a life of adventure because Donetta was entirely on board for becoming a houseless wife in a pickup truck. Now all we had to do was figure out a plan.
We owned a house but were buried in debt. We were self-employed and without any savings. We lived paycheck to paycheck like many other Americans. So retirement felt like nothing more than a fantasy, and our running joke was, “We’ll be hustling until we fall over dead.” How the dream could ever come to pass was beyond us, but we did find a solution.
First, we had to eliminate our debt.
This was really hard because we had credit card debt and owed the IRS a hefty sum for accidentally filing our business taxes incorrectly. It was strangling us to death. But we fought our way out of it and put it all behind us.
Second, we decided to sell our home.
We wanted to sell our house for years, but the circumstances were never right–until 2020, when it was a seller’s market! Within a day of listing our property, we received a dozen offers. We were finally free from home ownership.
Third, we started selling everything else.
The road life affords you no space to take everything with you. No matter how you travel, you will be forced to become a minimalist. So we sold or gave away almost all our stuff, keeping and storing only the most essential things in our lives.
There’s a valuable lesson in all of this.
Choosing to follow your dream will require hard work and difficult decisions. There’s no way around it. And while it feels insurmountable to overcome all the things you must do to travel, once you have a plan, it’s not as difficult as you think.
Travel doesn’t require financial wealth.
It’s good to have some savings in the bank to rely on before you head out on the adventure, but being wealthy is not a prerequisite for traveling. You might have to adjust your expectations based on your budget, but you never have to give up the dream because of money. Where there’s a will, there’s a way!
When we meet other digital nomads on the road, most often they’re ordinary people like us who don’t have an endless income stream. They live below their means, work from the road, make their own food, stretch their dollars, and often live like modern-day hippies. And rather than waste their money on stuff, they invest it in experiences.
It’s not always a glamorous lifestyle, but it definitely works.
Of course, there are the retired folks with discretionary income who own fancy trailers and can afford to enjoy steak and craft beers every night, but don’t let that discourage you from chasing your dream because traveling full-time does not require that level of standard to make it a reality.
Don’t believe me?
Right now, we earn about the average American salary from our business ventures, and we have a little savings in the bank. Our only debt is our camper van, and we have the typical monthly expenses, including vehicle insurance, food, gas, phones, and WiFi. We have no retirement funds, no investments, and no backup plan. There are times we can’t do everything we want, or when we have to sit still to save money, but we’re living our dream and seeing the world.
So if we can do it, so can you!
For ordinary, everyday people.
I recently watched a YouTube video by an amazing van-life couple I admire. They’ve been on the road for a while now and have amassed over four million subscribers by publishing their content online. They get invited to exotic places to do review videos and have monetized their brand with excellence. I think they’re doing quite well.
Anyway, a follower’s comment inspired me to write this post.
So what about the ordinary, every day people?
This sentiment was echoed many times in the comments, and it reminded me of how I felt years ago, when I believed adventure travel and exploring the world were only for other people.
Most people believe they will never enjoy the things this couple has done without lots of money, luck, and an elite influencer status. While some of this might be true — and to be fair, it took them years to reach this level — you don’t have to be like them to experience your own epic adventure.
It was at that moment that it occurred to me that most travel publications focus on the affluent crowd. They market to people with the means to enjoy fantastic destinations or experiences. This unattainable side of adventure is utterly meaningless, since most Americans cannot afford it. It’s depressing. And I hate it.
Road Life Adventure is about doing the attainable.
When we create content, we want it to feel real and tangible to most people. We want you to feel like living your dream IS possible, and that with some hard work and outside-the-box thinking, you’ll also be on the journey of a lifetime.
If your goal is to hit the open road in 2026 and beyond, we want to encourage you to go for it—and we want to offer ideas and advice to make it a reality—because the dream you have for traveling is within reach!
We look forward to sharing more with you in the days ahead. If you’re in the planning stages for next year, let us know. We’ll do what we can to help.
I enjoyed your comments and your thinking. For us... well who knows how our retirement will develop.
Thanks for including the picture of Twin Sister; I was looking up there this morning. It's fun to look way over to the right and see where our condo sits!
Like you, I have the traveling bug. I especially love doing road trips. I am getting ready to do a several-month-long trip starting in April. The next few years, I plan on traveling the US, then traveling overseas as a part-time digital nomad just to see how I like it. Thailand, Switzerland, and Poland are on top of my list to visit. Good luck on your adventures :).