Wanderlusting on a budget with The Professional Hobo
Ever wonder what it would be like to travel the world? Nora Dunn, from The Professional Hobo, has been globe-trotting for the past seven years, sharing her stories and financially sustainable insight on her must-read blog for wanderlusters. Meet Nora…
Where I’m based: As The Professional Hobo, I’ve been traveling full-time with no home base since 2007. Recently, however, I altered my travel style slightly by establishing a base of sorts on the Caribbean island of Grenada. Although it’s a home from which I continue to travel, it’s also different enough from everything I’m used to that I still feel like I’m traveling every time I leave the house.
How long I’ve been blogging: Since 2006.
Blog basics: The Professional Hobo catalogs the adventures of a girl (me!) with no fixed address. In almost seven years of full-time travel, I’ve found many ways to travel in a financially sustainable way, and I also help readers do the same with weekly Financial Travel Tips and annual disclosures of my travel costs and income earned with my freelance writing career. I also feature the “daily grind” of full-time travel with Week-In-The-Life submissions by fellow long-term/full-time travelers.
My guilty pleasure: Travel! And I indulge in it every day.
Last thing I bought: I bought a funky watch in Florida while visiting a friend, along with a headband I can wear to cover my funky reverse mohawk from a recent life-changing crash.
Favorite way to fall off the grid: I love to volunteer in trade for my accommodations, and many such positions are remote. I’ve lived in an off-grid environmentally sustainable yurt in Hawaii, helped run a spiritual retreat and conference center in New Zealand, sailed the Caribbean for a few months, chilled in the mountains of Switzerland and had a pet kangaroo (of sorts) in rural Australia – among other places and adventures!
What is the best financial travel tip you have? Eek! So many to choose from! I have over 75 … so far. Maybe it’s best to go back to the basics with my very first Financial Travel Tip: Everything in moderation.
Wildest adventure you’ve ever been on: Again, there are a lot to choose from. But the whirlwind week I had in New Zealand shooting a TV show and doing every stunt from the world’s highest to the world’s longest, deepest … you get the idea. There was a lot of adrenaline involved.
What is your worst packing faux paus? When my partner (at the time) and I started traveling, we carried way too much stuff — from rock climbing gear to various accessories and clothes that we thought would be useful – but which ended up being dead weight. And the weight of your bag is directly attributable to the amount of misery you feel on the road. Less is definitely more.
What is one thing someone interested in starting a traveling lifestyle could do right now? Start researching, develop some contacts, and, if you plan to sustain your travels with an online business, do the grunt work of building it up before you go. Simultaneously building a business and discovering the world of full-time travel is a drag – trust me. And start your research here….you’ll get lots of ideas with this free e-series on financially sustainable travel: How to Travel Full-Time in a Financially Sustainable Way.
What’s the best part about being a traveling hobo? Full-time travel is a dream come true — at least, for me it is. And the complete freedom to go anywhere and design my life as I choose – all for less than the cost of living in one place – is priceless.
