Traveling full-time as nomads is a completely different life than one of vacation. It’s a life style where not only do we live our life and do our daily chores, but we travel. All the time. It takes planning and logistics. It also takes a lot of understanding about how to live a mobile life. And, it can be emotional, too (read this post about the emotions of nomad life.)
Here are answers to the top frequently asked questions about our nomad life as full-time travelers.
What Is a Nomad?
We believe a true nomad is someone who sells all of her positions and travels the world full-time with everything she owns. While this defines us, there really is no right way to be a nomad. But there are thousands of things you need to do to get read. Read this post about timelines.
How Do You Decide Where to Go as a Full-Time Traveler?
After we left Denver and drove to Texas to domicile there., we hit the road for a 6-week road trip then sold the car in the New Jersey airport and flew to Ireland. Since then (May 2021), we’ve followed 72 degrees. Our sweet spot is a small to medium size town on the coast with hiking and a good airport nearby. We track weather trends and use repositioning cruises to get from continent to continent. You’ll often find us on a ship in April and October, changing locations to catch the sun.
Do You Have to Sell Your House for Nomad Life?
You do you. We sold our house. We wanted to be housefree and we knew we didn’t want to return to the house we had. After running the numbers of both keeping the house and renting or selling the house and investing, the numbers came out about the same. We decided that being landlords from beaches in Thailand didn’t make sense, so we sold.
Should You Get a Storage Unit?
We didn’t because we sold everything. We do have a safe deposit box in Texas near where we are domiciled.
Do You Need to Get Rid of All Your Stuff for Nomad Life?
We asked our grown children to come through the house and take whatever they wanted. They loaded up their cars with household goods, artwork, heirlooms, etc. But we still have an entire household of things which will go in an Estate Sale. The day after the Estate Sale, we’ll have a Free-for-All Open House where anyone can come and take anything that is left, for free. Whatever is left after the Free-for-All, we’ll put in the extra trash pickup. For more particular information about how to get rid of particular things, read this post about getting rid of your stuff when going nomadic.
Where Do You Live?
Wel “live” in Texas. Oe in other words, we will set up our domicile in Texas. Our home is whereever we are.
Why Are You Living in Texas?
As US Citizens, we still need to have a domicile address and a mailing address. The domicile address is where we claim as our residence; it’s where we have a drivers license, vote, and pay taxes. Our mailing address is where we receive our mail which could be different than our domicile (but it’s not.) Texas makes sense for us because the taxes are low, it’s a state that doesn’t require you to own/rent in order to have a drivers license, and it could be a place we’ll live in the future.
How Will You Get Your Mail in Nomad Life?
Most of our mail we have turned into email. But for those pieces of mail we need to receive, like new credit cards, checks, and the occasional odd piece we aren’t expecting, we’ll use a mail service. Our mail service happens to also be where we’ll domicile. Both are in Texas. Everyday we can look online to see what mail we received; we’ll direct the mail service to either shred, keep or send the mail.
Where Will You Stay Every Night?
Our goal is to stay at least a month at a time in the locations we pick. We follow 72 degrees, and we want to stay where we can housesit. We signed up for a website called Trusted Housesitters (use my code EATWALK25 for discount.) There, petowners/homeowners post that they are looking for someone to stay in their home to take care of their pets. There is no money exchanged. We love the arrangement because it’s mutually beneficial for all involved. Where we can’t get a housesit, we’ll stay in Airbnb/hotels. We don’t plan to stay in hostels.
How Will You Travel?
We slow travel, where we’ll pick cruises/bikes/busses over planes. We might hike from spot to spot, hiring a porter to move our carry ons if necessary. To get from continent to continent, we use repositioning cruises so we don’t have to take long flights.
What Is Your Budget?
We started with $4000 a month budget, allocating $2000 a month for housing. We hope in most cases, we won’t need to spend the $2000 for housing, and we can stay within a $2000/month spending limit for incidentals, transit, food, entertainment, etc. In our fifth year of travel (2026), our annual budget is $58,000.
How Will You Exercise?
Where possible, we buy monthly gym memberships. Otherwise, we take advantage of parks and outdoor workout equipment combined with Beach Body Workouts, youtube hacking, and our own expertise in putting together HITT workouts.
What about Health Insurance for Full-Time Travelers?
This is the million dollar question we get the most. It’s actually not that complicated. We buy either Travel Insurance with Medical (TIM) or a full Medical (FM) policy that covers the world but not the U.S. The TIM policies run about $200 a month for both of us and the FM policies run about $600 a month for both of us. We are still weighing the pros and cons of each and will update when we have settled on a policy. The rules change constantly on these policies. Here is what we’ve done for each year of travel in relation to our insurance. It’s changed every year.
What Will You Eat?
We continue our goal of eating a Whole Food Plant Based No Oil (WFPBNO) diet while traveling. We understand we may need to pop into vegan and vegetarian eating. Steve loves to try local delicacies like sea urchin (see this post about eating Cheap in China), and I won’t be able to pass up cream-filled French pastries. But we do our best and adjust along the way. Since we have kitchens in most of the places we stay, we go to the local markets and cook as much as we can. For more details about how to eat vegan/vegetarian while traveling, read this post.
Need More Info about Nomad Life?
We’re posting and posting about it here. What questions do you have? Join us on our youtube channel.
Chris Englert, the Walking Traveler, believes walking is the platform for life. Wanderlusting since the age of 5, she’s since traveled all 50 US states and 62 countries. Chris shares her love of walking while traveling via blogs, books, and presentations. A natural storyteller, she invites you along as she explores the world, one walk at a time.
Currently, Chris and her husband, Steve, travel the world, full-time as nomads, with just their two carry-ons. They’ve been traveling since May, 2021.