Around the world at 72 Degrees

We’ve been traveling the world as full-time nomads since May 2021 when we sold our house, our car and everything in them. We had one goal when we left–to stay in 72 degrees (or 22 degrees Celsius.) We also wanted to keep going in one general direction to eliminate double-back on locations, with the goal to see as much of the world that we could see. How have we done?

Let’s take a look at the 1300 day route.

Above is an animation of our global travel over the last 1300 days. It’s not an exact–this video is a simplified view of where we’ve been. I didn’t include all the stops, joining several places into one. For example, “London” was actually Kent, Dorset and Bristol, whilst Sydney included Sydney and the Blue Mountains. For an exact itinerary, keep reading.

Around the World Without Flying

In addition, we did not fly most of the time. Most of our travel is by walking, biking, busing, training, boating, and then as last option, flying. For example, we use repositioning cruises to get from continent to continent. We cruised from Los Angeles to Sydney, Sydney to Tokyo, Tokyo to Seattle, Fort Lauderdale to Southampton, Southampton to Saudi Arabia. Most of our flights were short-haul, local flights.

How Much Does It Cost to Fly Around the World?

We are full-time travelers, maintaining a budget that started at $48,000 during our first year in 2021, and it’s risen to $58,000 in our fourth year in 2024. This budget includes everything we spend money on, including all transit, travel, accommodations, food, clothing, insurance, incidentals, and cell phone. We have done several videos about our annual budget, breaking down each category and whether we stayed within our budget. You can watch the videos here.

Finding 72 Degrees Around the World

In the 1300 days that we have traveled, we’ve averaged 72 degrees daily. Of course the temperatures range from a low of 50 to a high of 95, but mostly we’ve stayed in that 72 degree sweet spot. We try to stay in most locations for a month, although when we are in “vacation” mode, we’ll move quickly, breezing through locations a week at a time. Often, we’re in the shoulder season of tourism, when the overall prices for things are lower.

Using Cruising to Get Around the World

Our repositioning cruises are generally in April and October, but they can vary by a month. Regardless of where we are geographically, we are always in a season’s transition from Winter to Spring or Summer to Fall. The temperatures while cruising generally fall around that luscious 72 degrees, but probably not for the length of the cruise, as we’re often changing hemispheres. Cruises tend to be about 20-30 days long and bridge the weather of two seasons.

World Travel Itinerary for 72 Degrees

While not perfect, we certainly have tried our hardest to stay in our sweet spot of 72 degrees while traveling the world. We’ve missed a few places where it wasn’t warm enough (like Naples in April) and other places where it was too warm like Kuala Lumpur in January, but the average temperature over our 1300 days comes in right at 72 degrees. I think we’re right on target.

Feel free to ask me for more details about any month, as these screen grabs don’t quite tell the whole picture.

Happy traveling, Chris