I don’t make money while I travel. So, how can I keep travelling for so long?

On 6 of August I have celebrated my sixth consecutive year of travelling. I have started my trip on the same day in 2014.

I am not rich (unluckily), I am not a digital nomad, I am not a travel blogger (I just use Instagram) and the money collected by a book I have published about my first four years travelling has been donated to the orphanage in Nepal.

So, let’s say I am a “normal one”, I don’t make money while I travel.

So, how can I keep travelling for so long? I hope my story can inspire some people or just give good ideas…

Five years ago, I decided to “quit everything” with the idea of taking a sabbatical year and go to Australia from Milano, without flying.

I had saved some cash which would have given me the possibility to travel for a year without worrying too much. My idea was to come back to Italy after the experience and start again my normal life.

It took me six months to cross Asia, from Milano to Jakarta… I flew to Australia then (cargo boat was too expensive), where I wanted to visit the country and find a job to collect the money I had spent during the six months trip in Asia.

I found three jobs in a week: warehouseman, mechanic, and career. These jobs were totally new for me, but I got them without thinking because I needed money.

I was working sixteen hours per day but in just a month I was able to get back all the money I had spent during my six months travelling in Asia and I also started to save some more.

In that moment I realized I could have kept travelling with the good salary I was getting and make my sabbatical year longer. I decided to keep working in Australia until the end of my WHV and once I completed it, I decided to go back to Italy once more without flying… but this time Just Hitchhiking, from Singapore to Milano passing through Sub Himalayan region, Central Asia and Middle east.

It took me eleven months to hitchhike from Singapore to Milano.

I arrived home after 859 days… with the clear idea about how cheap it was travelling adventurously and how easy it was to save money in some countries.

So I started looking for some contact to work in China, where I soon found a job as a PE teacher in a public primary school in Shenzhen.

I reached China by plane this time and I spent there a year, teaching in Bogang Primary School, in one of those districts where you are one of the few without Chinese eyes and all your classes are made by 50 kids who can just say: “Hello, how are you?”

I also found a job as English private teacher and model, just to save more money…with one goal… taking another year off for travelling.

This is exactly what happens later. After a year working in China, as I did in Australia, I was able to save enough money.

When the school was over, I decided to cross Asia once more, but this time following another route and with and other transportation: By Bicycle.

I started cycling from Tibetan Plateu and I keep in Central Asia, Caucasus and Balkans. It took me six months to cycle from Tibet to Italy.

Once I arrive home I still had some money left, so after few months resting I got this campervan and I started living on in, travelling around Europe, showing my pictures and offering Italian Espresso…

I have just one goal … I can’t make my life longer, but I can try to make it wider, fulfilling it by experiences, research and discover.

It’s obvious that this kind of life gives me big general life instability and unsure future but the journey itself, the one on the road, is teaching me more than anything else. It gives me the confidence that I’ll always manage, and It inspires me to be a better person.

If you read this post until the end… get your own conclusions, not about me and my life journey, but maybe about you and your dream to travel for a long time around the world.

This article is written by Claudio Piani. Follow Claudio Piani on Instagram.